Just finished with a death metal project and figured some people would like to check it out. Props out to MassiveMastering for mastering this project!
Awesome Sounding Death Metal Project
- Thread starter Cloneboy Studio
- Start date
It's a local band I recorded. I don't like death metal personally, but I grew up on tons of 80's thrash metal so I have a very good idea of what it should sound like.
All my music (album in the works) is Peter Gabriel/Gary Numan/Skinny Puppy influenced synth rock.
All my music (album in the works) is Peter Gabriel/Gary Numan/Skinny Puppy influenced synth rock.
Dogman
Unkle Ticklefingers
You did a good job capturing these sounds. very pro.Cloneboy Studio said:It's a local band I recorded. I don't like death metal personally, but I grew up on tons of 80's thrash metal so I have a very good idea of what it should sound like.
All my music (album in the works) is Peter Gabriel/Gary Numan/Skinny Puppy influenced synth rock.
Ed
Supercreep
Lizard People
Damn, your cymbals sound GREAT.
punkorama said:
Recording for 17 years total. Semi-professionally (as a hobby, but getting paid) I've been doing stuff for about 4 years before I started doing things professionally (how I pay the bills) for the last year.
Keep in mind that I'm in a well-stocked studio running a ProTools HD 4 system using high end preamps and microphones, and recording expensive equipment (10k Tama drumkit, Mesa/Boogie Road King head, 8x10 Hartke cabinets etc...) as well. That makes a TON of difference.
Also, keep in mind the total recording/mixing time for JUST THIS SONG was probably in the vicinity of 50 hours.
Supercreep said:
A lot of that are the AKG 414's on the rooms ran thru a BF1176LN and a BombFactory Pultec with the 12k tweaked hardcore.
Of course, most of it is the drummer for that band who is an amazing drummer--extremely easy to record and has great feel and timing to boot.
monkeymanx
New member
The singing is odd, and kind of thin sounding to me. It's almost sounds like the high end on the singing vocal track is low... Maybe it isn't. Sounds good though, overall it works.
metalhead28
Hates Raymond
Great sounds! The guitar sounds a little outside the norm for this genre (not a bad thing) it's just a little smoother or rounder or something like that. Sounds wierd at first but after listening a little bit and I totally love it! I guess it is easier to listen to if that makes any sense. Great sounding drums. Only thing I don't like is the clean singing....just seems too out there for this kind of stuff, but that's just the band not the recording....oh well.
You're the man!
You're the man!
Supercreep
Lizard People
Cloneboy Studio said:
Thanks for your time, Cloneboy - if you could, would you mind describing how you miked the OH, or when you said room did you mean room..
I am in a small room, but get usable OH sounds - but these just breathe. Chris Finster seems to get great open sounds as well.
I'm very pleased with the OH sound and was looking to some Josephson C42mp but I'm curious about the 414 because of it's variable pattern. I'm currently fond of LDCs for OH. Lots of people dog on the 414 as an OH mic because it's "sterile" or "clinical". In this instance, it dosen't sound that way to me at all. It sounds like it took the EQ very well too... What is the room like?
-Casey
*edit* what's a BF1176LN? I googled that and came up with zilch. More bomb factory plugins?
geet73 said:
Since there were a few comments on the guitar sounds I'll go into the thinking behind why things were recorded the way they were, and what the band wanted.
First off, the band didn't want their guitar tones to copy anyone else. They wanted something more "out of the box" than usual.
Second, there are two guitarists in the band and each has a distinct sound--the left side guitarist has a more trebly, cutting, heavily scooped and distorted tone; the right side guitarist has a darker, more midrange, heavily overdriven tone that--as the band instructed me--should have the feel of a 4x12 cabinet rattling. However, both must combine together into the feeling of a single guitar when playing unison, and be identifiable when playing counterpoint to one another.
Also, I A/B'd the tones with a bit more midrange than they were normally used to and they thought it was more classic and heavier sounding than "scooped." Hence the addition of more mids.
Both guitarists played out of a Mesa/Boogie Road King head thru a Marshall 1960b cabinet. The left guitarist had a SM57 and a MD421 close mic'd, whereas the right guitarist had a SM57 and a RE20 close mic'd. Both had an AKG 414 XLSII 6' away as a room mic.
Ultimately a mix consists of trying to fit different things into different places and making it work as a whole. In general there is a mild 3k cut and a little bit of 14khz low pass filtering on the guitars but little else. They wanted things to sound *very* close to the tracked unadulterated guitar sound.
