Blackened death metal mix/song, critiques?

ParsonsMatt

Alas, Tyranny
Nov 15, 2006
2,124
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Athens, GA
www.myspace.com
Hey guys,

Here's a black/death metal song I wrote for my new CD...

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1161830/A,T defeat novoxhalf newdrums.mp3

Guitars (used my Edwards, EMG 85 bridge) are a blend of LeXTAC and TSE X30, drums are Superior 2.0 and SSD EX, bass is a shitload of random plugins (needs new strings and EMG J pickups!), choirs are EW Voices of the Apocalypse. Mastering is ferox+gclip+reacomp+gclip+Antress Modern Limiter.

I think the toms are a bit quiet... (EDIT: Fixed a few things, brought the toms up) And the playing is definitely pretty sloppy.

The guitar part stops at around 4:00, the remaining bit is just drums and choir. Feel free to listen to it if you want, but you can definitely turn it off there :lol:

Thoughts?
 
You can definitely do the choirs much better. Add some tiny bit reverb and some delay, for starters. Another thing is to record the midi yourself, do it harmony by harmony if you got some massive chords going on. It'll sound much better that way.

Guitars are bit overgained imo. But the drums sounds great and some cool riffs in it for sure.
 
Drums sound great, although I dont like the snare, compared to the rest of the kit it sounds dull and flat in the mix. Just a tad to much gain for the guitars in the slower parts, alot of gruffy sounds from playing. I hear alot going on with the bass at some parts, and maybe some automation to bring that out during those parts. BTW ive heard alot of you through Lodge and Michael down here in albany, keep it up! And dont play Valhalla again with that girl >.>
 
Gonna wanna sort something out with the intro gtrs, the panning is a bit weird/distracting IMO - maybe have it start out center? Sounds like a 2nd guitar comes in that's panned hard left as well.

Those first choir parts that come in are PAINFULLY cheesy and sound a bit out of time... but the patch itself is laughably cheesy.

Need to work on velocities of the drums, particularly the cymbals. The drums sound super dead/dry - no real space/room to them.

Guitar tone isn't bad but is overly gained and a bit bright/edgy for my tastes. The playing also needs to be tightened up quite a bit in spots or at least edited tighter.