Heavy metal (thrash metal) track

recordman · Jun 3, 2010

Well I'm sending the master out to the record label today so it's too late for any changes but I would still like to hear input.

This is a track from a "thrash metal" project I did. Mixed fully in Cubase and I "mastered" it as well.

Thanks

Greg_L · Jun 3, 2010

Well like most home recorded "metal", it's all guitar with seemingly little attention paid to overall balance. The guitars do sound good though. The snare is buried or totally inaudible 80% the time. Kick has good presence. Bass comes in and out. It sounds good when you can hear it. The vocals are kind of weak. Not nearly enough testosterone. It just sounds like some kid who's mad at his mom for making him eat his veggies. The timing gets pretty sloppy with the double-kicks. You gotta be tighter on that stuff. It's not terrible, but it could be so much better.

Atom Bomb · Jun 3, 2010

I would hold back on sending this to the label....

no wait...

If your sending this in for distro you need a bit more work put into it. this is sloppy. The guitars sound good. There are performance issues. I can listen a few more times if you like and give you times...

the snare needs to hit me a bit more. Im on my work speakers and i can't really hear it that good at all. Just so you know.

And the vocals lacking in the balls department, but they don't suck. Just no balls.

If your sending it to them to show them the potential you and your boys have for future assitance then cool. This may get their attention.

I'd be intrested in hearing more.

recordman · Jun 3, 2010

Fair comments. Let me provide some more info.

The snare is a real snare drum and the drummer plays REALLY soft on the fast punk beats...I had to keep telling him to hit harder and more consistent (and he didn't) so that was a big issue working with him. I just ended up programming the kick and toms straight to midi with steven slate samples because the original performance was sloppy. I could have thrown my pride out the window and went with a fake snare drum as well and you would hear it more but I just can't get myself to do that.

I do agree about the vocals, that is the exact same thing the singer of my band said "he just sounds like he's talking". We really had to do the best we could with this album. The band was supposed to have this done in December but was not ready and actually wrote these songs last minute. The drummer was not familiar with the tracks and neither was the singer. I only had one week to mix and master the entire album, it's pretty shitty circumstances.

Let me upload another track that I think has a touch more musicianship and overall balance: