I've been doing the music thing on and off for a while and over this last 6 months I've really stepped up my game quite a bit. I just write and record my own stuff. My question is on say a production like Keith Merrow's latest album he does a lot of single note passages that I'm sure he double tracks at least but you don't hear even the slightest difference from left to right. Do they record a clean DI and edit it for extreme accuracy and then re amp it after to make it sound so perfect. Am I even on the right track here? Or is his single note stuff just tracked once? Thanks for any responses in advance.
Modern Metal Poduction Question?
- Thread starter Andrew S
- Start date
FrancescoFiligoi
Count Blastula
So is editing guitar DI's not really something to focus on but just playing everything perfect? I saw a video of someone editing shit perfect on the tube I've just never tried it cause I mainly just record an amp.
Vihaleipä
Member
Combination of both in the most cases, record the take as well as you possibly can and after that edit if you must.
So should I start recording a clean DI on everything whether it needs edited or not then re amp it later on? Is this a technique that modern producers do to get shit super tight?
Vihaleipä
Member
Pretty much like that, another alternative is to group the DI and the amped track and use the DI to edit both at the same time for a visual cue. Doing it that way can be cool if you don't want to reamp or do a lots of edits. Recording a DI in addition to the mic'd cabinet is always a good idea, doesn't hurt even if you don't end up using the DI at all.
H-evolve
Member
It's an interesting question that has been discussed a lot, but I was arguing about this just recently with some friends...
I agree that, taking Keith as an example, he's just playing extremely tight and not putting a shit ton of gain in his sound.
However, there are bands where it doesn't seem natural anymore. Perhaps I'm hallucinating, but I'd like having some of your opinions on this. For example, take the band Whispered.... Every note is just PERFECT, on all instruments, to a stage where it doesn't sound like a human being is playing the freakin music. Mors Principium Est comes also to mind when thinking about bands that almost feel unatural in terms of "tightness".
I mean don't get me wrong, I am sure the musicians of both those bands are great and really tight musicians. But I feel there is still a lot of editing done, cause when I compare to other musicians that I know are very tight (Jeff Loomis for instance, and Keith), it just doesn't sound that "fake". Don't you think?
But please feel free to bring in arguments that prove I am wrong and that they do not actually edit that much.
I agree that, taking Keith as an example, he's just playing extremely tight and not putting a shit ton of gain in his sound.
However, there are bands where it doesn't seem natural anymore. Perhaps I'm hallucinating, but I'd like having some of your opinions on this. For example, take the band Whispered.... Every note is just PERFECT, on all instruments, to a stage where it doesn't sound like a human being is playing the freakin music. Mors Principium Est comes also to mind when thinking about bands that almost feel unatural in terms of "tightness".
I mean don't get me wrong, I am sure the musicians of both those bands are great and really tight musicians. But I feel there is still a lot of editing done, cause when I compare to other musicians that I know are very tight (Jeff Loomis for instance, and Keith), it just doesn't sound that "fake". Don't you think?
But please feel free to bring in arguments that prove I am wrong and that they do not actually edit that much.
I totally agree with you Hugues, but I'll add a little something : I feel like a there is a trend headed towards more natural sounding records, with less editing/sampled drums, lately!
I think people are getting tired of the over the top quantized to death kick 10 snare 12a sound ah ah
Anyway, always track a DI, but play as well as you can, if you have the smallest doubt whether the performance is good enough or not it means it is not usually.
I think people are getting tired of the over the top quantized to death kick 10 snare 12a sound ah ah
Anyway, always track a DI, but play as well as you can, if you have the smallest doubt whether the performance is good enough or not it means it is not usually.
TRUIE
Member
Same here ! Thank you for pointing out this great band.
To add my 2 cents to the discussion, I'm not sure there is that much editing on guitars to produce that kind of sound.
To me, this modern approach is more something like ultra meticulous tracking with lot of punch ins / splitting. Play a part, even from a It produces something "perfect" but kinda unreal (with no fret noises, no weak hits before far notes...etc).
Check this thread :
http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/threads/so-you-want-a-tight-mix.550738/
The starting post was a screenshot with loats of punch ins everywhere, unfortunately deleted, but then there's a great debate about this tracking approach.
So in the end, it's more of a production choice : do you want "perfect" guitars, to the point they have literally not one single imprefection, or do you want to keep some
EDIT : to the OP, not sure Keith Merrow tracks like that tho, but I'm not very familiar with his stuff. Any audio example with these single notes stuff you're talking about ?
To add my 2 cents to the discussion, I'm not sure there is that much editing on guitars to produce that kind of sound.
To me, this modern approach is more something like ultra meticulous tracking with lot of punch ins / splitting. Play a part, even from a It produces something "perfect" but kinda unreal (with no fret noises, no weak hits before far notes...etc).
Check this thread :
http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/threads/so-you-want-a-tight-mix.550738/
The starting post was a screenshot with loats of punch ins everywhere, unfortunately deleted, but then there's a great debate about this tracking approach.
So in the end, it's more of a production choice : do you want "perfect" guitars, to the point they have literally not one single imprefection, or do you want to keep some
EDIT : to the OP, not sure Keith Merrow tracks like that tho, but I'm not very familiar with his stuff. Any audio example with these single notes stuff you're talking about ?
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from 1:07 on is what I'm talking about. Pretty complex single not runs on left and right.
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TRUIE
Member
We can still hear some humanity in this, so I believe he's just a very tight player with a strong and consistant right hand.
Check this video, they're both ridiculously tight, even on fast single notes stuff (like @ 1'28) :
Check this video, they're both ridiculously tight, even on fast single notes stuff (like @ 1'28) :
H-evolve
Member
Yes it's a great band! And by the way, I pointed them out and Mors Principium Est as perhaps being a bit over the top in terms of editing/too perfect production, but I do buy their albums! They still make great music and even though I mention it, I don't really have have big issue with the way they produce their albums.
H-evolve
Member
I agree, they are very tight, but as I was saying, it still sounds "human" to my ears. Unlike the very "worked" sound of MPE or Whispered.
For me, their way (Jeff and Keith) is the way to go.
TRUIE
Member
I totally agree.
But even with very good/tight players, some producers approach the tracking like I explained before (splitting riffs into small parts and punching in everywhere, playing as hard and tight as possible, then crossfading all chunks).
In the end, it's just another kind of sound / production choice (some good examples in the thread I posted), if you aim for ultra perfect / unreal machine sounding guitars.
On the thread I posted above, Jordan Valeriote explain how he did this approach on 2 songs/singles from an album, while the other tracks of this same album were recorded earlier the "normal" way.
As it's clearly showing what I'm talking about, here are some links.
One of the tracks with "perfect" guitars :
One track with normal "human" guitars :
From this post :
http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/threads/so-you-want-a-tight-mix.550738/page-8#post-8753841
But even with very good/tight players, some producers approach the tracking like I explained before (splitting riffs into small parts and punching in everywhere, playing as hard and tight as possible, then crossfading all chunks).
In the end, it's just another kind of sound / production choice (some good examples in the thread I posted), if you aim for ultra perfect / unreal machine sounding guitars.
On the thread I posted above, Jordan Valeriote explain how he did this approach on 2 songs/singles from an album, while the other tracks of this same album were recorded earlier the "normal" way.
As it's clearly showing what I'm talking about, here are some links.
One of the tracks with "perfect" guitars :
One track with normal "human" guitars :
From this post :
http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/threads/so-you-want-a-tight-mix.550738/page-8#post-8753841
H-evolve
Member
Very interesting thanks for the post, I'll look into this when I'm home, to be able to have proper headphones.
