My band... death/thrash metal from PERU!

DURBANS

Member
Feb 2, 2005
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Hello again... as I promised...

Well, im posting this to let you know about my band and how we recorded this stuff. First of all, a little background. We're from Peru (south america), we started playing as a band around 4 years ago, I play guitar around 8 years ago. Our style started as a more Pantera-oriented slow groove stuff, morphing then to thrash a-la Exodus/Annihilator and finally we found our way, and we play somehow of a death metal mixed with thrash and black metal elements (little black metal...). Our style now it's kinda like what Arch Enemy does, but with a bit more Carcass and a bit more Morbid Angel in it. We tuned down from E to C... as well.

Im the lead singer and rhythm guitarrist. We have, bass, drums and the lead guitarrist, who only recorded some of the leads on these mp3's, I do all guitars and some leads as well.

My gear is the following: Gibson Gothic V with EMG's (85 neck, 81 bridge), Randall RH100 head and cabinet (soon to be a 6505 full stack, some day :) ), Boss "vintage" NF-2 Noise Gate (japanese), BOSS AC-2 Acoustic Simulator and a Boss SD-1 Super Overdrive. I also own a crappy little Crate 20 watt combo (my first amp).

My recording setup is real amateur and basic. I have a PC, Windows XP, 512 RAM, 80 GB Hard drive, Pentium 4 1Ghz. I use a Sound Blaster Live 5.1 card, Cakewalk Pro Audio 8 (yes... 8) and a crappy little mic worth 1 dollar, the one that came with the pc. Okay, I hope you don't stop reading since you read this thinking my demo sucks big time, you'll be amazed guys. Well, I will be buying an M-Audio card, Behringer small mixer and a Shure 57 next month so we can record the cd. Oh, and I will start using Cakewalk Sonar then, I have it, but it scares me... hehehe.

Now, the Randall half stack is in my room upstairs and Im real lazy to carry it down to where the PC is, so... guess what, I used my Crate combo. Yeah, I mixed the amps overdrive with a little SD-1, and placed the Noise Gate there. I recorded 4 rhythm guitars tracks, 2 panned left and 2 panned right, actually, this is how they're done: on Cakewalk 127 and 0 are both edges of the stereo spectrum. 1 guitar is on 119 and the other on 112, while the other two are 8 and 15. The guitars at the outer sides have the original EQ of the recording, while the center ones were EQ'd with Cakewalk, taking out some mids and adding some highs. Solo's are on the center of the spectrum (64) and sometimes I doubled the solo and panning both takes a little left and a little right and moving one of them a little forward to create natural delay (62 and 66, for example). I use lots of delay for leads. On some of the mp3's there is one on the right and one on the left (Slayer...). The little amp was mic'd with the crappy mic, placed there with some tape...

Bass was recorded using an Ibanez SR500, through a custom made amp (same circuit as some SWR, can't remember model) and it was mic'd with the crappy mic. The amp had a BOSS ME-30 guitar fx processor, using the compressor and eq. It's panned a little off-center, (60). Now vocals were as well done using the mic, I holded it with my hand as I sung. On some part I double the vocals (on the grunting vocals parts, and those are on the center of the spectrum) and on the screaming, black metal ones, I used one take and panned each right and left, added delay, reverb, etc. vocals where treated with Cakewalk's compressor. Drums are MIDI, done with Cakewalk, using creative Sounfonts, to be specific for those who ever used this, are Acoustic Kits 1&2 for the snare and the bass drum, Motown Kit for cymbals and Hi-Hats and Sonic Implants for the China and the fading cymbal rolls.

Anyway, enough talk. Here is the music. There are 3 tracks on mp3 (128kbit) on Audiostreet. My band is called CATENAS (means "chains", in latin). The first song, Captain Howdy, is baed on the novel "The Exorcist", and yes, I used sound samples from the movie. That's the only song up there with bass in it, the other two have no bass yet. Some leads are missing (you won't really notice) but hey, I really really want you guys to hear this! Please! hehehe. I'd reccomend downloading all 3, but if you only want 1, then get Captain Howdy. Prison Of The Free is another favourite, and Intrinsic Alchemy is very good too. Oh I forgot, for the clean guitars on Captain Howdy, I used the amp's clean channel, with some reverb (amp) and chorus (cakewalk). The crappy acoustic guitars on the background of the clean part are done with my BOSS AC-2 Acoustic Simulator, panned hard left and right, clean is around the center. The warm low-gain solo on that part is just the SD-1 through the clean channel with lots of cakewalk delay in it.

Here they are:

CATENAS on Audiostreet
(Right click on "mp3" and then "save target as")
 
Man I listened to Captain Howdy, it is all good... Good sound ideas, I like the vocals, but the guitar sound is incredibly thin... I understand your conditions, but next time use your Randall.
 
Thank you very much, jsut keep in mind its a demo, done with a shitty mic and crappy amp, but sounds "allright" to me due to the demo and crappy equipment situation... ehehe
 
Anyone interested? Im very proud of this and I will really like more opinions. Andy?
 
The songs are ok, it's been done a million times but hey, why not. The sound quality is just really bad. That is probably one of the worst guitar tones I've ever heard. The drum programming is worse. I would suggest using the Randall next time. I know you're proud of it, but I also know you can mix those songs better than that. Just listen to it... What can you do to improve it? A great deal. Go for it.
 
Thanks guys. The guitars and vocals where recorded on my pc with a crappy mic and a crappy program. Drums will be replaced by a metronome click for the drummer to record real drums in a studio, and the drums you hear are just for having a basic idea. I posted this not to hear the sound quality (I know it sucks), I did this for you guys to check on the music and well, I did this demo with the same mic you have a voice conference on msn...

I will be re-recording everything once we have the real drums recorded. I'm getting an M-Audio card, a Behringer mixer and 2 mics, an sm57 and sm58.

Oh, when I get the things I mentioned, I will use the Randall but mainly a friend's 5150, we will mix some of the Randall with the 5150. I didn't use the Randall yet since, well, it's just the demo for the drummer to record and just to lay down the music.