Need feedback on the black metal project *sigh*

[Erkan]

Yo, whazzup homiezzzzZZZ!?? (Sorry, had to get away from the grimness of black metal... just had to.)

I started working on the mix template for the first part of some guy's black metal project which I probably have mentioned before. I'm not overly excited about this music but I must admit it's quite fun when things are starting to work out decently.

I want you to listen to the clip below and just tear it apart as you wish. I will try to take in as much feedback as possible and apply it to the mix, but I won't get overly enthusiastic, well atleast not if it makes the hourly wage drop below one can of soda per hour.

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/585020/wtfAWESOMEmix.mp3

My personal notes so far have been: Too loud or compressed toms, guitars too much in the background (add more highs or just raise volume or both), and perhaps some more bass in the bass guitar... but it IS black metal after all...

There's only a GClip on the 2-bus so far to avoid awesome clipping and shit, I haven't tried pushing up the volume with anything so far, but it is quite high for a rough mix... I sort of maxed out the individual channels but without clipping, and the GClip ensures the sum to not clip (too much), so it does have some volume. Compressors and EQs have been used so far, and an exciter on the OH/Cymbals and a little bit on the guitar group. The bass is distorted, but I'm not sure if it's making a big difference. He plays the bass like a fucking guitar, so that does certainly not help.

Oh and I had to play the drums on all 9 songs... awesome, he didn't have his own drummer and I suck balls at this stuff so, this is the product.

Aaaaaanyway, enough talk I think... just gimme some tips to improve this necro grim super rapist black metal mix And just to mention... I don't think the guy wants something overly produced sounding, so I'm trying to aim for something between the shitty black metal mixes, and the produced ones (oh boy do I wish I COULD make it sound produced or what?).

OH AND LAST THING! I have not used any reverb yet, even though the guy is like... "OMG MAKE SURE TO PUT REVERB ON EVERYTHING OK!????"


----- Version 2 ------

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/585020/wtfAWESOMEmix_v2.mp3

I have done a lot of tiny changes everywhere in the mix and I thought it was sounding much better... with tired ears, but now that I'm at home and listening, I can hear some clipping going on (I hope you can too, or something is wrong with my ears! ). But now I'm not so sure about the mix... I might need to make more tweaking.

Edit: Oh and there is now reverb on pretty much.... everything. I'm not a fan of using effects "just for the sake of it", so I tried to keep it as subtle as possible... but maybe this is why I feel like the mix is a bit "ruined", maybe it's just me not liking reverb on everything (haha). Well, this seems to be the way black metal is supposed to sound ... lots of reverb on everything... :| It's hard to make the reverb be heard, without cluttering everything up. It's one way or the other for me.


----- Version 3 ------

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/585020/wtfAWESOMEmix_v3.mp3

Forgot to link version 3, and can't be arsed digging up the "change log" for this version, but I linked it just in case anyone wants to listen to the progression between the versions! The info of what I've done etc can be found in the thread as you go.



----- Version 4 ------

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/585020/wtfAWESOMEmix_v4.mp3

Cleaned up the bass guitar a lot (mainly in the EQ, some more comp and less distortion, and mixed it slightly lower), got the snare to cut through more evenly and took a dB or two off of its body, brightened up the guitars and raised them slightly, brightened up the OH a bit and compressed it a little more with the attack aiming for more definition and raised it all up slightly.




----- Last Update: Done ------

The client sat with me and we finished some adjustments and stuff, and he got what he wanted, even though I think the snare is too loud and some other random stuff, but I don't care... I'm glad that this is over, black metal scrambles the insides of my head

Taste of main project: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/585020/what_is_this.mp3

Taste of his solo project (which was recorded and produced at the same time as the main project): http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/585020/what_is_this_other_project.mp3

I will post an update for those who are interested in his songs, when he gets a MySpace and lets me know. Then you will be able to check out his other stuff. Until then, this is all I can... or should give All in all, I guess I have learned a little something from this project, and it was all done with my awesome super expensive (sarcasm) recording gear which can be found in my sig. The guitars and bass was his own though... some Gibson guitar and some noname brand bass.

