Love Nile, hate their production?

[GarethSE]

Same here.
The production (primarily the overly scooped guitars) completely spoil my enjoyment of their music.

So today, I thought I'd have a play with an EQ and see if I could a preset I liked for Nile.
I ended up sort of semi-re-mixing the entire Annihilation Of The Wicked album.
Just with the tracks ripped onto my hard drive from the CD, Wavearts Trackplug 5 and Multidynamics.

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=601208&songID=6783108

I'm extremely happy with this personally. I know it's not a real mix, but getting this sound took a hell of a lot of tinkering about.
Anyone wants screenshots of the EQ and my (rather strange) order of exporting and re-importing and presets and all of that, ask and ye shall recieve.

 

[Unavailable]

Bad link.

 

[Chryst Krispies]

Dude Annihilation's production is the best they have ever had. If you wanna remix an album of theirs, do Black Seeds.

 

[Unavailable]

Copied and pasted the link, still says it's bad.

 

[GarethSE]

Fixed the link.
And yeah it's the best production they've ever had, but it still disrupts my enjoyment of the album. When a bad mix stops me from hearing what the guitarists are playing, somethings fucked up.
And besides, it's not a remix. It's just a really OTT EQ + Multiband Comp of the tracks ripped straight from my copy of the CD.
And best Nile production or not, it's just a poor mix. SERIOUSLY poor. There's no reason they should have poor mixes just because they're fairly obscure. There's a lot of guys on here who churn out professional sounding mixes from their bedrooms with very little equipment.
If a 17 year old guy like me can afford an SM57, AKG Perception 200, a cheap tube preamp, a cheap USB interface, Nuendo and some plugins and churn out semi-pro level mixes, why can't Nile? It depresses me that such an awesome band end up with shitty mixes.

Link's fixed now though!

 

[Unavailable]

Link's fixed now though!

Lol, not for me.

 

[Chryst Krispies]

Didn't Neil Kernon work on this album??
He's hardly a n00b. I like his work. I think Nile wanted to have a raw sounding brutal album and I actually think the production works with them on this album...some of the others I wasn't feelin but this one is my favorite.

 

[KeithTidd]

Fixed the link.

And best Nile production or not, it's just a poor mix. SERIOUSLY poor. There's no reason they should have poor mixes just because they're fairly obscure. There's a lot of guys on here who churn out professional sounding mixes from their bedrooms with very little equipment.
If a 17 year old guy like me can afford an SM57, AKG Perception 200, a cheap tube preamp, a cheap USB interface, Nuendo and some plugins and churn out semi-pro level mixes, why can't Nile? It depresses me that such an awesome band end up with shitty mixes.

Link's fixed now though!

them's fightin' words.

I think you should have your ears checked if you think thats a poor mix, general consensus is that it's fantastic (that includes me thinking that). The guitars may not be your thing, but they work for the production and they fit in the mix, not to mention they sound gargantuan. You're allowed to not like the guitars, but i think you're mistaken saying the entire mix is poor.

ps. Post your recordings and we can compare them to AOTW.

 

[Jaymz]

they sound gargantuan.

Isnt that due to the fact the guy tracks 8 guitars or something? lol :Smokin:

 

[Chryst Krispies]

Just quad tracked. It's on Noise101 or whatever.....there's an assload of info on the album. I think that the guitar sound is fuckin awesome.
The intro to Sebek is like some seriously gross shite haha.

 

[Ermz]

The production to 'Annihilation of the Wicked' is fantastic, and manages to be clean and modern, whilst still carrying across the band's essence without homogenizing their sound. Ask these apparent 17yr old mixing geniuses whether they're capable of doing the same.

If you're going to rag on their production, that's your perogative, but at least have some tact when it comes to a production belonging to someone who visits these forums regularly.

On behalf of the folk who are cringing right about now, sorry Neil K.

 

[Jaymz]

Im sure I heard somewhere there was a stupid amount of guitar layers....might not have been for the albums in question. To be fair im not up on my Nile catalog, but I see where X is coming from.

Infact take no notice of me...I think ive gotten them mixed up with Hate Eternal with the 8 tracks of guitar...

 

[GarethSE]

I don't see how Annihilation Of The Wicked and "clean" can be mentioned in the same sentance for some reason. The performances are tight. TIGHT. Nile are sick players, but everything's so deep and dense, it all just mushes together for me. I have trouble making out what they're playing for a lot of the album. I just think it's a shame that Nile has such terrific guitar players, yet a lot of what they play ends up being somewhat buried in the mix.
The performances are all very clean and tight, but their tone lets them down. My ears are probably mega adjusted to albums with a fuck load of 2khz grind on guitars, and everything generally having much more high end. I've gone from listening to a lot metalcore recently (for working on production) and now I've jumped from mega overproduced stuff to Nile as I prepare myself for seeing them Sept 19th
Bit of a system shock production wise.

And, I apolagise, I was definately letting my cockyness get the best of my with that earlier post, I can admit that.

