How to achieve this band's sound?

killahpl

New member
Hi Everyone,

I hope this is the right place to ask this question.

I'm a keyboard/piano player and after a couple of years of playing covers I'm at a point where I'd like to start making my own stuff.

I'd like to achieve the same kind of sound as the band Dreamtale in the song "Call of the Wild" (minus the vocals - the part I'm mainly interested in starts at ~0:35; I find that I can reproduce the sound of the intro quite easily ). I'm afraid I cannot link to it, but it's easy to find on YouTube.

I can pin down the chords in each part of the song easily. There's probably two distorted guitars (L-R) in there. I can hear the double kick and the sharp snare, the hi hats etc. The tempo is probably around 150-160.

Still, I throw it all into my DAW and the result sounds flat; while I think the song in the YouTube clips has amazing energy and just flows, in my reproduction, it just seems like all the elements are competing against one another.

Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
 
Can we hear yours so we can compare - I tried to find it and apart from the orchestra - what am I listening for?

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply.

Just to be perfectly clear that we're listening to the same version of the song: the one I'm referring to can be found on YT, for example, under the name: Dreamtale - Call of the Wild (song only).

The part I'm specifically referring to is 0:36-1:00. It just has a certain punch to it that I cannot reproduce. As far as I can tell, the snare seems to be at the front of the mix, with the distorted guitars right behind it and the double kick - behind the guitars. There's also an accompanying piano bit in the second half of this part. I just cannot achieve that "whoomph" effect and I'm almost certain that this is due to my relatively lack of mixing knowledge.

Also, I would love to post what I've got so far, but a board error message tells me I can't even link the YT video until I've posted enough times. Maybe there's a way to go around this (without breaking any forum rules, of course)?

Again, thank you very much for offering to help out.
 
YouTube
This is the clip - I think.

If you stick your version up somewhere - soundcloud? we can compare. Realistically though the critical aspects are how you are capturing the sounds - so if you have a real kit, good mic technique and a decent room - the drums should be captured ok. If your's is anything other than a real kit, then how good is it? Once you have your drums then you have eq and then processing to consider - I've been recording for a VERY long time and still struggle with drums. There is a distinct ear required, and while I'm competent with Jazz and jazz-ish styles, I am talentless with metal drumming! I can hear the differences, know the processes - but naff at producing it!
 
This is the clip - I think.

If you stick your version up somewhere - soundcloud? we can compare. Realistically though the critical aspects are how you are capturing the sounds - so if you have a real kit, good mic technique and a decent room - the drums should be captured ok. If your's is anything other than a real kit, then how good is it? Once you have your drums then you have eq and then processing to consider - I've been recording for a VERY long time and still struggle with drums. There is a distinct ear required, and while I'm competent with Jazz and jazz-ish styles, I am talentless with metal drumming! I can hear the differences, know the processes - but naff at producing it!

Hi Rob,

thanks again for taking the time to reply.

That is indeed the clip I was referring to.

I have created a Soundcloud account, but again, the board does not let me post anything outside of text, so perhaps you could search Soundcloud for my username - killahpl_1985 (or: user-352146688) and locate the only song I've got there ("Call Of The Wild (Dreamtale Cover) Sample")

It's just a sample of the intro, the part I was referring to earlier as well as the vocal part following that (minus the actual vocals, of course).

Also, I appreciate what you are saying in regards to how difficult it is to achieve professional music quality without capturing actual live instruments. Unfortunately, I only have one actual instrument, but I'm afraid it is simply not enough. I have been told many times that metal (as opposed to, say, hip-hop) is a "man-made" genre, and I'm fully aware that I probably won't be able to achieve the 100% exact same result as can be found in the clip you posted, but I think it would simply be a poor excuse for me to assume that I can't even get close to that specific sound - particularly considering the possibilities offered by some of the DAWs out there (I use FL Studio). Also, I'm quite happy with how I reproduced the intro, so I find difficult to accept that it's impossible for me to get the same level of satisfaction with the other parts of the song (though, in all honestly, the intro is pretty straightforward composition-wise in comparison with the rest of the song).

It is my belief that - moreso than the quality of the instruments - the problem lies with one (or all ;) of the following: compression, EQ, perhaps the tempo, the pitch, or perhaps I'm missing some instrument that's being played in that song. I'd like to make sure that I've got these handled before I decide that the project isn't worth pursuing.

Thanks again.
 