Hubbawho said:
The drummer wanted the kick to have some "woofiness" to it. I had a mix (mix #3) where the drum kit was extremely tight and had more of that Vinnie Paul feel to it and the drummer despised it with a passion.
Also, the snare *IS* actually extremely bright--but the cymbals are so bright that the snare seems darker than it really is in comparison. Also, I used a dark reverb on the snare rather than a brighter one (we initially tried dark snare thru very bright reverb during pre-production--like the typical Metallica snare is setup--and the drummer hated it).
So we basically had those types of sounds but the band rejected it in favor of what we have here. I think it works pretty well.
Supercreep
Lizard People
Cloneboy Studio said:
I agree, the kick sounds pretty cool.
Supercreep said:
Okay, here is the approach to the overhead/rooms that we went for:
The drummer has a large Tama kit--dual kicks, 4 rack toms, 2 floor toms, hand hammered bronze Tama snare, high hat, 5 crashes of various sizes, a ride cymbal, 2 splashes, and a china cymbal. The keywords the drummer gave me for drum sounds were: roomy, in your face, fat and tight. He told me the snare should have a lot of crack--but not too much sizzle, the kick should have slap and thunder without being clicky, the toms should be attacky and full, and the cymbals should be explosive and sweet. He was also *very* concerned that the china accents wouldn't be loud enough.
The main tracking room is 21' x 25' with a 15' vaulted celiing. About 70% of the studio is covered with Sonex, including corner bass traps, and there is a 15 x 10 diffusor located over the main drum setup area. The drum setup area is a 8 x 12 hardwood floor located on the far end of the studio--the remainder of the floor is thinly carpeted.
The drums were placed directly on the hardwood floor without carpeting to achieve brighter early reflection action from the floor to diffusors located overhead. After spending about an hour tuning the kit to the drummer's satisfaction/preference I spent a few minutes listening to him playing to get an idea of his style, how hard he hit, any potential placement difficulties for cymbals, and where I can thread my mics best.
First mic I placed were the overheads. After auditioning a few small diaphragm condensers (I wanted a tight, focused, accurate overhead sound to compliment the LDC's I wanted on the rooms) I settled on a pair of AKG C451's. After listening and placing them both were positioned 60" off the floor and 63" from the center of the snare (pointing at snare) in a tilted fashion--the left mic was few feet past the low floor tom, the right mic a few feet past the high tom. (Can you tell I keep notes/diagrams?
)Next I set the room mics. Room mics of choice are the stereo AKG 414 XLS II's. They were 60" off the floor and spaced 12' from the far edges of the kit pointing towards the snare. I put Sonex foam underneath each mic to reduce any rumble or reflection. I'd estimate the mics were about 20' apart in the room pointing inwards as to make an "X."
For the mixing of the overheads/room mics I had the following chain:
Overheads: McDSP Analog Channel 1 > McDSP Analog Channel 2 > BombFactory 1176LN > BombFactory Pultec EQP-1 > Sony Oxford 5b+filters. The overheads ran to the master reverb buss at about -20db, loaded with TL Space set to the st-st Live DC Room preset (tweaked).
The overheads were tweaked for moderate (4:1) compression, I pushed 100hz and a little bit of 10khz on the Pultec, and pulled out some 800hz on the Oxford.
Room Mics: McDSP Analog Channel 1 > McDSP Analog Channel 2 > BombFactory 1176LN > BombFactory Pultec EQP-1 > Sony Oxford 5b+filters. The room mics ran to the master reverb buss at -6db.
The room mics were tweaked for heavy compression at a 4:1 ratio (increased input), I *cranked* the Pultecs to around 8 or 9 at 12khz--fairly wide boost too for that shimmering, breathy top end, on the Oxford I highpass filtered around 150hz to cut rumble, cut out a bit of a notch around 800hz, a bit of a notch around 3khz.
Basically... that's what I did for overheads/rooms.
All things considered the AKG 414, in its various incarnations, is my all-time favorite LDC microphone. It's versatile, quality, sheeny and transparent. You can make it do what you need to do. It's not too godawful high endy either. It still sounds full and beefy.
I'm not sure why anyone would dog on it. Maybe because they're fairly characterless.....
I'm not sure why anyone would dog on it. Maybe because they're fairly characterless.....