Mixing Metal Guitarz, or Wide As Hell

Igormeister

New member
I am wondering, how do you guys record and mix really-extreme-ultrabrutal-distorted-to-pain-guitars.
I mean, you can record great sound with one sm57 in center of 4x12 cone, but main request is to get that rhytm guitar wider than hell. Only perfect sounding way is to track it twice and hard panning left - right.
Believe me, i tryed everything from x-y to m-s.
I talking about Morbid Angel, Death guitar sound, mixed by Jim Morris at Morrisound.
I searched the net for interwiews with Jim Morris, Terry Date or Rick Rubin, but no luck.
Any data, anybody ?
 
DEATHMETAL/GRINDCORE is what i do, i use a 57 and cad condensor. Tube amps are the key for fatter overlly distorted guitars. I got a mesa single rect and a crate black voodoo. I usally pan the guitars hard l an r. The bigist problem is getting them to sound clear. (you know with all the speed picken going on ,it can get a bit muddy)I wouldent put the mic in the center of the cone.
 
Decidedly inexpert input.

I'm very interested to hear what folks have to say on this as well.

I was once told (can't confirm myself) that Carcass recorded the guitars on "Necroticism..." multiple times with slight distortion to get a low (B tuning), heavy, yet still articulated sound. It's not the most distorted of death metal tones, though.

Next thing I'm going to try is recording warm, not-very-distorted rhythm tracks (mebbe through a bass amp, heh) and double them with bright, sharp, incisive, painfully distorted rhythm tracks, for two tracks in each channel. I found that when I layer ultra-distortion over ultra-distortion, it gives me thin trebly crap. :rolleyes: YMMV, though...

If I told ya what I have done before, it would only be to tell you what to avoid. :)

See if you can find an interview with Fleming Rasmussen; he did Morbid Angel's "Covenant" I think. (Maybe he'd also tell us how to avoid that awful woofiness on "...and Justice for All"!)
 
center of cone miking? ahh...that's nonsense. disgusting. You should place the mic on the outside of the cone and point it towards (towards, not at) the center...play around. taking it out of the center will also fatten it up a bit.

eww...did someone mention crate? the name says it all. (shudder).
 
Thanks for input !!! :)

But my goal is to get widest possible sound of one guitar in one pass - is Dimebag Darell's guitar doubled ?
I experiment with various miking techniques to get wide stereo from one sound source ( amp's speaker cabinet )
I have some excellent mics ( Neumann U87 & FET, AKG C12, C12A, 5 models of Audio Technica )
So, it is possible to mike 2 cones of one 4x12 box to get 2 separate signals for stereo, but this is not something special, just phase problems, which eat low end.
I have recorded lot of orchestral music live in concert hall and used natural stereo recording techniques - Decca Tree, Faulkner array and M-S.
Did anyone tryed M-S ( Mid-Side ) on guitar cabinet ?
Also, what about 2 cabinets driven by a single amp, but spaced and angled, or even in separate rooms, recorded at once ?
 
fenix said:
Aw...did someone mention crate? the name says it all. (shudder). [/B]

You could stick various marshalls in front of me all day day long, and at the end of the day i would be walking away w/ my crate tube amp happy(smirking!)

Yes, dimebag does more than just double his guitars. The two speaker thing would sound good if you were micing to differant cabs( ex. one w/ celestion, one with vintage 30s) to have a fatter sound. Make sure your mic is not on the cone like fenix said. That could be your hole problem.
 
SM57 is not a very good mic for micing metal guitars imo. I prefer MD421 or AKG D112, they are a bit smoother and less grainier.
And whatever you do don't point the mic to the center of the cone. :)

Keijo
 
sm57 is great, what are you talkin' about? almost all metal guitars are double tripled or more .. (metallica used 12 guitar tracks for the acoustic intro on nothing else matters , and that's only for hetfield...) the more the fatter. And you can mike two different spekaers of the same cab... the speakers always reat a little different... this difference will make the "wide as hell" sound...

also; record the same part twice... the little differences in playing will...

hope this helps
Guhlenn

ps a nice condenser is even better (as in use a nice condensor on one speaker the sm57 on the other...)
 
it's in the name ...:rolleyes:

and don't give me that crap about metallic being pussies... metallica f*ckin invented metal... i grew up on ride the lightning master of puppets and andjustice for all... listen to them once and dare to ask such a stupid ignorant question again!!!

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

guhlenn
 
ha! i looked at your profile to check if you weren't born when those albums came out... turns out your a pro rec/mixer...

...:D :D :D...

Guhlenn
 
Well, i am pretty young pro.
Metallica was sacred thing to me until Black Album :mad: , then i cleared my CD shelves to make room for SLAYER.
 
... it doesn't state your birthday... but for a pro you know very little about recording guitars... maybe you earned your living taping orchestra's... it's cool :cool:

and uhm, i know i overreacted... i tried to get a real flame going about how much the new albums sucked (I knew you were gonna say that)... so i failed:o

well slayer 's cool...

Guhlenn:D
 
Actually, i asked this question because i mix everything, but extreme metal is not so common project over here. :(
I started to record and mix when i was 14, in little 16ch-tape based home studio - local metal bands ( all 3 of them :) ).
After years of demo studios i made a compromise and start engineering at Croatia Records. Compromise, because catalog of this company is something like mainstream, folk and other ugly
sounds, but there was biggest vintage collection of mics, two studios with 40 in-line consoles, 10 ADATs, and 8 racks of equipment like Urei 1176LN, Drawmers, vintage Neve, Studer, Neumann and Telefunken pres. So, in late night hours i started to combine this with fine sounds of local death metal scene.
I mean, i can record and produce any guitar sound, but i asked you because i don't live in Florida or L.A. Bay Area and have tons of bands and producers around. :)
 
hmmm, i don't live in florida... i live in A pighole in Holland. I find it very strange that you have recorded metal bands without knowing the double trick.... how did you achieve a decent guitar sound then? i always get a thinny sound on the guitars when not doubled... but that is probably the fact that i'm a talentless amateur !!! :D:D:D

Guhlenn
 
Hey ! :rolleyes:
If you search my posts before 2 years, you will see that i have mentioned double tracking and doubling ( fattening ) as my major way of work.
I asked this "naive", "innocent" way because i want thread with constructive discussion where everyone can learn something.
I use all these techniques, but i just need confirmation that top metal producers are doing it this way.
I am mastering engineer too, and i can spread stereo to infinity in mastering phase, but this will sacrifice clarity and low end.
I just need to hear one raw mix of Morbid Angel or Death.
I don't want mediocre production, i am hunting W T F ???!!! kind of sound.
 
well i would definately not call it HQ... but yes there is a pretty decent metal scene here... to me the most awesome guitar tracks are on the machine head album "the more things change..."

Raw and in your face... it makes me smile everytime i hear it... the intro on ten ton hammer is bizarre... :eek: that kind of bizarre...

guhlenn

ps didn't mean to diss you it was an honest question...
 
oh and death has considerably less distorted guitars... look for napalm death and that kind of shit... now that's WTF??????;)
 
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