I'll have a search - but with one instrument, I suspect, before I listen that this may well be the problem - I've now got so many sound sources that are good for some things but not all. I don't have one single instrument that is good at everything - my drums come from one sources, orchestral sounds from another, guitars from another and so on. At the moment, I can get strings from 3 in computer sources, and often use all three. I'll report back.

FOUND IT

Ok - here goes. You have a number of issues. The biggest one is the sound source is simply horrible. It's probably OK for some things but I don't think it works well for this music. What else? It's very dry of course, and those string sounds are very synthesised in an unflattering way. The drums are very thin and weedy sounding - just not rock drums, let alone metal.

Musically, you are also playing close chords in the left hand - they blend badly and produce that full low end that just lacks definition. If, for example, you play a C chord then just play the C and maybe the G in the left hand, and put the others in higher up. If you draw a graph starting with bass to the left and treble to the right - there is no space where there is no instrument - it's everything everywhere, all the time. You need to create 'holes' for the other instruments to slot into. As the left hand space is full, the bass could do anything and you can't hear it. Once the main thing kicks in it gets very out of time - there are so many late and early notes that musically it's just got no lock to it. Loose in the extreme really. Before you even touch a compressor you need to sort out the parts, so that when solo'd they stand up. So much going on it's a swampy mess.

I think you may be going too fast, trying to learn the art of recording too quickly with such a complex song. Lots of rules to learn so if you break them, you break them properly. What are you using for the sound? It may simply be inappropriate for this genre of music.

At the start of the second section the snare is on beat 2, but it then becomes displaced as if the melody riff you are playing had an extra note in the bar - quite disturbing. probably worth experimenting with quantisation too - to tighten it up, but I got the feeling you recorded in real time and just couldn't keep up? I think maybe you should tell us what exactly you have and how you are recording this so we can suggest some more tips.
 
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I'll have a search - but with one instrument, I suspect, before I listen that this may well be the problem - I've now got so many sound sources that are good for some things but not all. I don't have one single instrument that is good at everything - my drums come from one sources, orchestral sounds from another, guitars from another and so on. At the moment, I can get strings from 3 in computer sources, and often use all three. I'll report back.

I think I may have misled you a bit there, sorry - I didn't use my "real" instrument to record that sample - that's just a midi keyboard along with a bunch of sound libraries from my DAW. I'm sure that's part of the problem, but I think there have got to be more things contributing to the discepancy in quality between the original song and my cover.
 
It's simply poor sounds from the sound libraries and probably just wrong ones for some sounds. The original had strings, your one has synth strings that sound more like something from the 80s. You can't polish a turd - you cannot take poor sounds and make them sound good - plus the string thing in yours just doesn't work. The bass is almost missing and the drums sound like a beat box. You MUST start with decent quality sounds. Stick a few clips of individual tracks onto Soundcloud so we can hear the source material. I really do want to let you know that compression and effects will not improve this.
 
It's simply poor sounds from the sound libraries and probably just wrong ones for some sounds. The original had strings, your one has synth strings that sound more like something from the 80s. You can't polish a turd - you cannot take poor sounds and make them sound good - plus the string thing in yours just doesn't work. The bass is almost missing and the drums sound like a beat box. You MUST start with decent quality sounds. Stick a few clips of individual tracks onto Soundcloud so we can hear the source material. I really do want to let you know that compression and effects will not improve this.

Thank you for the honest, detailed feedback.

I'll try to address each of your points:

1. "The biggest one is the sound source is simply horrible." - Right, I've used a bunch of samples from my DAW. There's literally hundreds if not thousand of samples of a variety of instruments. Some of these came with the DAW itself, while others were purchased by me. It's highly likely that it's gonna take a massive amount of time to find those which sound ok - which I have no problem with if that's the thing you say we should look at first. I'll address this point later on as well.

2. "The drums are very thin and weedy sounding - just not rock drums, let alone metal." I've used my midi keyboard and my DAW (FL Studio) to record the whole thing. The drum samples came from a plugin called FPC. I've uploaded a sample of just the drum track (double kick + snare + hat) for the 0:35-1:00 part of the original song to my Soundcloud account ("FPC Drum Sample Kick Snare Hat"). I've also uploaded a sample from a paid-for drum kit plugin called MT Power Drum kit ("MT Power Drum Kit Sample") that's meant for heavier music. This is just me playing around with the kit - please excuse my losing the rhythm, the sample is just meant for you to offer your opinion as to whether the sound is better (I think it is).

