lets talk metal

[MoreSpaceEcho]

from the metal thread in the listening forum:

Anybody want to share tips/tricks for the heavy metal recordist?

thought it'd be a good thread. despite having been a teenage shred prodigy, i know zip about recording and mixing metal. so let's hear it heavy dudes, tell us posers what to do.

we all know we want less gain and more mids on the guitars than the guitar players would have us believe, so we can skip that one.

do you think making metal records is inherently different to making 'normal' records?

how does your approach differ if you are recording, say, death vs stoner metal?

what kind of ridiculous bullshit do you need to do to get the drums to compete with the wall of steady state guitars?

how often are you using triggers/samples on the drums? do the bands expect it?

do any bands still tune to E? what are your tricks for low end management/translation when the band's tuned down to Q minor?

what guitar/pedal/amp/mic combos do you like for ultimate face melting riff awesomeness? yeah yeah i know, the correct answer is "the guitar player's right hand". just work with me here.

do you ever put up a really nice mic for vocals? it seems like an sm7 or a 421 would usually be the way to go.

are cookie monster vocals hard to mix? they seem like they would be.

are the bass players always kinda weird and quiet?

[AndyHutchinson]

Well, I can't comment as a metal player or regular producer, but, I can share your background. One of my final projects at audio school, hold the flames, please, was recording a metal band. And, I must say, that, I guess I was lucky, but they were incredibly open to my production style and very easy to work with. However, running quality mics through an 88r didn't hurt. Specifically, I did a lot of parallel processing. I would track a "scooped," mid-free, high gain pass and a "proper" pass and balance the two for the guitars. I put up a 58beta and an 87 for the vocals, and put up a pair of 414s for rooms which I snuck in while they weren't looking, so to speak. Overall, I think they were, in a way, happy that I had no background in recording metal, so I came up with something a bit more unique. It's one of those genres in which you have to bow to the performers, because they have all their pedals and drop d guitars and they don't want to change it. That doesn't mean you can't make a dynamic, interesting recording. Just try to meet them half way and try to explain your point of view. We ended up with a product that we were both happy with, and I put on my reel and they on their demo. Good luck, and let us know what you find.

[Nick Sevilla]

Do not forget that you must worship Satan before each session...

[jgimbel]

Do not forget that you must worship Satan before each session...

Correction: you must worship Satan every waking second. You must be referring to the sacrifices.

[lionaudio]

As someone who records and produces metal-ish recordings 75% of the time, I will say that with so many sub-genres of metal there are very few tricks to be used in all of metal. How I will record the metal depends on the speed of the music. Your standard metal is fast. I go for a tight drum sound so I will record the drums in a smaller room with a mic on every piece of the kit and one mono room mic. This will usually be an over the shoulder mic in figure 8. Slower metal is a completely different beast. I go for the bigger room. More emphasis on room mics. I still mic the whole kit but I use the close mics to augment the rooms. Faster metal has less bass guitar unless the bass is more or less eq'd to be more midrange than low end. Slower metal, I sometimes use an old mu-tron octave divider on guitars through a bass rig to give extreme lows. Triggering is a necessity sometimes. It really depends on the player. If it is hyper-speed blast beat type of drumming and the drummer is still inconsistent on some of his blasts, I will layer a snare sample over his real snare so that it doesn't drift. Kick drums the same way. I don't use samples on the slower metal. A nice eq'd and compressed bass drum into a BBE sonic mazimizer can give amazing results. The thing about metal is that everything is competing all the time. Guitars want to be crushing and brutal. So do the vocals, bass, and drums. I see it as a process of making all of the instruments weak on their own but together they really work as a machine. Everything locking in together. Here are some general tips for heavy music
1: For slow metal, use room mics on guitars as well as drums. Have the guitarist stand in front of the amp and rock out. Tell him to move around and find the spot that he "feels" his rock the most. That is your sweet spot. Throw a ribbon mic in that spot around chest level. Augment that with a close mic up on the cabinet. Pan them hard left and right. Overdubs may not be necessary with this technique.
2: The smaller the amp and cabinet, the easier it is to make it sound big through your monitors. Some situations do call for a huge rig in the middle of a room, but for the most part, try to use a 1x12 cabinet
3: Fast pre's... Sytek mp4aii is great for fast drums. clarity for days.
4: most metal is all about sounding "unnatural". Don't be afraid to use synths to make things super heavy. Sub sounds underneath certain parts of songs can make the song way heavier
5: If someone wants to record a "traditional black metal" album, go buy a 4-track tape recorder. light candles. push record. Too many black metal bands try to do this with computers and it is ass
6: Almost always, fast drummers should use small drums. slow drummers should use big drums
7: It is important to use good eq's especially on the drums. A good eq will give you alot of air in the top end of the drums. A bad eq will give you alot of abrasive crap
8: DI the bass. Unless you're doing slow metal, there is no need to mic the bass amp. you can actually get away with not having a bass guitar at all in the mix if you mic the guitars right
9: Listen to "Sounds of Perserverance" by Death, and realize that you and no one else in the world will ever record a metal album that sounds that good ever again. But always try to
10: Worship SATAN

