Daylight Dies' "Dismantling Devotion"

[Morgan C]

With the bumping of the Jens Bogren thread I thought I'd post this. Imo its his best work, guitars are massively fat and the drums..

Anyone got any details on how the drums were done? The kick and toms are so fat, the snare is crisp (albeit a little thin in comparison). Especially the cymbals stand out to me.. the crashes sound like they're 40" wide being beaten with tree trunks by a gorilla - THAT big.

 

[Aaron Smith]

Egan tracked most, if not all of it. He's said some stuff on here in the past, but I can't recall the details. I'm sure he'll chime in! I think all the clean guitars are a POD, if I remember correctly.

Post #1000

 

[MetalJonesy]

totally OT but i thought id chime in on my post #1000 too

 

[Metaltastic]

Yeah, Jens just mixed it, but you of course can't polish a turd, so I'm sure the tracking played a big part in the awesome sound of the end result! And I gotta say, I love that guitar tone, and it's a Peavey Ultra cab with stock speakers!

 

[KeithTidd]

i believe there was a thread about it. Jens added/replaced the drums with some of his samples, if i'm recalling correctly.

 

[JeffTD]

Egan said that Jens most definitely replaced the drums on it, but Jens has some magic touch on OH's that I just can't figure out, and that's where a lot of the sound comes from IMO.

As far as guitar tones, it was a 5150II and XXX into a Peavey MS cab w/Sheffields, 57/e609 combo, in a home-made iso box that was big enough to fit the cabinet. Foam all around it, and cab on an Auralex Great GRAMMA. Cleans were POD, Acoustic was a Taylor.

 

[egan.]

Jens did a tremendous job for us on that. I think everything posted so far has been correct.

I think the toms are real but the kick/snare are definitely replaced. I put up a lot of mics on that session b/c I wanted Jens to have plenty to work with. As you can probably imagine that was a pretty intimidating situation to be in. I do recall that we mentioned the low-end a lot when we were talking about the mix we wanted. IIRC we had all just gotten Ghost Reveries and while I think that record sounds quite good, we wanted to make sure we got more lows all around (but particularly on the kit).
I certainly agree that Jens' work with cymbals is amazing. IMHO TGCD is an even better example of just what he's capable of there.

Here are some pics of the kit:

e 602 on the kick, 57 snare, 421's on the rack toms, re20 on the floor, sm81 on hats, mc102 on china, 414 on ride, c451's on the crashes, and tlm103's on the wide OH's.

 

[Metaltastic]

Wow dude, that's a crapload of mics, but as you say, it gave Jens plenty to work with, and it's not like it's too hard to just mute the ones that don't work! What's with all the tape on the snare though?

 

[egan.]

Wow dude, that's a crapload of mics, but as you say, it gave Jens plenty to work with, and it's not like it's too hard to just mute the ones that don't work! What's with all the tape on the snare though?

Jesse hates to have any kind of note ring so he mutes it. Basically you get the attack but you have a really fast decay-- all of the transient with very little note.

 

[Metaltastic]

Hey, no argument here, I fucking DESPISE a ringy snare, cuz it's so rare that they're tuned right! (though the snare sound on Children of Bodom's "Are You Dead Yet" is a very rare but awesome exception). And I guess those muting rings are too prone to "rattling" around?

 

[egan.]

The rings don't mute to the degree that the tape does. Moongel would probably be the 'real' solution but duct tape works fine and is readily available.

 

[Metaltastic]

Can't argue with that!

 

[Aaron Smith]

I completely sympathize with the "no ringing notes in the snare" idea. I've found that a lot of drummers get a little argumentative when I start messing with moon gels or some form of dampening, like I'm messing things up for them somehow, and I always have to try to convey to them how it translates to the microphone. There have even been times where in the drum room, the dampening sounds like just a little too much, but when I hear the mic, it sounds great!

Thanks for the pics Egan...I think I've seen these a while back, but it's cool to see them again. I'm a fan of the RE20 on the floor!

 

[Erkan]

Yeah, being a drummer AND a home studio technician (haha labeling ftw!), I can see both sides of the story at the same time. As a drummer, I love to have a snare that interacts instead of just going "plump" and that's it. I often enjoy slightly detuned snares for the variation of sound from one hit to another, but of course I'm not talking about a elementary school type of snare sound

But hey, when you are in the studio to record, there is only one thing that matters and that's the sound. Why else would you be in a studio to record instead of throwing up some mics at home and recording, right? So whatever the technician says, is the laaaaaaaw (and no, you are NOT going to "breaking the law" on that one)!

 

[Morgan C]

e 604 on the kick, 57 snare, 421's on the rack toms, re20 on the floor, sm81 on hats, mc102 on china, 414 on ride, c451's on the crashes, and tlm103's on the wide OH's.

Wow, thank you very much! No room mics then?

I think the toms are real but the kick/snare are definitely replaced. I put up a lot of mics on that session b/c I wanted Jens to have plenty to work with. As you can probably imagine that was a pretty intimidating situation to be in. I do recall that we mentioned the low-end a lot when we were talking about the mix we wanted. IIRC we had all just gotten Ghost Reveries and while I think that record sounds quite good, we wanted to make sure we got more lows all around (but particularly on the kit).
I certainly agree that Jens' work with cymbals is amazing. IMHO TGCD is an even better example of just what he's capable of there.

yeah I knew the kick was replaced and thought the snare was too. As for the low-end.. I was just comparing this to one of my mixes yesterday and the thing that stood out the most was the massive low-end on the kick, its insane. I agree that Ghost Reveries sounds a little thin and 'toy-like'.

I dunno what Jens does with the cymbals but its working. I'll check out TGCD again but that always seemed like a very small (but well-mixed) album to me, but not as bad as Ghost Reveries.


Thanks for the comments.. I can now say I've talked to someone from one of my favourite bands ^^

 

[egan.]

Thanks for the interest. I didn't have any room mics because I was out of inputs into PT honestly (13 mics, 2 triggers, and scratch guitar). For LttL I did things differently and had a mono room mic.

 

[JeffTD]

That micing of the cymbal pairs explains so much... I was wondering how the splashes sounded so fucking wide when he's got them right there!

 

[egan.]

That micing of the cymbal pairs explains so much... I was wondering how the splashes sounded so fucking wide when he's got them right there!

Yeah, and that was quite intentional. If I were to actually represent the kit with regular OHs all of the crashes would be very centered except when the hit the china which wouldn't have been nearly as cool IMO. I'm definitely beholden to the "cool" over the "accurate" for this type of recording.