3. "Musically, you are also playing close chords in the left hand - they blend badly and produce that full low end that just lacks definition. If, for example, you play a C chord then just play the C and maybe the G in the left hand, and put the others in higher up." I get what you're saying about the close chords - I'm just not sure what you mean when you say "left hand"? There is no left hand. What would be the left hand part (if I were playing this song on my keyboard) is supplied by the bass and the drums.

4. "If you draw a graph starting with bass to the left and treble to the right - there is no space where there is no instrument - it's everything everywhere, all the time. You need to create 'holes' for the other instruments to slot into. As the left hand space is full, the bass could do anything and you can't hear it." Right. This is what mixing is about, right? Fitting the various elements into their own "slots".

5. "I think you may be going too fast, trying to learn the art of recording too quickly with such a complex song." There's gotta be somewhere I can start, though, right?

6. "What are you using for the sound? It may simply be inappropriate for this genre of music." As already mentioned - FL Studio. I've already talked about the drum parts. As for the guitar, I've used a plugin called Sytrus (with a guitar preset called "Distorto"). I've uploaded a sample of just the guitar part to my Soundcloud ("Distorted Guitar Sytrus Plus Keys"). I've also uploaded a sample
of the thing, though recorded by means of a guitar wave sample pack which I bought ("Guitar Sample Amped"). I ran this through an AMP plugin.

7. "At the start of the second section the snare is on beat 2, but it then becomes displaced as if the melody riff you are playing had an extra note in the bar - quite disturbing. probably worth experimenting with quantisation too - to tighten it up, but I got the feeling you recorded in real time and just couldn't keep up?" I'm sorry, I'm not sure if this is what you're referring to, but the drum beat for the 00:35-1:00 part is different than the one for the vocal part ("Time, only time").

For the former it's: double kick - (1) (e) (+) (a) (2) (e) (+) (a) (3) (e) (+) (a) (4) (e) (+) (a); snare: (1) e + a (2) e + a (3) e + a (4) e + a ; hat: (1) e (+) a (2) e (+) a (3) e (+) a (4) e (+) a.

For the latter, it interchanges between("speeds up" and "slows down"): double kick - (1) e + a (2) e + a (3) e + a (4) e + (a); snare: 1 e (+) a 2 e (+) a 3 e (+) a 4 e (+) a; hat: (1) e + a (2) e + a (3) e + a (4) e + a ; and: double kick - (1) (e) (+) (a) (2) (e) (+) (a) (3) (e) (+) (a) (4) (e) (+) (a); snare: 1 e (+) a 2 e (+) a 3 e (+) a 4 e (+) a; hat: (1) e + a (2) e + a (3) e + a (4) e + a

8. "It's simply poor sounds from the sound libraries and probably just wrong ones for some sounds. The original had strings, your one has synth strings that sound more like something from the 80s" You're referring to the intro part, right?
 
For anyone else interested, here's the soundcloud link: killahpl_1985 | Killahpl 1985 | Free Listening on SoundCloud

'Left hand' - Rob means your 'strings'/other stuff are low on the scale (lower, bassy notes)
Your sample sounds:
MT Power Drum Kit Sample - sounds are ok (for how youare doing them, but they're nto metal), but your beats/hits are off-time.
Guitar Sample Amped - does not sound like a guitar and has a really bad reverb on it
FPC Drum Sample Kick Snare Hat - 'beatbox' sound, snare is not very metal, and kick is like a 'suitcase' drum
Distorted Guitar Sytrus Plus Keys - does not sound like a guitar (again) and still has that bad reverb

You mentioned you only have one 'real' instrument - what is that? For doing metal, you really need to have a REAL guitar. I've heard one sopftware guitar program (for acoustic) that sounded passable, but never anything played with a MIDI keyboard for electric guitar.
As Rob suggested, you need to slowdown and not try to recreate complex music right from the start. Work on getting your individual sounds to sound GOOD by themselves first. Once that's accomplished, you can start mixing them.
 
For anyone else interested, here's the soundcloud link:

'Left hand' - Rob means your 'strings'/other stuff are low on the scale (lower, bassy notes)
Your sample sounds:
MT Power Drum Kit Sample - sounds are ok (for how youare doing them, but they're nto metal), but your beats/hits are off-time.
Guitar Sample Amped - does not sound like a guitar and has a really bad reverb on it
FPC Drum Sample Kick Snare Hat - 'beatbox' sound, snare is not very metal, and kick is like a 'suitcase' drum
Distorted Guitar Sytrus Plus Keys - does not sound like a guitar (again) and still has that bad reverb

You mentioned you only have one 'real' instrument - what is that? For doing metal, you really need to have a REAL guitar. I've heard one sopftware guitar program (for acoustic) that sounded passable, but never anything played with a MIDI keyboard for electric guitar.
As Rob suggested, you need to slowdown and not try to recreate complex music right from the start. Work on getting your individual sounds to sound GOOD by themselves first. Once that's accomplished, you can start mixing them.