[kslight]

Stoner type metal I've had reasonable success with a FET47 on guitar (through a Marshall), drums tightly miked and then used sound replacer, bass DI through an overdriven Summit compressor, vocals through a handheld. I do try to take over the EQ on the amplifier end as well...and have players cut pedals out that they don't use or sound bad.

[niccolo gallio]

I used to listen to a lot of metal about 10 years ago and I still listen to some right now.
Years ago a friend of mine ended up renting this really good studio space, a very famous studio in the '80's where the big names came to record now gone bankrupt and so rented to my trance-progressive producing friend. He called me to see if I could handle the recording duties so that the studio would have some commercial return instead of serving as his own "production only" space.
I ended up quitting the "job" because I couldn't stand the fact that he was also living there with his GF and a cat that was pissing on (my) equipment quite often.
But the only recording I did in that (very good) space has been a grind band of very young and untalented kids.
It came out as one of my worst recordings ever.
no. 1 reason: my inexperience
2) the drummer refused to punch a hole in his bass drum and later pretended to have that clicky BD sound
3) boss metal zone used on every stringed instrument, bass included.
I do love the metal zone but his semi-parametric mids control is a double edged blade.
4) one day to record and mix.
the end result was a ear-piercing piece of sound that you did have to be careful not to cut yourself with, where even the bass was just a guitar that didn't do chords.
Surprisingly enough the band was happy with it, the only complaint was "not enough click on the BD".
That was my first and last "metal" recording for a long time.

Lately, in the last three years I've been recording some material for a band called "La Cuenta" which I like, it's a slow sludge trio.
They have a quite precise idea of the sound they're after and it's pretty easy to work with them, we share some taste in music, video and literature and they came to trust my mixing decisions. The recordings so far have been all done in the country house of one of the members with my mobile rig. This is the way i prefer to work lately, it's a little harder in terms of setup but you get to deal with interesting acoustics and the musicians seem always to be more relaxed in their home/rehearsal space.
One thing we always discuss about is about the management of guitar/bass:
The guitar is tuned to Q -1 (I think B or C realistically) and the guitar player uses a line-6 head with a 4x10 closed stack with a very bass heavy sound, the bass is distorted and the low end is often confused. During the mix the guitar player wants the guitar to be as ballsy as it can get and, given that it was recorded with a royer 121, it can get VERY ballsy, but then you can mute the bass and the difference is minor. So I ended up using the guitar almost fullrange, with a HP @ 80 or so and then
carve some space for the bass in the low-mid region, the dreaded 400-600 spot.
This gave a summed sound reminiscent of the early Entombed. If the bass and guit are playing the same stuff it all sums to a monstery, fused big sound.
In the last days I've been contacted by a band that liked the La Cuenta record and want to do something but don't have enough new material yet, I saw a video of the on youtube and would describe them as a clash between Darkthrone and Godflesh, I'm very excited.
I've been listening to some of the new Mastodon stuff lately and I kinda dig the production values there, for starters the BD doesn't have that clicky sound (again) , there's some intelligent guitar recording and finally some midrange (not enough yet).
In the end i wouldn't complain too much a black metal band would ask me to mix them according to the canon dictated by Darkthrone or Burzum, what I've learned from my first grind recording is that tastes can be VERY different and in the end the client is (almost) always right.

well, almost.

long post.
sorry.

nicco

[niccolo gallio]

while I was writing my rant two very good posts appeared above,
good stuff, kslight and lionaudio.

[niccolo gallio]

I always liked "individual.." more than "sound of..", will give it a closer listen now hat you mention.

R.I.P Chuck.

[palinilap]

are the bass players always kinda weird and quiet?

Yes. This is the only absolute in recording.

