check it. doom metal, ex black dahlia murder

cyantologist · Post by **cyantologist** » Fri Jun 15, 2007 8:14 am

Heres a link to a song that i'm working on. It's not done, but I think it's close to being "good enough" since it's just a demo. Its my friend's new project and I'm working on 3 songs for him. It's amateur, so don't be too mean, but I'd like some feedback and any tips would be great.

http://imnotsilent.hypermart.net/dave/song%203.mp3

RefD · Post by **RefD** » Fri Jun 15, 2007 2:07 pm

if you can, turn down that hihat.

either that or make it even louder and put a spring reverb on it.

Skipwave · Post by **Skipwave** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 1:21 pm

Nice work, overall geating for a demo. I dig the song, too, starts a little slow, but the unexpected changes around the four minute mark are a treat. The monotonous cookie monster vocals could use some varying up. One of my favorite bands, Coalesce, used different fuzz boxes and toy bullhorns very effectively for just that.

The snare and hi-hat are a little too out in front of the guitars for me. The kick attack could be sharper to cut through more, if you have a reamp setup, try running a hi-passed kick track through a guitar amp or guitar distortion pedal. Make it just a bit nastier than anything you could listen to alone, then blend it with the original track.

cyantologist · Post by **cyantologist** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 7:23 am

Thanks for the input and ideas!

The drums have been giving me grief. I really wish i could go back and re track them, but oh well. I'm definately going to try your idea. I've got an old old peavy rage 158 practice amp sitting in my closet that will probably be perfect. I may even try to screw around and run some drums through my sansamp psa1 just to see if the sansamp grit sounds cool.

Brett Siler · Post by **Brett Siler** » Thu Jun 21, 2007 5:12 pm

I think over all it sounds good. There could be some more tweaking done, like mentioned earlier, if you so desire.

Things I would do is maybe take of low mids out of the kick add a little high mids (no more that 3 dB). Turn down the cymbals just a little bit. Maybe scoop some mids out of them toms. The guitars almost seemed a little spikey so I would take a little our of the high mids (probably only about 1 dB 2 at most). So time they are a little indecipherable. Metal dudes always want to crank the gain but in recording (and live sometimes too) you sometimes want to work with less gain than you think. When you are mixing you will be glad because if you do it right it will still sound huge and have clarity (I am sure as you know there are always exceptions to everything in recording.

That is being kinda nit picky, you did job. Post the finished mix when you are done!

cyantologist · Post by **cyantologist** » Thu Jun 21, 2007 6:15 pm

Thank you! I really do appreciate the reply and the input.

I mentioned earlier that the drums were (are) giving me grief. Here's what's going on with the kick. The drummer didn't have a hole in the front head, so I originally thought it'd work out fine to throw a d112 in front of it anyway. So we did levels and then I realized that it would probably be best to just make him take the front head off so I could actually get the mic in there. After that, I (regretably) just made sure the levels were ok and didn't really check back and listen to how it sounded on it's own. Come mixing time, I was kinda bummed to find out that on it's own, it sounds terrible. Really thuddy and dead. So to compinsate, I've got the room mic (a rode nt-2 set on omni, about 6 feet in front of the set about 2 feet high) and I cut out most of the higher frequencies from that track. A little compression, and a very little distortion, and it makes the kick sound a lot better than before, but it can still only do so much. Also, the guitars are tuned in drop a, so I've got to worry about them intruding on the kick frequencies too. Long story short, they either seem too dull and boxy, or too clicky and with no body. Maybe after enough playing around, I'll find some way of helping this out.

I agree about the guitars and toms. Recording the guitars, I learned first hand what you were talking about when it comes to using less gain than you think you need. We did guitars using my dual rectifier, but with semi low gain (low for a dual rec) and a cheapo, $117 tele rip off guitar (the brand is SX, from rondomusic.com) and we were pretty surprised that with very minimal tweakage, they sounded pretty decent.

This is my first halfway decent recording. I've learned a lot from mixing and a hell of a lot from reading tape op when I'm bored at work. Next time I'm looking forward to knowing ahead of time some of the things i should be doing and things i need to avoid.

