Melodic death/doom genre

[Jiskariot]

Hello everyone, first time poster long time lurker.

Thing that has always bothered me, is the lack of production tutorials for death/doom or even funeral doom genres. I know it's not so popular as modern Djent or Metalcore stuff, but there has to be someone who is working with this stuff as well in these forums.

I guess the mixing approach is quite a bit different for slow riffs and sustained leads than what it would be for 180bpm death metal.

Some examples just to name a few:

Swallow the sun
Saturnus
Doom:vs
Daylight dies
Shape of despair

Been looking all over, but there is no stems to practise mixing with this kind of music or no tutorials exist. Of course i cannot demand someone to get stems and make a video tutorial for me, but some pointers on how you would mix this kind of stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_SjhWUk1zQ

 

[DanLights]

There's quite a few fans of the genre here, myself included. Also, Egan from Daylight Dies is a regular poster and has given lots of info on their albums in a few threads, do a search. I don't really think there's the need for mixing tutorials on specific subgenres, all the tools and techniques can apply on different levels to what you're trying to do, I'd look at all kinds of videos/articles/etc. and try stuff out and try to see how it applies to what you're trying to do. Also, active listening is the key to figuring out the "classic" details that make a genre, by active I mean listening to arrangements, use of reverb, balance of instruments, low end etc etc.

My band is not nearly at the level of the ones you mentioned, but I've produced and mixed it all so if you like it and have any specific questions about the recording/mix/etc. I'll gladly help as much as I can. I can't really make a "tutorial" on how I've done it because I generally go with what I've got in every mix and don't have any "specific" way of going with it, although I do remember lots of "tricks" or ideas I applied to this album. You can listen to the album here, at the very least I hope you'll like the music cause it's strongly influenced by the bands mentioned in your post. https://adintra.bandcamp.com/

 

[rapucore]

Maybe I should fire up Cubase and do a few Rapucore Mix Practices again as I ran out of time and focus when I promised to do them more frequently.

I'd be glad to do a funeral doom one AFTER the next one as I've actually started to write and demo a song already.

 

[Terminus]

My band Sleepwalkers is melodic death/doom. I wouldn't say the approach to mixing is all that different than faster stuff, aside from more decay on reverbs and more sustain/gain in the guitars, at least from my personal experience. You can get away with less multisampled drums on the slow stuff, where it's really noticeable with fast metal if you're not using round-robin or plain multis for differing velocities.

 

[Deadstar]

I've been working with quite a few bands, I can ask if any of them are willing to share a multi. Mixing wise as the others said there are no shortcuts i'm afraid

 

[mva801]

Yeah Egan is on here and is super awesome about sharing info on his bands various records, which sound great.

As with any other genre, the way the mix comes out really hinges on the song and the players. I don't hear much trickery going on in that style, just a fair amount of ambience and tight playing. With slower passages that this type of music has, you need to be even more careful that your instruments are set up correctly and in tune. Can't go playing slow chords in Drop A with flabby strings and expect it to sound good.

I seem to remember a couple informative threads on Katatonia too. I think David Castillo has posted a bit.

Edit: This interview was posted here before, but is great and explains a bit of what he uses to get some atmosphere and stuff on the Katatonia records. Awesome read.

http://www.audiogear.it/interview-with-producer-david-castillo-katatonia-opeth-klimt1918/

 

[Jiskariot]

Thanks for the replies guys. @Danlights some great music you get there, thumbs up. @RapuCore As Funeral doom is in the blood of us Finns i would be interested to hear some of you mixes @mva801 Thanks for the article, interesting stuff there.

A bit of background, we are 3 guys doing an online project. Drummer sits in Florida doing his stuff with midi drums through superior drummer. Vocalist is at Australia and i take care of bass and guitar parts as well as mixing here in Finland. Couple of demos have been recorded and i think i have nailed the tones with rhythm, bass and drums. Lead guitar is a bit tricky as i have got used to play with modern smooth tones, but for this genre i think it needs a bit more character and grit, really love the Doom:vs lead tone.

I will most likely post some rough demo here so you guys can hear where i'm at and can give me insights on where to go next and what is lacking.

 

[MultiM]

There's multitracks in the practice room for Katatonia's song: Nowhere.
You can look for it, really great one.

 

[DanLights]

Oh yeah, the same guy who did the Nowhere cover, also did a My Dying Bride cover, "She Is The Dark", to which I recorded vocals and programmed keyboards. The tracks aren't that well recorded (guitars and bass a bit sloppy and midi drums are wrong compared to the original) but it's still great mixing practice to try out tones and general mixes for the style. You can search for it here. My mix with fixed midi drums and my vocals and keyboards is here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/954292/Music samples-stems/MDB - She is The Dark (Cover).mp3

P.S. I'm glad you liked the music, thanks for listening!

 

[mva801]

Here's that thread with the multis if interested:

http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/...n-nethermost-vocals-multitracks-included.html

 

[egan.]

To me the key to this style is managing layers. While slowing tempos opens up space, when you start stacking leads and/or cleans on rhythms with vocals you really have to work to make room for everything and not have it sound weak when it's just rhythm bass and drums.
One of the biggest things I learned from Jens is that panning buys you a lot and in a different way than EQ might. That might seem obvious but you really have to prioritize your content.
Beyond that, a lot of the sort of genre defining stuff comes from using lots of delay on vocals and leads and making the drums as big and reverberant as you can get away with.
Anyway, if there is some DD specific question I'd be happy to answer.

 

[DanLights]

To me the key to this style is managing layers. While slowing tempos opens up space, when you start stacking leads and/or cleans on rhythms with vocals you really have to work to make room for everything and not have it sound weak when it's just rhythm bass and drums.
One of the biggest things I learned from Jens is that panning buys you a lot and in a different way than EQ might. That might seem obvious but you really have to prioritize your content.
Beyond that, a lot of the sort of genre defining stuff comes from using lots of delay on vocals and leads and making the drums as big and reverberant as you can get away with.
Anyway, if there is some DD specific question I'd be happy to answer.

That's a good point, in a couple of songs on my band's album I used a sidchained compressor to bring down the rhythms 2 or 3db whenever the second layer of guitars came up (not leads, but a different part than the rhythm guitars), to maintain clarity while stealthily making sure things don't sound weak after that other layer of guitars stops.

 

[Jiskariot]

@Mike from Sleepwalkers, really like your music and it's even more impressive that it is a one man project apart from vocals, a big thumbs up for you.

Everyone else thanks for the tips and the stems.

My question this time is about a certain lead tone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_vJ-SYXDBU

Begins at 1:47.

How do you guys think this is recorded? It has such certain character on it that i have not been able to get even close. Is it a low gain one with some sort of fuzz pedal like big muff? Or is it perhaps double tracked or something.

Any guesses on the signal chain in DAW? What i do know is that it's recorded with 5150, LTD guitar with EMG 81 and boss-g8 multieffect, this of course could just be a rumour. What comes to cab i have no clue.

 

[Terminus]

@Mike from Sleepwalkers, really like your music and it's even more impressive that it is a one man project apart from vocals, a big thumbs up for you.

Thank you. I worked really hard on that stuff for three years before I put it out, so much appreciated to know people are enjoying it. I'm working on a full-length album right now so keep an eye out for that soon.