masteringhouse
www.masteringhouse.com
Is anyone making an "Authenticity" plug-in?
Is anyone making an "Authenticity" plug-in?
GuitardedMark
New member
Well said! Thanks for the post Greg. I agree with most of what you said. Thank you for provided some technical explanations too. I wonder how much different everyone would have responded if I would have posted an old Floyd album and asked the same question. A lot of people are VERY anti-metal and other than rap its probably the least respected music genre. I can see why. There are some REALLY BAD metal bands. I think some of the worst bands ever are metal bands (manowar = WTF). It doesn't bother when people are anti-metal (KCearl your still my favorite clown
) Its that unconsciously incompetant person that thrives off the belief that ignorance is bliss. They are my arch-nemesis! It would be nice to get some help with the genre sometimes though. Whenever I ask a question about anything related to metal the whole thread fills up with haters and its like pulling teeth to get some advice. Maybe I should stick to ultimatemetal.com 
For the record Greg I appreciate your feedback (even though your brashness can get under my skin sometimes)
kcearl
I see deaf people
i fucking hate floyd 
you should try playing electronica if you wanna see haters
you should try playing electronica if you wanna see haters
GuitardedMark
New member
Hehe... I love floyd, metal AND electronica
B
Bguzaldo
New member
Respected by the masses or not its well known that metal fans are some of the most loyal fans in music. Think about how MANY people love lady gaga, think about how many are as loyal to her as some are to bands like slayer. I don't see anyone carving 'lady gaga' into their arm! (A number of kids I went to high school with had slayer carved into both of their arms....)
GuitardedMark
New member
LOL! Word! It's a cursed genre. Some of the worst stuff I have ever heard and seen is metal so a lot of people judge it by the bad (which is unfortunately very prevelent). I love the genre though. Always did and always will!
DrewPeterson7
Sage of the Order
Why do I get the feeling I'm being horribly mis-understood (and judged)? I have read interviews. Funny enough this is not "cookie cutter production" For instance, I know they used a lot of room mics for the guitars and did not only do the standard sm57 right next to cab. I also know they layered clean guitars with the distored guitars, which I've not heard of very often for metal. Anyways I'm not asking for how they made the album. Once again, I was simply looking for comments regarding "what you hear" with a technical explanation. How hard is that to understand?
I love how often anti-metal people like you, show their lack of respect for the genre, which to me, comes off as pure ignorance. I don't go listen to a country song and say "thats just auto-tune and cookie cutter production with thousands of clones. Furthermore you need to look at deeper productions". Why? because I dont LISTEN to country so my ears are not tuned to hear the intrices of the music. Not to mention, what are the chances you even listened to the song barret? If you did you'd realize there is no damn auto-tune... What you consider good production is not necessarily what other people consider good production. Being a producer (if you even are), you should know that.
A lot of what Greg says, he has a good basis for and even though I dislike his approach, I do value his opinion. Who the hell are you? I don't even remember seeing a relevant post of yours...
For what it's worth, I co-admin a site called www.metalguitarist.org, and I think the production on this track, from the handful of times I've heard it on rock radio, is about as cookie-cutter as you get. Sample-replaced drums. Check. Mesa Rectifier sound. Check. Angsty, whiny vocals. Check. Clean sparkly bit/stock heavy chug riffing. Check. I probably forgot something, but you get the picture.
I hate to single out anything Andy Sneap's done for even more praise than the guy's already getting (admittedly, totally deservedly), but I'm sitting here at work with the most recent Nevermore going, which is pretty fucking brutal - almost stripped down for a metal album, but very in your face. And, if you want to get even more over the top for metal production, Strapping Young Lad's "Alien" is, well, pretty shocking. Not that I listen to a ton of this stuff, or really go after that sound myself (of Devin Townsend's recorded cannon, I prefer "Terria" to any of his SYL stuff), but if you're really after pretty extreme, cutting edge production, go see if you can find a pretty hi-fi video for SYL's "Love?" on the net somewhere - it's about as accessible as that band ever gets, and man is the chorus just hair-raising.
EDIT - and not that there's even anything that wrong with "cookie cutter" hard rock/metal production. It takes a lot of skill to get anything to sound that polished, and the guys who do that stuff do it VERY well and make a lot of money doing it. I'd just rather hear it a bit less edited and a bit more organic (or, on the other side of the coin, like that SYL disc I mentioned, where Gene Hoglan's performances SOUND like they could have been sample-replaced, but evidently were done totally live, as sort of a challenge to himself, which blows my mind just how tight the guy is).
GuitardedMark
New member
A lot of good points there drew. I guess i dont really believe in cookie cutter production because I cant really identify ANYTHING that is so similar I would call it "cookie cutter production". When I think cookie cutter I think of something that is exactly the same. For instance if there was an amp simulator that had no settings, and that was used on 2 different records I would consider that cookie cutter. To me, its all about the details...
