Well, for starters I know that Dan uses CUBASE for both MAC & PC.
Otherwise, here is a compilation of various tidbits I gathered from interviews - absolutely essetial stuff for any beginner metal producers like myself:
MOONTOWER:
Drums where recorded to a clicktrack (tough shit).
It took me 18 days to execute everything from the clicktracks to the final mix.
Most of the keyboards were recorded during the demo recordings of the tracks and just enhanced a bit for the actual takes.
The synths were JP8000/JP8080 with the "Dual Minis" patch, all I did was change the filter a little bit.
The reason why that sound is everywhere is that it started out as a substitute sound for "other stuff" like guitarleads, other keyboardsounds etc.
but when I tried to replace it, it just sounded worse.
I knew it was a radical thing to use that sound to such an extent, but I wanted it to be a trademark just like Clive Nolans sawleads on the early Arena and some of the Pendragon albums.
From now on that sound is a "Moontower" lead...that's it.
I have copied it in Novation softsynth called V-Station.
Open Lead in Pro52 VST works well too, but the modulation sucks.
INFESTDEAD "Hellfuck":
I recorded the album in a very inspiring way.
First I plugged my 7 string guitar and the 5 string bass (the more strings the better!!) through a magic Korg Distortion pedal and a graphic Equalizer directly into the soundcard of a Mac G3.
Then I started a click track in Cubase VST and started to jam with the beep until I found a cool riff.
I recorded that for like 8 bars and added a second guitar playing the same shit and the bass. I named it "Riff 1".
I made like 5 more riffs in the same tempo and then I added a like 10 bpm to the tempo and went for another round of riffs until I had 50 riffs with 2 guitars and bass.
Later on I invited a good friend of mine called Kekko to help me to sort out the drum patterns for each riff.
I hooked up a Roland JV1080 using the excellent Bass & Drums expansion board for the most realistic drum samples known to mankind. We messed around with various beats to the riffs and kept them all.
Once I had finished the drum programming for all the tiny pieces of music I started to patch them together.
Cut, copy, and paste all night long!
After a while a song started to emerge.
It's also very easy to make new riffs out of the ones you've already recorded. You simply take the middle part and loop it four times or you can cut it up in eight pieces and swap them around for the ultimate variation.
When that was done I sent Dread a tape and he added the vocal patterns to it as well and the blasphemous lyrics.
And yet another Infestdead record was made!!
Technology rocks!!!
If only Steve Jobs knew!!!
EDGE OF SANITY "Crimson":
Crimson was done using a Fostex E16 multitrack with Dolby C, a Soundcraft Spirit for the recording and a Yamaha ProMix01 for the mixing.
I also used external gear like a BBE Maximizer & an Alesis Midiverb 4.
The monitors were a Genelec 1030.
I was playing an Ibanez guitar with a metalzone & a samson poweramp thru a vintage 4x12 Marshall.
I was tuned DADADE (low to high) - a tuning I invented by mistake while I was tuning up a new guitar that I had just bought from Mr. Akerfeldt!!
I just happened to write the Nightfall Overture riff and the rest is history.
All guitars on the first 2 Nightingale CD's have that tuning (Except for Steal the Moon and Gypsy Eyes which have either normal tuning or a very very bizarre open tuning) and Crimson 1 is the Dsus tuning all the way thru.
Dread and Sami are tuned A.
They used a Fender guitar with EMG81 thru a metalzone into a battered old Yamaha 1x12 combo.
Sami's guitar is left-panned, dreads is right-panned, & Swano is found in the middle.
The bass on the record is actually just a four string tuned D.
I think we DI'd it.
EDGE OF SANITY "Crimson II":
Crimson II was recorded using a Mac 867 with a 1ghz UAD card (for audio and Reason 2,5), and a 2.4ghz PC with TRILOGY for software bass -
I used a 5 string "modern" samplebank that's like 74 MB pr something.
I am allergic to uneven low frequency response, and I am a really crappy and lazy bassplayer, so software gave me just what I needed.
There's no real bass on The Breathing Shadow (1st Nightingale) either.
The guitars were recorded with a Pod XT thru an Aphex valve EQ and lots of FreeFilter.
I Nicked the guitar EQ off some old track I had lyring around and it improved it 145%!!
for the main loudness curve of the mix, I liked the soundquality of new Korn album, so I stole that & the quality of all instruments really got up a notch!!!
I record the guitar dry and apply the amphead and speaker emulation later using Izotope "Trash", which enables me to tweak the guitars after it's recorded!!!
Also I used a MicroKorg and a Korg 01W/pro master keyboard.
For mics I used an AKG C1000 & a Beyer DT150.
The software UAD LA2 and the WAVES DeEsser is perfect for the type of vocals that I like to record.