And to the guy asking me to post mixes: I've posted one on this board before, not too long ago. And I'm working on my old bands EP at the minute which we're working on post-humously to release as a free download, and I'll put those mixes up here when we're finished with it, which ins't too far off at all.
I'm not saying that I can capture a bands essence like the best of the best do. There's no denying that whoever produced this (forgot his name, 2 days without sleep, my brain is mush and I can't even be bothered to scroll down to check, apolagies,) captured Nile's essence. What he did fail to capture was a present, in your face guitar tone. But the scooped mids are a Nile thing, and something I've never understood in general. I get along with scooped mids like I get along with cider, which really is pretty fockin badly.
It's a fairly guitar dominant mix too, and I hear a lot of mush, BUT THAT'S JUST ME. A bit of 1.5khz would have been delicious, but ah well.

The snare doesn't do much for me on this album either, but that's down to a personal preference thing.

Fantastic isn't a word I'm going to use to describe this album's production any time soon, at least stock. But I do have a file I bounced earlier where I tinkered with the sound MUCH less and focused on bringing out the guitars a tad more. I have no idea whether it's doing much for me though. I've been up for 2 days, like I said. My brain is mush. I think it's time for me to go and sleep on whether I'm digging this more "responsibly" eq'd sound. I really have no idea at the minute haha

Once again, sorry for the cockyness.

 

[Unavailable]

Thanks for uploading it on soundclick.

I like both yours and the original in their own ways.

 

[Metaltastic]

I can't listen now, but I'll just say that I fucking HATE HATE HATE HHHAAAAATTTEEE their guitar tones, and "Annihilation" is no exception (and I'm willing to admit that some tones work for some bands/albums, see "Stabbing the Drama," but IMO Nile's tone is inexcusable). I daresay the rest of the production is quite exemplary, though.

 

[gibbed]

OP: Your mix sounds noticeably worse to me. I ask this a lot, but what is your monitoring setup?

 

[Djabthrash]

I really love "annihilation of the wicked" and think the production is perfect and is really representative of the "Nile sound". You said you hated the snare... i love the snare.

I'm not a huge fan of the guitar sound itself though, but it works well in the mix and it's part of Nile signature sound. Those guys are tight players as you said but i think this quite scooped/gainy/fat guitar tone, with tons of "groomph" while palm-muting (which is the opposite of the surgical tight low gain ENGL tone for instance) IS Nile's signature sound.
I prefer more in your face guitar sounds also and would be curious to hear how a Nile album would sound with a very in your face and tight guitar sound, but still i think the guitar sound on AOTW fits well.

 

[GarethSE]

OP: Your mix sounds noticeably worse to me. I ask this a lot, but what is your monitoring setup?

Some pretty shitty speakers. They're Skytec, I couldn't find a website anywhere that listed the set of speakers that I have, I got them a few years ago, so they're obviously an outdated model.

Less than ideal tbh. I really can't afford decent monitors. My income barely gets me through the week.

 

[GarethSE]

I really love "annihilation of the wicked" and think the production is perfect and is really representative of the "Nile sound". You said you hated the snare... i love the snare.

I'm not a huge fan of the guitar sound itself though, but it works well in the mix and it's part of Nile signature sound. Those guys are tight players as you said but i think this quite scooped/gainy/fat guitar tone, with tons of "groomph" while palm-muting (which is the opposite of the surgical tight low gain ENGL tone for instance) IS Nile's signature sound.
I prefer more in your face guitar sounds also and would be curious to hear how a Nile album would sound with a very in your face and tight guitar sound, but still i think the guitar sound on AOTW fits well.

Yeah, the whole gainy/fat part of the tone is great. And the "grooomph" onomatopaeia (spelling? haha) you use to describe the palm mutes is spot on, and quite pleasing to the ears, but its the lack of mids.
Not only do I dislike the sound of scooped mids, but I have a sort of.. I don't know.. A moral stance against them? Nobody completely scoops the mids out of a vocal sound (maybe cuts here and there, but never an in your face LOL IM SCOOPED kind of sound,) so why is it so accepted for guitars?
The production on the album, IMHO, would be ten times better if there was just a bit more mid-range in the sound.

 

[STINNETT]

Some pretty shitty speakers. They're Skytec, I couldn't find a website anywhere that listed the set of speakers that I have, I got them a few years ago, so they're obviously an outdated model.

Less than ideal tbh. I really can't afford decent monitors. My income barely gets me through the week.

Well, then maybe the original mix is alot better than you think.


I think the guitars are pretty good on that album because they're so unmercifully heavy. I think that is what Nile is supposed to sound like.

The only thing that bothers me about that album is that I have to strain to hear the snare drum and even the kick at times, they ocasionally just disappear into the mix. I'd like to hear that album with them both cranked up a few db, but when you can hear them clearly they sound killer.

I think I liked the drum produciton on "Shrines" but I liked the guitars better on "AOTW"