[Nick Sevilla]

Do not forget that you must worship Satan before each session...

Correction: you must worship Satan every waking second. You must be referring to the sacrifices.

Oh yes... I must ask forgiveness from him...



I think I will now make a record.

Got any virgins laying around?

[MoreSpaceEcho]

Yes. This is the only absolute in recording.

the classic rock band i'm working with at the moment, the bass player is the leader, and he's one of the loudest, most talkative guys i've ever had in here.

metal bass players though, those dudes always seem like they're quietly contemplating some complicated lamb-slaughtering ritual or something.

anyway, good posts! keep 'em coming. satan commands you.

[niccolo gallio]

I guess most metal bass players got silenced by "..and justice for all"

[farview]

do you think making metal records is inherently different to making 'normal' records?

Yes and no. The point of (most) metal is to make it sound larger than life. Everything needs to be bigger, deeper and harder. To that end, you are constantly doing more processing than you might on a 'normal' record.

For example:

A blues band. Telecaster through a Fender Princeton, J bass, 4 piece decent drumset. Your job is to make them sound like people playing a Telecaster through a Fender Princeton, J bass, and a 4 piece decent drumset.

A metal band. $200 BC Rich guitar through a Crate combo amp, Maching bass, and a drumset with too many toms and a picture of the Muppets on the kick head. Your job is to make them sound like Metallica, preferably the 'Black' album.

Which do you think is a tougher job?

Of course, once you have figured out how to do it, just like anything, it really isn't that hard at all.

how does your approach differ if you are recording, say, death vs stoner metal?

Stoner metal (like Trouble, etc...) is really just 70's rock. If you make it sound like an old Zepplin album, you've done your job. There is a lot of room for the sounds to breath and develop.

Death metal is normally very fast, so there is no room for any of the sounds to breath without it turning into a mess. So the sounds generally are all really tight and bright.

what kind of ridiculous bullshit do you need to do to get the drums to compete with the wall of steady state guitars?

1. Compress the crap out of them.
2. EQ the crap out of them. You have to EQ everything so that it has its own space. With kick and tom, I get rid of a bunch of 900hz. That leaves a giant hole for the meat of the guitar to sit without getting in the way.
3. turn them up louder than the guitar

how often are you using triggers/samples on the drums? do the bands expect it?

It really depends on the drummer. There are some guys that play very fast, but don't have enough power at those speeds to make the kick sound good. In that case you use triggers.

There are guys, like Jason Bittner, who can play at blinding speeds with the power to make the drum speak properly, so no triggers required.

Sometimes you use triggers as a secondary instrument: to layer with the real sound or to change the sound of the kick all together for certain songs and/or parts of songs. (the way a keyboard player would change sounds from a piano to a string sound)

do any bands still tune to E? what are your tricks for low end management/translation when the band's tuned down to Q minor?

No, not many metal bands use standard tuning any more. Luckily, guitars have most of their power an octave or two higher than the fundamental of the note there are hitting. So even the difference in 'chug' power between a normally tuned guitar a E and one tuned down to C is only the difference between 164hz and 130hz. It's not that big of a deal. For bass its the difference between 82hz and 65hz. if you keep your kick drum pushed at 50hz, you will be fine

what guitar/pedal/amp/mic combos do you like for ultimate face melting riff awesomeness? yeah yeah i know, the correct answer is "the guitar player's right hand". just work with me here.

For most metal, I tend to prefer Mesa Rectifier's and amps like that. This is because they compress before they distort. This makes it so you can get the smoothness and feel for the player out of the amp before the sound gets too fuzzy and indistict.

do you ever put up a really nice mic for vocals? it seems like an sm7 or a 421 would usually be the way to go.

It all depends on the vocalist. Metal is not just one thing, there are seemingly hundreds of subgenres, some of them involve actual singing. Those would get the mic that would work in any genre for that type of vocal. Anything overly aggressive gets the SM7, stuff with more subtleties or performed quietly gets an LDC. Some of that 'screaming' you hear in metal is not as loud as you think it is. Some of it is even performed while breathing in.

are cookie monster vocals hard to mix? they seem like they would be.

Not really. You just compress them, accentuate the 2-3k range and normally double or triple track them. Pan them out and you are good to go. Again, it's all about carving out a space in the spectrum for each insturment/voice to live.

are the bass players always kinda weird and quiet?

Yes.

[niccolo gallio]

cool post, Jay!