For the record, I think nevermores new stuff is GARBAGE. The production sounds horrible to me and the bands has lost their edge IMO. Dreaming Neon Black is a BRUTAL album. One of the darkest, heaviest albums of all time IMO. I also really liked dead heart in a dead world, which i think the production is very good. They've really dropped off since then. They're not groundbreaking anymore, just rehashing and trying to survive. A couple of those references I haven't heard a lot but I'm somewhat framiliar with each of those bands except one. None of them sound even close to the Killswitch... Also they did not use mesas AT ALL on this album. They used framus,peavey,engle, and hughes and ketner
PDP
There once was a note
I'd agree, in making the movie Avatar, each frame had a few hours work on it X 32sec a frame X 3 hour movie. Over 40 people full time just on graphics. Music isnt that intense, but you get the point.
kcearl
I see deaf people
this thread may go off in a tangent I predict
GuitardedMark
New member
LOL I guess anything is better than the way it was going
I'd still like some constructive feedback on my original question but for some reason I feel I might have been to amitious 
kcearl
I see deaf people
try gearslutz
B
BLP
New member
TheChikenMaster
I'm Unbalanced
GuitardedMark
New member
I think this is just another mix up between what mixing and mastering is
What about both? I didnt really differentiate between whether I was looking for technical opinions on the mixing or mastering. Just the overall production.
GuitardedMark
New member
Hey Greg I just listened to your original album. Much better than I thought it would be judging from your posts lol. I hate that genre of music but I did like the production (except for the vocals). Anyways, it prompted me to re visit this post due to a little more respect for your ear. I listened to American Idiot side by side with My Curse and I do not hear what you hear with "the bottom end". Killswitch sounds SOOOOO much deeper and bigger on the bottom end. I even asked 4 random people
All of who BTW are NOT metal fans. They all agreed however that My Curse sounded a lot bigger and more bottom end. Why do you think American idiot has more bottom end? I read your post above and could not hear what you heard. Anyone else care to comment?
G
Greg_L
Banned
Because it does.
If you don't think so, then that's fine. Just do whatever it is you do.
legionserial
New member
Gerg's right about Killswitch being cookie cutter. I listen to a lot of metal, and Killswitch were one of many metal bands I got bored of pretty quickly. I have a couple of their albums and they've probably had a couple of listens each. I'm not knocking anyone's taste in music, and I'm not going to comment on the songwriting apart from to say I think it's little formulaic, but in terms of production values, it's generic sounding. The low end has the illusion of being big because of the triggered/replaced kick sound and the amount of compression in mastering. Killswitch to me is an example of what would happen if a computer made death metal and was a fierce supporter of the 'louder is better' ethos.
Basically they sound to me like a hell of a lot of other death metal bands that are signed to Roadrunner (who, incidentally, are Nickelback's label). Both production and writing wise, it's by the numbers, commercial, polished, radio friendly death metal. It has no soul, and I don't like that. That's Roadrunner through and through.
Edit: Machine Head are a Roadrunner band, and they are an exception. They have an awesome sound and definitely are not a cookie cutter band.
To add, I saw Killswitch live once. I won't deny that the singer has a pretty powerful singing voice. But...while they were incredibly tight and clearly had their shit nailed down, they were very boring to watch/listen to and one of the guitarists was a complete dick. :shrug:
Basically they sound to me like a hell of a lot of other death metal bands that are signed to Roadrunner (who, incidentally, are Nickelback's label). Both production and writing wise, it's by the numbers, commercial, polished, radio friendly death metal. It has no soul, and I don't like that. That's Roadrunner through and through.
Edit: Machine Head are a Roadrunner band, and they are an exception. They have an awesome sound and definitely are not a cookie cutter band.
To add, I saw Killswitch live once. I won't deny that the singer has a pretty powerful singing voice. But...while they were incredibly tight and clearly had their shit nailed down, they were very boring to watch/listen to and one of the guitarists was a complete dick. :shrug:
legionserial
New member
On a side note, something else I've noticed about these types of bands is that they all sound like they've got someone in their employ who sits in a room all day trying to come up with new paradiddles to apply to the excessively over used palm mute+double kick formula. Which is a shame, because when it was used sparingly as part of the odd breakdown here and there it was pretty damn effective and used to be my favourite thing about this type of metal. But as with anything that gets overused ad nauseum, it all blends into irrelevance.
Meshuggah still have that palm mute+kick paradiddle thing nailed though. Probably because their irregular time signatures make it a lot more interesting.
Meshuggah still have that palm mute+kick paradiddle thing nailed though. Probably because their irregular time signatures make it a lot more interesting.