Legend (Rise Records) "Proven"

Hey Seth!! :D

As far as the vocals go, I just had the vocalist use a hand-held AE3300 with an M-Audio Sputnik in the room to pick up some of the live ambiance. With most of the music I record, I'm very opposed to using hand-helds, but their style isn't about clarity - it's all about gross brutality, so some muddy, inconsistencies are more than welcome and add to the character.

Also, we did 90% of the vocals on the very first take. Again, it adds to a live flow and sounds more like one thought, as opposed to 20 .

After that, I used some super simple Reaper compression and a little delay. When it comes to vocals, there is no $500,000 vocal chain that can hold a candle to a good old fashioned stellar performance. Focus on the later and you'll save yourself a fortune and end up with an infinitely better sounding record as well.
 
Thanks for all the feedback, guys! There's still a few things I'm not 100% satisfied with... like everything, lol! But when we do the new record, I'll do some more tweaks to the overall sound.
 
Mesa Dual Rec stack with an sm57 and an i5 on it. The tone was super muddy at drop A tuning with 70 gauge strings on an ESP Xtone, but that's kinda what I wanted - a really chunky, and almost bad sounding tone. Like, to point where it just sounded gross. Lot of EQ to carve and shape the sound. Quad tracked all the rhythms. You can only convey so much heaviness with a clean sounding distortion, so with a band like Legend, I'm not afraid to start with something that sounds pretty bad - dissonance and heaviness are close relatives, and as much as I love a clean sounding heavy band, too many productions go overboard with the polish, and it ends up sounding like an old Wurlitzer run through a Metal Zone pedal



Lifeless... and a little creepy :ill:
 
Last edited by a moderator:
RandomAwesome said:
Thanks, Josh! I dig your work man! I don't think I've heard a record as precise-sounding as the new Within The Ruins - ridiculous, haha :)
Click to expand...

Thanks so much!

I really dig your work as well and can't wait to hear what you do next! Glad to see you posting here and feel free to hit me up if you ever want to chat.
 
Thanks man, I really appreciate that.

I'm pretty excited about these new Battlecross tracks we've been doing. I'll have to post some mixes once we get some vocals down, but I'm suuuuuper excited about the very warm, natural sound to the tracks - like an updated version of older thrash/tech albums from the mid-late 90s. Think Death meets Lamb of God, haha.

You have anything in the works you can share at the moment?
 
I am loving the fuck out of this! What was the vocal processing bro? =D

And Josh, HI! Hit me up once in a while asshole!
 
Thanks bud!

Here's what I posted about the vocal processing:

As far as the vocals go, I just had the vocalist use a hand-held AE3300 with an M-Audio Sputnik in the room to pick up some of the live ambiance. With most of the music I record, I'm very opposed to using hand-helds, but their style isn't about clarity - it's all about gross brutality, so some muddy, inconsistencies are more than welcome and add to the character.

Also, we did 90% of the vocals on the very first take. Again, it adds to a live flow and sounds more like one thought, as opposed to 20 .

After that, I used some super simple Reaper compression and a little delay. When it comes to vocals, there is no $500,000 vocal chain that can hold a candle to a good old fashioned stellar performance. Focus on the later and you'll save yourself a fortune and end up with an infinitely better sounding record as well.
 
Do you generally like the AE3300? And what do you think of the Sputnik? We have one at my work and I'm sure I can get it super cheap....

Cheers!
Charles J
 
I'm going to keep one where I track drums and mod it out to play metal. Throw in a couple of 8string guitars in there, a lil SSD, some wheels on the bottom and it will start touring with Sumerian bands in 3 months. *drum fill (sample replaced)*
 
The AE3300 is an awesome handheld condenser. You gotta let the vocalist know how to handle it so as not to block off too much sound, but it's a great mic.

The Sputnik is another incredible mic. By far the most sensitive mic I've ever used and perhaps one of the most sensitive large diaphragm condensers you can get. First day I got it I put headphones on and could not believe how much of the room reflection it was picking up! I was in my tracking room, but it sounded like I was in an empty wooden garage. My wife ripped a piece of toilet paper in the next room and it was RIGHT in my ears. Unbelievable how much that thing picks up. That said, you most definitely need a well treated vocal booth if you're going to use it - it doesn't discriminate the way an sm7b will, it grabs frequencies even if you just think about them!
 
All live, no sampling for cymbals or most of the kit for that matter. You can see a cut right at the end of the clip where one of the cymbals doesn't line up - that's where we started another take on the drums.

I recorded his snare again after this take by itself with 8 mics on it to really give it a broad, beefy sound. I layered in that sample in post and did the same thing with the kick, but mostly just to keep the lowend consistent. All the highend you hear on the kick is from the live takes, which adds some cool character to the slappiness - more dynamic and unpredictable this way, and it follows more accurately how a drummer will kick harder during certain parts of a song.
 
Nice. Josh do you have a snake that you use or something? Or just really long mic cables? haha
 
I didn't know exactly where I wanted to record the drums, so I just moved my rig into the garage :guh:

I've only done it on a couple of albums so far, but I love love loooove, how my garage sounds for drum tracking. Absolutely no artificial reverbs or delays of any kind on those drums - just the live reflections in that room, either brought forward or pushed back when I need them. It really helps keep riding cymbals alive and consistent.
 
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