Metal Foundry can't sound good by itself? O rly?

[Morgan C]

I used NSGuitar's stems from here for this song.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/324723/Endeavor2.mp3

Pretty much everyone complains about Metal Foundry and not being able to extract a usable sound from it.. probably because most people are used to working with Slate or whatever that's already been processed to hell and back to get it sounding good.

This uses Metal Foundry and just Metal Foundry, no external samples whatsoever. I started with the "Bully" preset, and kept all of the internal processing (with a few EQ changes). I changed the kick, put Slate VCC on all the tracks, and used some transient designer on the snare.
The main thing that helps getting the snare nice and thick is sending the mono room tracks to ONLY the snare, and compressing that to hell and back.

No you won't get a hi-fi, Slate sound from it. Yes, you can get a damn good drum sound from it, especially if you augment the snare/kick with samples.

 

[onqel]

Yeah right...
Well, those drums sounded pretty damn good to me!

 

[Redoubt9000]

TMF had a track record like that? I'm dicking about unawares it seems

 

[sexan]

for educational purpose can you post the preset ?

 

[AEL89]

This mix is close to being very cool but it's really uninteresting. No dynamics and no punch whatsoever. The drum tones are cool but get them pumping and use a shit ton of parallel compression to get some distortion in there too. If you automated those guitars, vocals (as well as the FX) and overheads it would sound much, much better. At the moment everything is just on one level. You've done a great job making MF sound good though!

 

[Nuno Filipe]

This seems to be clipping like hell

 

[Morgan C]

for educational purpose can you post the preset ?

Sure, I'll do that later today.

This mix is close to being very cool but it's really uninteresting. No dynamics and no punch whatsoever. The drum tones are cool but get them pumping and use a shit ton of parallel compression to get some distortion in there too. If you automated those guitars, vocals (as well as the FX) and overheads it would sound much, much better. At the moment everything is just on one level. You've done a great job making MF sound good though!

Thanks. I spent a total of like half an hour on this mix, I'll come back to it when I have time.

This seems to be clipping like hell

It might be a little loud, there's also distortion on the vocals. I'll take a look later.

 

[TheWinterSnow]

You can get a good sound out of metal foundry. However, the raw sources are not the most impressive so even if you got a good sound, it could be better. My band's songs and demos are all done with MF and its a killer result, however due to the natural quality of the samples, I don't think they fit the best with the sound we are looking for. I have one word for the overall sound of MF...brassy. No matter how hard you try you can't completely get away from it either, especially in the cymbals and snares without scooping too much mids and making things shrill and harsh with no body. The toms on MF are its weakest point though, out of tune, dull, lifeless, no sustain. If I where to be mixing a band that needed a more In Flames kind of sound MF would be my go to, it has that trashy character to it, but just doesn't completely cut it when it comes to a more polished sound.

Regardless, if you can't utilize a mix of the Avatar, MF, MM and SDD 3.5 and get a radio ready mix, you fail at life.

 

[sexan]

Bumpily Morgan

 

[Morgan C]

You can get a good sound out of metal foundry. However, the raw sources are not the most impressive so even if you got a good sound, it could be better. My band's songs and demos are all done with MF and its a killer result, however due to the natural quality of the samples, I don't think they fit the best with the sound we are looking for. I have one word for the overall sound of MF...brassy. No matter how hard you try you can't completely get away from it either, especially in the cymbals and snares without scooping too much mids and making things shrill and harsh with no body. The toms on MF are its weakest point though, out of tune, dull, lifeless, no sustain. If I where to be mixing a band that needed a more In Flames kind of sound MF would be my go to, it has that trashy character to it, but just doesn't completely cut it when it comes to a more polished sound.

Regardless, if you can't utilize a mix of the Avatar, MF, MM and SDD 3.5 and get a radio ready mix, you fail at life.

I love Metal Foundry's cymbals, and I often use the toms by themselves. I'm not a big fan of fat, boomy toms like Slate or whatever, these toms are really nice. Add a bit extra room from samples I made myself, and I've got a killer tom sound. If I do want more hi-fi sound, I can blend in Chimaira toms.
I usually do replace the kick/snare though, most mixes aren't as trashy as this.

Bumpily Morgan

Sorry, I forgot.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/324723/EndeavorMFPreset.s20
From there, I've got Slate VCC on all the 6 outs. A bit more processing:

• Kick track: EQ scooping some mids around 500hz, a slight cut around 3khz, and high shelf boost at 7khz.
• Snare track: Just SPL Transient Designer increasing the sustain.
• Toms: midcut, but they don't sound great.. they're hit like twice in the whole song so I didn't bother.
• Cymbals: cut at 150hz, TP Basslane making everything <150hz mono (kick, snare lowend, etc)
• Room: EQ cut at 1.5khz
• Verb: no

thing
All sent to a drum bus with some compression.

 

[sexan]

Thank you!