First Black Metal session.

[Deadtide.com]

Fair enough, good answer. I like your attitude, man.

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And I like Moltar

[trodden]

Trodden, Wormwood kills! If you produced that stuff, maybe you can be the one that finally answers my prayer of "please, someone make a black metal album that sounds as organic, honest and earthy as Neurosis"....

Good stuff, man ~

Hey thank you very much. Neurosis has been a major influence, well mostly silver and blood and enemy of the sun era, along with Isis (Oceanic is fucking amazing), Bloodlet, Damad... The MP3's on our web page is from our first full length recorded 4 years ago. Since then, we gained a different drummer that was amazing, but had to let him go about a month ago due to personal conflicts. So once again here we are, released 3 different singles over the past year, got some songs ready to put down for another full length and we have to get another skin beater up to par. We decided to go the route of having a good friend, cool person, who's into the music, can play alot of instruments, but not that great on the drums quite yet step in. We feel at the age we are, and how the band works together, time and practice will get him up to the level we need and we're willing to invest in him due to his personal character and drive. If you are interested i can send you a link to more recent mp3's of limited/unreleased material.

I borrowed some Old Man's Child along with a few other bands that slip my mind (Catamagoria???) and were listening to them last night while working on another mix. Amazing. I really wish i could get my kick to stick out like that with all the low end but top definition as well. I struggle with that and just don't like triggering a drum box.

The bass has a very very narrow frequency band.... it just sat in there in a limited range.

toms and oh's are wide as all fuck.

finally a project where the vocalists won't get pissed when they "hear" the reverb.

cant' wait!

[NewAndImprov]

I'm kind of out os touch with the Metal scene these days, but about 10 years ago I did some session work for a Metal band that was recording at Dogfish in Portland, with Drew Canulette (anybody remember Drew? He was an amazing engineer. Haven't heard from him for years though).

Anyway, this band had an absolutely killer drummer, and Drew did something really interesting with the mix. They doubled/tripled all the guitar tracks, and then kind of mixed the guitars further back than you might think on a metal disc. Panned the guitars out really wide, and used a lot of reverb to make the guitars kind of a bed that everything else sat against. Then he put the drums, vocals, and lead guitars way upfront. It made for a really interesting record, sounded huge, very dynamic, and pretty unique.

[Family Hoof]

Sounds like everything's been covered and I'm in envy. I would love to record a black or death metal band one of these days. That stuff's part of my roots! \\m//

One other suggestion = you're going to need all the low end space you can get so high pass the cymbals, rhythm gtr, the rack toms, and anything else that doesn't need sub freqs. Maybe even the bass at 40Hz or so. They're not going to want to natural overhead sounds anyway and I know I'm always surprised to see all the low end energy on overheads and such through a scope. You can't always hear it but it's eating headroom none the less.

Good luck trodden! You're really going to deserve the title of 'balance engineer' on this project. BLACK F**KING METAL!!!

[djgout]

Listen to Nasum's (grindcore, not black metal, but a good drum balance & sound for the style) "Helvete" album for some better recorded blastbeat stuff. |<|>|

FUCK YEAH TO NASUM!!!!!! (sorry i've been on a Nasum kick lately, i'm wearing one of their shirts right now......)

[jellisnyc]

First off, I'd like to say that I'm definitely with muxlow on this one. As I read through the first page of posts I was getting annoyed. Not because I'm a huge black metal nerd... But because I remember being seventeen and going into the studio with my metal/hardcore band. We really wanted a good recording so went into a decent studio (which will remain nameless) and dropped some cash.

To make a long story short... the engineer didn't really give a shit about what we were doing it ended up sounding like it. It can be very frustrating for a band like this that doesn't know much about production - and having an engineer that doesn't take you seriously. It was quite a learning experience and prompted me to learn how to record.