Thank you for taking the time to reply.

To your individual points:

1. "'Left hand' - Rob means your 'strings'/other stuff are low on the scale (lower, bassy notes)". I'm assuming you're referring to the intro part; the first part of that intro in the original song is pretty low though , and then it goes up a couple octaves.

2. "but your beats/hits are off-time.". That's true, but the way I recorded that sample was, I used to my mouse to click on the relevant plugin's visual representation of the kick, snare, hat, etc, which made it kinda hard. I was just trying to demonstrate how the kit sounds.

3. "You mentioned you only have one 'real' instrument - what is that? For doing metal, you really need to have a REAL guitar." I've got a keyboard. That said, I think I am going to invest in a keyboard. However, I'm baffled by the fact that I see videos on YouTube where people manage to get what at least to me sounds like a pretty good guitar sound using the same stuff that I'm using.

Here's an idea: what if - while I'm learning about all this stuff (which I assume is going to be a lengthy process) - I create a MIDI out of this and pay somebody who knows what they're doing to do something with it?

Thanks again.
 
From post #9, paragraph 4...

It sounds like your big problem is the arrangement, not the mix. For example, if you have six instruments playing different things in the same octave, no amount of mixing will make that work. Musically, things have to have their own space, or at least compliment each other if they are in the same space.

As far as "left hand" goes, think about how and what a piano player plays. Generally, it will be chord, bass line and such with the left hand and melody with the right hand. If he is telling you that your left hand parts are conflicting, you either have too many things going on real close together, or you chord inversions don't work very well in that octave. (Some note combinations sound good in higher octaves, but sound like muddy garbage in lower octaves, and vice versa)

These don't sound like mix problems, they are arrangement problems.
 
For doing metal, you really need to have a REAL guitar.

+1 to that. For this style, you're gonna have a really hard time getting away with midi guitars. Midi guitars just don't function the way that a real string and a distorted amp chain do.

Power metal is a pretty strictly-defined genre. It has this specific sound, which you have to replicate exactly if you want to play it.

A better starting point might be something that uses primarily the instruments that you have: synth-driven pop, a lot of experimental stuff, and most modern hip-hop. Learn how to get the best versions of the sounds your instrument is designed to do before trying to replicate something it wasn't.
 
Mike, I think knows what I mean - in the new files - those guitars are simply just not going to cut it - they sound like a synth trying to emulate a guitar and failing badly.

I've got an idea - I may have some spare time tomorrow - if you want to send me the midi file, I'll have a look at it and that might reveal some things you can do. The offer is open. an email to homerec@earsmedia.co.uk will find me, if you want a proper 'inspection' - or you could put a link to the midi file that other members could poke around with. I used to be a music examiner and looking through midi files was what I spent ages doing trying to sort issues. R
 
Again, thank you very much to everyone who took the time to reply. I can safely say that I haven't found this kind of support anywhere else.

I have now converted both the sample as well as the full cover that I made of the song in question (which I haven't published yet) and there's one thing I notice right off the bat - I had previously said that I felt as though all the elements of my version of the song fighting one another; then I played the midi and I heard that they were fighting in the midi as well - which, I guess, means that you guys were right - the guitar, the drum beat etc. are all very close to one another. I wish I had thought of converting the files into midis sooner, because that really helped make it clear how jammed together everything is.

[MENTION=1593]rob[/MENTION]

thank you very much for the offer - I certainly appreciate it. I have now sent both midis to the relevant e-mail address (I have no problem with them behind published here, either - but again, the board doesn't let me link to anything, so if anybody else feels like taking a look at them, I'm happy to make them available somehow, other than through this board). That said, I'm not sure it's worth your time, because the midis make it so glaringly obvious that everything is smashed together and that that's what should be handled first and foremost.

Thanks again!

EDIT: I posted a sample of the guitar sound of another guitar plugin called Slayer2 ("CotW Sample (Slayer2)") on my Soundcloud. I'm wondering whether you think it's any improvement at all over the previous guitar sound samples.
 
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I've replied directly to Killahpl with some screen shots that explain what is happening - this is one of them and shows how when you overlay two of the tracks they argue with each other timing wise, and you can also see the velocity of each note is exactly the same and so is the note lengths.