 

[Dylan S]

I think the drums sound good for this type of music. Normally the drums sound horrible in black metal...I mean REALLY horrible (as I'm sure you know).

Maybe the guitar tone is a little harsh, but again, it is black metal. I'd definitely raise the level of the guitars a tad. On second thought, it isn't as harsh as I first thought...its pretty neat.

Definitely one of the better black metal mixes I've heard. My friend listens to a lot of old black metal and it just sounds awful.

 

[xturbox]

yeah, reverb would be a good touch for atmosphere. sounds too clear for BM, but I like it as it is.

 

[KeithRT99]

details on the drums? I'm loving your drumming on this track. It's a shame you don't like black metal, because you rocked it hard.

 

[Dylan S]

details on the drums? I'm loving your drumming on this track. It's a shame you don't like black metal, because you rocked it hard.

I agree.

 

[Erkan]

Thanks for the kind words guys. I agree that the mix is maybe "too clean" for BM, but I think this is as far as I'll go when it comes to how clean it's going to get. I think I'll dirty things up a little bit with reverb, raise the guitars a little as pointed out, and then I might have a good mix template for the song.

Black metal requires so much endurance and speed, but unfortunately, I have stopped practising those routines since about 9 months ago. Partly because it took too much time and I had other things to see to, and partly because I never advanced even though I kept pushing like a maniac. Thanks for thinking I rocked it though hehe, but really, I wanted to play better. But I'm very anal about this stuff on the other hand... I'm never satisfied with my drumming unless I freakin' nail it so it sounds like it doesn't need ANY editing at all.

Details on the drums: They are unedited, but I have fiddled around with the kick on 2 parts but that's in some other song. The guy, or should I say my client, required some really fast double bass drumming which I just couldn't get tight or consistent enough, so I played only the kicks at a much slower tempo and just cut them to the grid. This is kinda awesome because if you play for as long as the part is supposed to be, you will get a unique kick on every hit after you edit it. It really helps with the realism.

The mics I used was a 57 on snare, 58 on snare bottom, and the kick, toms and OH are from that swedish brand JJLabs DK7 (it's a kit of mics). I can assure you, those mics are NOT fancy but they do sound alright (think they're like cheap copies of some industry standard mics). After that, I have pretty much multiband compressed every drum track and also an EQ on every track. The multiband was used to squish the bass of the tracks so I got some fatness, and the mids and highs were compressed a little milder but still significantly.


A bit closer detail:

Kick: Miced my Pearl Export bass drum at the hole, slightly on the inside, pointing towards the beaters. As usual, I didn't get a fat enough sound so I blended a sample over it, but I can't remember which one it is! It's a kick sample that was posted a long time ago, all the kicks are in one wave file so I cut 'em up manually, and there was also a very slight amount of reverb on it, baked into the wave file. The sample sounds pretty fat and has lots of attack, so it did the job very nicely. I kept the original kick and blended the sample to about equal power, so they both peak with the same power but the sample kick is heard better than the original kick due to the highs. My miced kick lacks any fatness so its purpose right now is to just bring some body and dynamics to the kick. Oh and I also used a blanket over the bass drum, it really did help taking out bleed and isolating it.

Sent both kicks to a kick group and compressed with multiband as mentioned above, and used EQ to scoop out 200-300 hz to leave some room for whatever excuse of a bass guitar that I might have in the mix. Also used the free plug Dominion to give it some more attack and to cut down the sustain so it doesn't keep ringing etc. There is some normal single band compression going on too, just to shape the sound slightly. The kicks did get some individual compression and EQ on their own tracks as well though, but not as strong as on the kick group track.