Software that I uses was Cubase 5.1 in Mac OS 9.2.1.
The drumtrack was recorded on a Drumkat which is a device with 10 small pads on it and a real kickdrum pedal attached to a minikickdrum.
I sampled the drums myself in various velocities but also many similar shots and then I use a sampleplayer (NNXT) to switch between various similar samples in random to emulate a real drum that never sounds the same twice.
I tried to play instead of programming, because this is where most bands with a drummachine fails.
They make it too good.
If the sound is flawless and separated and every drumhit is exactly 100% on the beat, it sounds like a machine.
I recorded the drums just as if I would have with a realkit and tried to cheat (perfect) my takes as little as possible to make it sound like the real thing.
Simon and Mike recorded direct with a Digitech Gnx2 which I think sounds a bit off.
I don't like the lead sound on their guitars, but since I wasn't there to shape the sound, it was impossible to rescue with EQ, I tried everything...
I would say it is an average production. It was mixed using software only and in headphones and that sometimes explain the vocals being lost in the mix.
Writing and Recording at the same time and being just one person means that one of the duties will suffer and in my case it's always been the production.
But I don't think it stands in the way of the music.
an album like Crimson or Crimson 2, if youd have the production like the new DIMMU BORGIR [Death Cult Armageddon], it wouldnt work as good as it does with the old dusty crappy production we have, because it melts together.
The picture of an old Italian Zombie-movie shouldnt be the latest updated super cool picture, you know what I mean? It should be that old, boring quality, almost like the video, copied-too-many-times-quality. It enhances the thing.
But sometimes the production can get away in the music.
But I try to avoid that.
I am not really trying too hard to make it sound perfect, because it takes too much time.
EDGE OF SANITY Demos:
Some of the remasterings on the Evolution CD are just too fucking weird!
I had this poor cassette copy and I just transferred it into digital.
I took the sound from Spiritual Healing by DEATH and morphed it with the sound from the cassette.
It sounded exactly super.
A totally weird thing, like science fiction.
You can really do this.
Theres some real analytic software that you bring life into really horrible recordings.
And I took the time to really do it perfectly to the EDGE OF SANITY demos.
BLOODBATH "Breeding Death":
I recorded my drums at 9:00 in the morning on a Tuesday right after coming from the dentist.
The first time we recorded it, we were having some kind of death metal party!
We were listening to UNLEASHED demos in the kitchen and drinking a lot of beer.
The second time we recorded it was very boring.
The first session was classic to all of us.
I erased it from the hard drive. Theres nothing left!
That was one of the more horrible phone calls Ive had to make.
Well guys, the magic we just did, I erased it.
And they're like Yeah! Ha ha! When are you going to send us a copy?
No, serious, I erased it! Its not there.
All the tracks are gone! This total silence.
Youll have to come over here, Ill pay your bus money,
just come over here and do it one more time. Please.
And right at the time Id bugged them so hard to make it the best take,
No, thats a bit out of synch, thats a bit out of synch, and just kept doing it, maximum takes, it was extremely good. And I erased it.
They came back here a few months later, I had recorded the drums before they showed up, and we just redid it.
Like recording the album after we did the demo.
There was no actual magic in the air when we recorded what you have on CD.
But there was something special when we first recorded and wrote the tracks for that erased session. None of us had done death metal for quite some time.
At least not in that style, anyway.
We were just bursting with that youth Stockholm 89 energy, you know?
Blasted out these songs! It was really nice.
I hadnt played those kinds of drums for ages.
I got tired all the time!
BLOODBATH "Resurrection Thru Carnage":
I'm doing the BLOODBATH demos here in my workshop, and I'm whispering into this really fancy microphone with this really fancy equipment.
It's brutal as fuck! I sound like David Vincent!
It turns out to be the most evil death metal vocals ever, it's really cool.
The Boss HM-2 pedal is a part of the Entombed (Bloodbath...) style sound.
Let it collide with either another pedal or the built in distortion in your amp.
I used a Boss HM-2 straight into Digitech GNX2 then I free filtered with a sample from Entombed's left hand path album.
The whole mix got a bash of At The Gates 'slaughter of the soul' which sounds fine and agressive.
I programmed all the drums to use when we recorded the real takes of guitars, bass and vocals.
Then I erased all the programming except for the bassdrum!!
I tuned up (or tuned down) a $15,000 Premier Signia kit with Paiste Signature cymbals (and some incredibly junky hihat cymbals that was broken beyond belief) and miked it all up.
I played everything but the bassdrums to a clicktrack.
The kick sound is the classic "Spiked" from Alesis D4, used on 70% of all my productions in the 90's.
The only working triggerkicksound from that machine...
When I came home I realized that I didn't play tight enough so I cut up all the snareparts in recycle and quantized the audio and then I rerecorded all the cymbals!!!