This is one of the major causes of midi being blamed for robotic music. It's not clear how the notes actually get into the sequencer - if they were played in, the velocity data seems wrong, and of course no keyboard player can play that accurately So some quantisation and adjustments has clearly happened and it doesn't work for the song.

One other thing I mentioned in the response sent was the double kick drum has ultra rigid timing and volume - totally unlike a real player who cannot keep up that tempo and stay that tight.

My comment on heavy less hand was correct - three note, root low triads low down - you just cannot make nice voicing that low, and no chord inversions - the hand comes up and without changing the finger positions, just moves higher and presses down with the same velocity and spacing - no inversions. All very common beginner issues, reasonably easily sorted. For some odd reason, the first beat of the bar is actually on beat 3? Makes no difference really, but suggests the click is set up badly.

Personally I don't think the solution is editing, but re-recording using the keyboard making sure it's done musically. The computer may well have had a hand in ruining the MIDI file - quantisation of timing and velocities seems pretty certain.
R
 

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Rob,

thanks ever so much for doing this. I cannot express my gratitude enough.

I'll reply to your e-mail at length, but address a couple of points here as well. Let me make it clear that I'm not trying to second-guess you in any way; whenever I've asked additional questions, it's just because I really wanna make sure I understand the mechanics of how this works.

To your point about note length - when I was recording the guitar/string parts with my midi keyboard and putting them into the piano roll in FL Studio, I found that I wasn't happy with the note velocity and length (perhaps there's something off in terms of key touch sensitivity in my keyboard). I started manually manipulating those and - yeah - essentialy ended making them all the same velocity. I'll have to figure out how to address this; one possibility would be for me to record everything with my "real" keyboard - I suppose I would get less of a robotic/computerized feel, but then again, I'd end up with an audio sample, which I can do very little with.

In regards to the drums - yes, those were put in complete manually - just notes inserted by means of mouse clicks. I can't really see another way to do it - other than perhaps get a drum kit and learn to play it or get a band with a drummer. Also, yeah, I made the same mistake of putting the velocity at the same level for the drum notes as well. For what it's worth, I've just now checked out some of the drum patterns in the drum kit plugin I mentioned earlier - the drum hits are indeed of varying velocity, so I suppose I could take a cue from how the velocity of e.g. the snare works against the velocity of the kick, etc.

The point about the rigid timing and volume of the drumming - I was confused, because I asked around and people who at least claim to be drummers have told me that the drum pattern in the original song is "The first pattern is snare on the quarter notes, hihat on either quarter notes or eight notes (hard to make out), and bass drum playing straight sixteenth notes", which seems to me that the double kick is hammering away relentlessly (as an aside, there's a vid on YT called "Jason Bittner - Metal Fundamentals (FULL DRUM LESSON)" and he really is hammering away at incredible speed - AND he says he's not the fastest drummer out there). I took a look at wikipedia's entry on "Blast beat", and while I can see that there is indeed a variation of this pattern (called the "bomb blast"), in which the double is super tight and super fast, the more popular variation is:

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x- (as opposed to "xxxxxxxxxxxx" in the bomb blast).

By the way, a funny thing - I seem to be getting some likes and followers on Soundcloud now, for some reason :)
 
For drums, I suggest getting a decent drum software package. Because I'm not a drummer, I use EZ Drummer 2, whihc has a huge amount of loops )one measure and longer ones) that one can use to craft a drum track. After a few years, I have become better at taking these and making them 'my own' my manipulating the MIDI, adding my own fills, etc. But its a good place to start. Superior Drummer and Steven Slate Drums are two other programs you could look at.

I listened to that Slayer 2 sample. It still sounds like a keyboard doing a 'guitar sound' (and not a very good one).
 
I know and have recorded Jason Bittner. Yes, he is one of the few people that can hit that hard playing that fast AND has incredible timing, but if you were to zoom in on his performance and put it up to a quantized midi part doing the same thing, they would not match up.

When listening to him play, it sounds very consistent, and it is. But it isn't as perfectly consistent in every way, like a programmed midi part.
 
but again, the board doesn't let me link to anything.

Those privileges are largely based on post count. I'd thought 5 was the threshhold, but it might be 10.

That said, a good way to boost your post count, work on your critical listening skills, and give back to the community is to post in the mp3 clinic.
Lots of folks of varying skill levels and genres put their mixes there, and they need feedback from folks of all skill levels and experience too.

(Honestly, this thread should probably be in the clinic too)
 
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