Brett Siler · Post by **Brett Siler** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 2:58 pm

Metal is a hard genre to record/mix. Everything is over the top, processed, and in your face (for the most part).

Do you have a drum replacer of some sort. That might be a quick solution of you for your troubles.

I honestly don't think the drums sound bad really. They have a sort natural feel to them as in not everthing is is EQ'd to hell. I might even just go with that if the band likes it.

I actually have been thinking about get an SX or Agile guitar. I have heard nothing but good things about them.

cyantologist · Post by **cyantologist** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 3:35 pm

i could just imagine the look on the repair guy's face when my freind brings in a $117 guitar and asks him to calibrate it for drop a tuning. he also has an agile les paul style guitar. and it's actually pretty nice.

numberrr · Post by **numberrr** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 5:40 pm

sounds rad!

things i would do in a second, that are totally subjective: bring the cymbols down a good notch or 2. compress the drums. COMPRESS. probably in parallel to the open mix. probably compress the entire mix a bit too. a bit

the vocals sound rad. i love it when that style of vocal actually sounds natural. i wish i could do that

cyantologist · Post by **cyantologist** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 8:49 pm

numberrr wrote:sounds rad!

things i would do in a second, that are totally subjective: bring the cymbols down a good notch or 2. compress the drums. COMPRESS. probably in parallel to the open mix. probably compress the entire mix a bit too. a bit

the vocals sound rad. i love it when that style of vocal actually sounds natural. i wish i could do that

Thanks!

I do have the drums going to a buss where they get squashed. I think they just need some more tinkering. Agree about the cymbals. Maybe I just need to take down the overheads a bit.

As for the vocals, they were pretty easy. I'll tell you exactly what I did to them. It's 2 tracks. I put an sm57 (with pop shield) pretty much right in front of the vocalist, maybe a foot away. Then I set up a rode nt-2 behind the 57, so that it was about two feet away from the guy and about a foot above his head. Then I angled it down at about a 45 degree angle towards him.

For the mix, the sm57 track got just a little compression and eq. I actually just used the "dynamics" plug that comes with cubase and put it at 3:1. Eq is just rolling off some low end and boosting around 500hz or so. The track with the nt2 gets similar compression and eq, but i also used the "datube" distortion plug that comes with cubase. The nt2 track is the main one youre hearing, and then the sm57 is just a few dbs under it. Both are pretty quiet in the mix though compared to guitars and drums. I sent just a little of each track to a reverb channel too. (using the realverb pro plug on my UAD card). And there's your vocals. The condensor for the pissed, the 57 for the natural.

Dave Stanley · Post by **Dave Stanley** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 11:13 am

I'm not into this genre of music at all, but it sounds good.
But really needs more kick drum. I can sort of feel it but cant really hear it very well. Maybe try and eq up the high mids for a little more click. Maybe compress w/ a slow attack to let the transients thru and tame the boomy-ness.
And I agree the cymbals should come down too.
Guitars sound good for the song. Good demo man!

Z MINOR SOUND · Post by **Z MINOR SOUND** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 11:50 pm

As far as the kick goes, assuming you can use VST, download the free mda plugins and try the subsynth plugin on the kick. It allows you to Trigger and blend a 60 hz tone that adds as much low end as you want on the kick. Play with the settings until it doesn't sound like an 808 anymore.

You might dip out some 250hz with a narrow q too.

cyantologist · Post by **cyantologist** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 1:27 pm

So it's been a while because I had to move, but just in case anyone wanted to hear, I've got a mix that I think I'm pretty happy with. Still might play with the kick and maybe lower the overheads, but it's pretty decent right now.

http://imnotsilent.hypermart.net/dave/S ... ng%203.mp3

Brett Siler · Post by **Brett Siler** » Sun Jul 29, 2007 3:36 am

I think the guitars and vocals sound great! Very agressive and big sounding. You did a really good job on that. I definitely think you need more kick, maybe the toms a little also. I could totally see the drums having more space or room in them, but if you have too much cymbals in the room mic you probably don't want to turn it up too loud. Maybe just try putting some verb or the snare.

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check it. doom metal, ex black dahlia murder

check it. doom metal, ex black dahlia murder

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