RIP Martin Birch

Reverend

Produced or engineered many the greatest records of all time. Farewell to the  headmaster

Jetfire

Those first load of maiden albums, Amazing! Sad indeed

earwighoney

It might not be acceptable to say but I love Heaven & Hell, Mob Rules - no Ozzy but those albums like with the first 2 Maiden albums have a fantastic sound to them, there's a great energy to them in the guitar & drum sounds that drives the music and make them a lot of fun to listen to and I'd say those 4 albums were some of the ones I listened to more in the last 12 months than most others.

Even though I'm not that familiar with a lot of his back catalogue it's clear the guy was a genius and left a huge thumbprint on metal, RIP.

Woodenhead

Sad news, he worked on some great Iron Maiden records, didn't realise he retired after Fear of the Dark.

scrumhalf

One of the people responsible for making the great music on Deep Purple's "Machine Head" sound so brilliant.

Look at the list of bands whose albums he engineered or produced:
Fleetwood Mac (the great version)
Deep Purple
Rainbow 
Whitesnake
Wishbone Ash
Black Sabbath 
Iron Maiden
Jeff Beck
Groundhogs
Faces
Gary Moore 
Michael Schenker Group

There are many on this forum whose record collections would be significantly smaller without his work.

RIP. 

Philly_Q

This is sad news indeed.  He produced a very high proportion of the albums I was listening to from the late '70s and through the '80s.

Looking at the selected discography on his Wikipedia page, I've got nearly everything they list except the Fleetwood Mac and "other artists" stuff.

He's probably not as well known or respected as he should be.

Redlester

earwighoney said:

It might not be acceptable to say but I love Heaven & Hell, Mob Rules - no Ozzy but those albums like with the first 2 Maiden albums have a fantastic sound to them, there's a great energy to them in the guitar & drum sounds that drives the music and make them a lot of fun to listen to and I'd say those 4 albums were some of the ones I listened to more in the last 12 months than most others.

Even though I'm not that familiar with a lot of his back catalogue it's clear the guy was a genius and left a huge thumbprint on metal, RIP.

Mate, it'a MORE than acceptable to say that about H/H and M/R. Brilliant albums which had quite a different feel to the Ozzy era stuff, thanks in large part to the Martin Birch production. 

Sad day. Great producer. 

Philly_Q

earwighoney said:

It might not be acceptable to say but I love Heaven & Hell, Mob Rules

Indeed, I could be wrong but I think most Black Sabbath fans would hold those two albums up with the best of the Ozzy material.

Now if you'd said Dehumanizer, I'd disagree - but Martin Birch had nothing to do with that one!

jdgm

R.I.P. to the man from De Lane Lea.

His early productions in that tiny studio had a particular sound which I learned to recognise; very distinct. Peter Green's "End Of The Game", Beck's "Beckola" are 2 examples.

Many years later one of my guitar pupils asked me to work out songs from Iron Maiden's "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son" and I was amazed to see Martin Birch produced it. 

I don't think the guy EVER made a bad-sounding record.

prowla

Now he was a great man!

beed84

Sad news indeed. Given his resume, though, I imagine he had a great life working with all of those bands. RIP.

rocktron

Sad Day!!!

I recognised the name from this article straight away, and thought, oh no!! :-

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8612969/Martin-Birch-Tributes-paid-genius-music-producer-worked-Iron-Maiden-Black-Sabbath.html

Do read the comments about the great man. 

RIP.