r/Metallica Puppet of Masters 3d ago

Ride the Lightning Flemming Rasmussen. The Tone God behind Metallicas RTL, MOP and AJFA.

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u/Seiryth 3d ago

Is it weird that I don't think the albums he produced sound anywhere near as good as Bob Rock's? The songs are better, but that's also the band at the time.

Bob's stuff brought the bass front and center and gave all the instruments space to breathe and be huge.

The bass is buried in the mix, and even Call of Ktulu's bass solo is lost. Master of Puppets barely features any truly audible bass other than during Orion, leper Messiah and damage inc, and that's only because the bass being front and centre is part of the riff.

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u/DJdcsniper 3d ago

I agree, but the guitars sound better to me on the first 4 albums, especially Puppets. I would be interested in solely how he gets the guitar tone, but besides that I would never mix the way he does.

5

u/jkkkjkhk 3d ago

Well to be fair, Flemming didn’t mix these either. He was the producer and engineer, but the mixes were sent off for mixing by someone else.