That being said... The most difficult part of recording metal bands is getting the drums right. I've found that it's best to close mic everything - including the cymbals - so that you can gate the snare/kick/toms and send them to something like an Aleisis DM5 and trigger samples. Another trick I often hear in extreme metal is to run the triggered MIDI information into a sampler (like reason) and get some really huge kick/snare sounds. Mix those with the original. It can really make the drums sound fucking huge.

Another important thing - have the guitarist plug-in into a Boss Noise Suppressor first - before any other FX pedals. I've found this to be pretty essential, as it doesn't sound too hot trying to gate it after it comes screaming out of the amp.

When it comes to metal/fucked-up vocal effects... I've had great results compressing the track to the point of distortion. You might have to line-up a couple compressors depending on what you've got. It's an opportunity to experiment with distortion.

Good luck with it.

[djgout]

for everyone who's gotten really defensive about the intricacies of all the sub-genre's of metal just keep your pants on. we're just poking fun at stuff we obviously care quite a bit about. it's all in good fun. if we didn't know about how uptight people can get about the subgenre's it wouldn't be nearly as much fun to joke around about them.

i don't believe any offense was intended on anyones part...

[djgout]

hey JELLISNYC , i checked out your bands website. pretty killer stuff. I just worked with a band you guys might wanna check out as well. i know they'd love to have you guys come play a show at their house here in boston. the band's name is dial m for murder check out their site

http://www.dialm.cjb.net

i think you'll atleast dig the music

[trodden]

for everyone who's gotten really defensive about the intricacies of all the sub-genre's of metal just keep your pants on. we're just poking fun at stuff we obviously care quite a bit about. it's all in good fun. if we didn't know about how uptight people can get about the subgenre's it wouldn't be nearly as much fun to joke around about them.

i don't believe any offense was intended on anyones part...

totally keep your pants on people. I listen to metal, play metal, and take every one of my sessions seriously. This (engineering) is a part time gig for me, i choose my projects just as much as they choose me.

Family Hoof.
thanks for the tips, much appreciated!!! i'm mixing down a grind/thrash (think The Locust meets Charles Bronson flirting with some fist in the air metal) project this week, before starting the black metal band, and yeah, chopped everthing below 100 on those OH, sucked out some mids as well. to allow room for the double kick, who is eating up alot of space. Two guitar tracks cut at 80 and the bass just hanging in there to round it out, there isn't an actual bassplayer in this band, guitarist recorded some to round it out, seriously though, i can make it pretty fucking thick without it. I'm still dealing with some low end issues though. everything evens out when i strap a high pass on the mix buss at 60. but i'd rather get it to mix within the mix rather than cheating.

[kdarr]

Oh man I love Charles Bronson.

How come nobody ever talks about Spazz anymore? They ruled.

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[trodden]

Oh man I love Charles Bronson.

How come nobody ever talks about Spazz anymore? They ruled.

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hell yeah they did.

[Rick Hunter]

My little brothe made me a spazz tape. Its in my glove box, maybe I will give it a listen.

[syrupcore]

I agree about the sample triggering. if you can, it's useful. not to replace the rums but you can use it to add some meat. kind of makes me feel all wrong on the inside though.

as thorough an explanation about recording heavy guitars as one is likely to find....
http://recpit.prosoundweb.com/viewtopic ... =&start=15

this is only the first part. search for author 'slipperman' keywords 'heavy guitar' and the other installments should come up.

will

[Brett Siler]

Damn there is some good shit on this post.

I just got finished recording this death metal band and they recorded in 3 other studios before me and I was the first to take them seriously. Thats pretty shitty. I don't see why studios would treat thier clients like shit like that. Oh well they liked me some much they are gonna come back in the future. They even offered to take me out to eat on them! ha

[Family Hoof]

The first and last time I had a band that recorded at someone else's studio was when I played bass in an Iron Maiden-style metal outfit. No, they did NOT take us seriously. The demo sucked and I wanted to know why. It motivated me to learn more about recording and here I am. That studio's now out of business.

BTW, if you put together everything Slipperman wrote on those few threads it really could be a book. Truly a worthwhile read and his sense of humor makes it highly entertaining as well.