Composing brutal death

[Hammer of Might]

I am trying to write some death metal, and I am trying to go for the more brutal style. So far a lot of my stuff is pretty focused on melody, and while I still want to keep this the case, I want to try and write some proper brutal stuff.

I'm not an amazing guitar player by any means, but any tips to achieving the more aggressive, insane, brutal type of stuff would be much appreciated.

Thanks a lot.

 

[SpiritCrusherBTR]

Vibrato your ass off, man! Really, death is very speed oriented. Even when you go for a solo that slow may be very melodic, just try to speed it up. Also, just the tempo's and shit. If you try to get that really gallopy feel to it and stuff like that. A lot of times it also isn't speed it could just be the riffs themselves. I write a lot of thrashy stuff and I have a lot of straight up very ehavy riffs and so on, but I also do a lot of melodic stuff to get in there too.

 

[Hammer of Might]

yeah, my stuff seems pretty thrashy, and I try to implement speed where possible.

I understand that many extreme metal guitar parts rely heavily on 'tremolo picking' and I have a fague understanding of what this is. Does it help with fast riffs? As I understand you have to grip the pick tightly and shake your hand/arm really fast - a bit vague as you see!

Thanks for the advice so far though, that's useful!

 

[Leper_/-\ffinity]

Tremolo picking is just hitting the note ir chord as many times as you can, and as fast as you can, to give off a constantly ringing note/chord.

 

[SpiritCrusherBTR]

Yes, tremelo is immensly important in this type of music. You almost never hear a thrash/death metal song without it, to be honest (except Gothenburg stuff). Really, it's not your arm that should be moving, but just your wrist. It takes tons and tons of practice to get it right. First start off by doing it slow and making sure you get clear definitions going up and down. Don't rush and try to do it fast and have it be shitty with missing the string and so on. It takes a while to get it very fast, but keep progressing with speed, don't go faster until you can perfect it at the speed level your doing it at. After a while you get faster and faster and pretty much once you develop it, it's pretty easy. Patience is important there though, Haha!

 

[-Gavin-]

tune down...


cannibal corpse manage in Eb but for safetys sake, go to C or B....



Work around Chromatic riffs, just...justen to Cannibal corpse

Remember, a lot of the time, the vocals define the style, look at "gallery of suicide"

Slow guitars but it sounds brutual cause of the growls.

 

[Pita Bread]

No need to tune down, I can do brutal stuff in E standard. Brutality is best achieved by a tight, focused attack of guitar, bass, and drums. A guitar alone won't sound as brutal. Don't scoop out the mids either, otherwise you lose punch.

Tremolo picking is basically alternate picking done quickly, I do it by vibrating my wrist continuously. If you want a more brutal sound, then palm mute the tremolo picked notes, maybe even tremolo pick whole power chords if you can manage it.

 

[Leper_/-\ffinity]

Yeah dude, dont tune down, if standard tuning isnt brutal enough for you, you=teh ghey (to sum it up).

Like someone else said, use chromatics, and I personally throw in Pinch harmonics into brutal chromatic riffs to give them a groove.

 

[Hammer of Might]

Erm...he..he..what are chromatics?

*cowers*

I said I wasn't much good! I presume they're just a type of scale, right? And yes I can do pinch harmonics.

 

[Hammer of Might]

P.S. a useful site would be much appreciated

 

[Leper_/-\ffinity]

Crap, I couldn't give you a site, but chromatics is just playing notes without skipping any notes, so like fret by fret, crap, I dont know how to explain it. Just go search google for chromatic excercises, and you will see.

 

[-Gavin-]

-1-2-3-4


That kidna shit.

 

[Hammer of Might]

Yeah I get it, I found some examples. I wasn't very aware that these were used, but I wasn't really listening for them specifically before.

 

[Opus(sy)2]

I write the guitar parts for my brutal death band, i have my guitars tuned to D. I have a nice high gain 'tight sounding' tone, with quite a bit of mid, about '4' on the bass, to make it sound bigger, then just past half way on the treble. Nice to have a bit of delay also for some kick back. To me, it's all about how big the sound is. I use tremelo picking a lot, and corpse style speed picking...pinched harmonics are great to use.

 

[Hammer of Might]

Yeah, I think the guitar tone is absolutely vital, as well as technique.

More advice about achieving a good death tone would be very welcome!

I only have err...a Zoom 505 pedal and 15 watt peavey amp! So that might be an issue! haha

But nonetheless I'd love to get the most brutal tone possible with what I've got. I can' really tell how good my current sound is to be honest. I tune to a C or D, and have pretty much full whack bass with half treble...maybe it should be more trebly?

 

[Generation_Speedkill]

E Chromatic Scale

E F F# G G# A A# B C C# D D#

 

[-Gavin-]

rutal tone possible with what I've got. I can' really tell how good my current sound is to be honest. I tune to a C or D, and have pretty much full whack bass with half treble...maybe it should be more trebly?

Try boosting treble to 10, Bass to 6 mid to 3.

 

[Episteme]

Well, Brutal Death has alot to do with the vocals and drums especially. I'm probably not the best person to answer how to write brutal death bits...although my band does include very few brutal death bits in our music just for contrast.

Learn scales such as the Diminished, Augmented, Melodic Minor, Harmonic Minor, Chromatic and even exotic scales. It does help alot. Play around with alot of disharmony sounding progressions as that is what Death Metal is about to me. Lots and lots of disharmony arranged in tight rhythm and structure to sound awesome. I would direct you to a site but I don't know any.

You don't need to tune down or suck the mids out of your tone. Have enough mids for a punch.

 

[-Gavin-]

lol, i just hate mids.

 

[Leper_/-\ffinity]

lol, i just hate mids.

Well, then you must not play with a band, because when you are in a small little room with a drummer and a bassist banging and slapping away, mids are your best friend. I just LURVE mids!!!!! I used to play with all that scooped tone, but now I go back to some of my old tones, and I just can't fucking stand them, it just sounds so weak...