Extreme/Tech metal - Drum & Guitar tone help

GoofPig

Ur Friendly Bitch Piglet
Feb 15, 2004
268
0
16
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Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Hey guys;

This is my first real sneap post so hooray.
But anway I'll cut to the chase.

While my other band Empyrean (http://www.myspace.com/EmpyreanBand) is taking some time off to write - i've gotten together with a mate of mine who plays drums and started a techy/extreme/noisy/whatever band for shits and giggles.

Theres a demo on here:
http://www.myspace.com/TheSchoenbergAutomaton

It was my first mix and I know it's not the best; I just wanted some suggestions on how to stop the drums sounding like they are destroying the universe during the blast beats and fast kick sections, but still have them sound GOOD.

Drums are my AD preset.

Guitars are Parker Fly Mojo in Drop D > interface > TSS > TSE X30 > lecab with recabinet > lpf and hpf and thats it really.
All done to a click, edited yes, but no half time recordings

Any thoughts on how i could maybe "thicken" up the tone? Or will bass do that for me?

Still very very new to all this. Thanks heaps. :)
 
Might be more appropriate in the "rate my mix"section, but its all good.

I LOVE the song. haha. It is really fun to listen to and brings a smile to my face. The mix sounds pretty decent. No real glaring problems. At least, not to me, but I am far from a pro. haha
 
jesus thats come crazy clean guitar playing. Like cloy 26 said, its sounds pretty decent. There are no harsh frequencys or anything that i can point out. But wow, the guitar playing..... lol
 
:) Cheers for the response guys!
Maybe I'm being a little too hard on myself, the mix will open up a bit more with bass and vocals. Hmm. Ah well, I'll just keep remixing it and trying until I'm happy.

Suggestions for a style of vocals? I was thinking something pretty raw and nuts such as meshuggah, at the gates, or psyopus

Erkan;
For sure! It's definitely on the cards - the other songs in the works are pretty similar, one's a little more groovy but still very spasmodic.
 
The guitar playing dude... Its incredible! So clean and fast! you can hear every note so well! I thought that the drums were a little muddy to me, like the kicks and snare got muddy when things got fast. I like the song though dude, its awesome!
 
Thanks heaps for the kind words guys!

Here is the mix from myspace
http://www.box.net/shared/6yro6ilh3c

And here a new one:
http://www.box.net/shared/piv73qfohm

I used APTrigga to blend in some of the very good samples from this board.
I also replaced TSS with SoloC as a boost and just mucked around with the tones a little.
Still no Bass and vocals.
I might do up a ghetto bass track at some point.

I quickly ran GClip on the way out to make it louder and consequently, the reverse sub drop at the start distorts a little - I'll fix that shit up later (didn't include this one the wav file below though)

Does someone want to have a go at vocals?
I'll post up the links when they have been uploaded.
 
Sounds cool dude, fucking great playing.
I think a bass will help it alot, but please not just some "playing along to the guitar" stuff :D
The guitar sound is nice, those really harsh "mutes" fit the style very well, even if it's a bit hard for me.
 
Did you program the drums, or were they recorded and replaced? or what?

part of the problem is that imo the drums have no dynamics. the kicks are machine-guns and the snare is the same velocity every hit.
 
Programmed good sir - haha.
Straight from guitar pro; ran it past the drummer, then edited to trigger the correct drum in AD

I agree though - having them the same velocity has made them sound very machine-gun like.
is there a way to randomize velocities between a certain range? or will i need to get the new slate vst to do that?
or am I going to have to do that shit manually because that would be a fucking nightmare.
 
Programmed good sir - haha.
Straight from guitar pro; ran it past the drummer, then edited to trigger the correct drum in AD

I agree though - having them the same velocity has made them sound very machine-gun like.
is there a way to randomize velocities between a certain range? or will i need to get the new slate vst to do that?
or am I going to have to do that shit manually because that would be a fucking nightmare.

it'd probably have to be done in the midi map. I don't know how slate/ad works but I'm guessing you'd have to edit everything by hand (at least in reaper - other DAWs may vary.)

I don't know if slate/ad has two kick drums but the metal foundry (sd2) does. what I do, on double bass sections, is trigger both the left and the right kick (going RLRLRLRLRL for straight 8th/16th patterns). that makes it sound less machine-gunish.

the snare, however, would have to be done manually (editing the velocity of every note). it's a bitch but it'll pay off because it will sound more real.
 
it'd probably have to be done in the midi map. I don't know how slate/ad works but I'm guessing you'd have to edit everything by hand (at least in reaper - other DAWs may vary.)

I don't know if slate/ad has two kick drums but the metal foundry (sd2) does. what I do, on double bass sections, is trigger both the left and the right kick (going RLRLRLRLRL for straight 8th/16th patterns). that makes it sound less machine-gunish.

the snare, however, would have to be done manually (editing the velocity of every note). it's a bitch but it'll pay off because it will sound more real.
There's like 3 or 4 snare (center) notes, so you can do the same thing you (and I) do with the bass drum for the snare drum. Also each tom has 2 notes. If you check on the Reaper stash I've submitted some superior drummer 2: the metal foundry drummaps for Reaper with all this stuff I'm mentioning.
 
Ahhh!

I think AD has only 1 multisampled kick but 2 or 3 different snares.
So I might take some of the sample advice on this forum and what I might do for the kick since its a blend of a sampled kick and the AD kick, is create a new wav of the sampled kick but pitch shift it by a tiny bit to change the tone and have APTrigga trigger them in succession.

For the snares, I might do the same.

user_GarethSE suggested I use a low shelf at 200hz on the kick to remove some of the unnecessary bass.
Will make the amendments and throw another version up tonight.

So no one wants a go at vocals!?!? come on!!
 
There's like 3 or 4 snare (center) notes, so you can do the same thing you (and I) do with the bass drum for the snare drum. Also each tom has 2 notes. If you check on the Reaper stash I've submitted some superior drummer 2: the metal foundry drummaps for Reaper with all this stuff I'm mentioning.

The problem I have with drum maps for Reaper is that I program my drums almost exclusively in Guitarpro. So a new drum map would mean I'd have to reprogram everything in Reaper (or reallocate the notes), yes?
 
you can humanize all notes at the same time in Reaper, or if you only want to humanize the
kick drum for example, just right click the key in the midi map, all the notes will be selected
and than you can humanize just these notes (just select "selected notes" in the humanize menu).
That's the way I do it all the time. I think you can something like this in Cubase, too.