Snare: Individual tracks for top and bottom were processed with EQ, multiband and singleband, and then sent off to a snare group track. The snare top had an EQ to highpass from 140hz or so, scooped a little at 250hz or so, and I think that's it. After that, multiband to bring some fatness into it and shaping the highs. I think I used Dominion here too, to boost some attack and cut down a little on sustain. The snare bottom had a high pass at somewhere like 500hz.. I didn't see the point in keeping any low mids and bass on that track. It too, is compressed to sort of smear the mids out and fatten it up slightly.

Then it was sent off to snare group track, where another EQ waited with a high pass again, at 120hz or so, another slight scoop in the boxy 300 hz, and a little singleband compression to shape a little bit on the attack.

I also blended in a sample which is from the same person who posted the kick. This snare had very nice and fat attack, medium tuned, and pretty great smacky highs. It also had a bit of reverb in it already. Anyway, I didn't process this one much I think, probably only an EQ to high pass around 140 and a little compression to shape it slightly, and then it was sent to the snare group to get processed like the rest. This snare is blended kinda soft I think, it is a little bit under the other 2 snare tracks (top/bottom), so its purpuse is to just fill out and even it out a bit.

Toms: EQ was used for standard procedure really, highpassing the excess lows and scooping out some in the 300 hz area and boosting a bit on the highs 3-6k and then lowpass on 10k or so. Each tom had a slightly different EQ setting, to accomodate for the different fundamental tone in the drum. The highest tom had its highpass set at somewhere like 90hz, while the mid tom had somewhere like 80 and the lowest tom had 60 or so. As mentioned before, multibanding was used to compress the lows a lot to get it to go "boooooom". I might've overdone this, so I'll take another look at it. Anyway, there are no samples on the toms so it's just that really... medium-heavy compression and EQ. Oh and Dominion is on each tom track as well, it adds attack and once again, keeps the sustain down a little bit.

The OH: I'm not really sure if I'm happy with these but it is much better now than first... good thing I didn't post the first one. I thought the china was coming out really harsh so I used SPITFISH to try to calm it down but I just ended up making the OH very unclear, so I got rid of it and realized I probably don't need to change it... the china can be harsh, I'm not aiming for a nice soft funk mix here anyway. Anyway, there isn't a lot of stuff going on here, just an EQ to highpass 300hz and then surgically cutting out somewhere like 351 and 750 hz to get rid of the snare's two most powerful harmonics. I didn't sidechain the snare to the OH as I usually tend to do, to remove the snare from the OH. Nothing was done to the highs on the EQ. Then, it went to get processed a bit in multiband, squishing a bit, and then off to singleband compression to level it out a little more. An Exciter was also used to soften up the highs a little bit (sometimes it works so great, the cymbals sound really fluffy and awesome, but it didn't go quite THAT well on this project ).


Sorry for the long text... wow, it got longer than I thought!

 

[elmoe]

fookin great drum sound! I'm really not a big fan of black metal too, but this sounds awesome whoa wtf new smileys

 

[Erkan]

fookin great drum sound! I'm really not a big fan of black metal too, but this sounds awesome whoa wtf new smileys

Thank you sir

 

[mr.L.]

Too bad you're not into it yourself because I think it sounds pretty good. Nice drumming and I like the bass sound (though some additional bass might make it hit a bit harder, don't know if this will work however as it seems he's doing a lot of tremelo-picking). Only problem I hear is that the mix lacks a bit of depth and especially character. If possible I would dirty up the guitars a bit and use some more reverb on the drums and a bit on the guitars. Maybe experiment with some weird effects here and there and add some more nasty distortion. Remember this is black metal, so don't be afraid to sacrifice some clarity for added atmosphere and/or raw energy (depending on what your client wants of course ).

 

[Skinny Viking]

snare pokes its way out to high in the mix in just a couple small parts but nothing that can't be fixed with just a little volume automation. Other than that, I agree with the ideas of addign just a little more depth to the drums and pushing the guitars up a small amount. As for the overall sound ... I love it. The tones for the instruments are perfect for the style. Great fuckin job man ... ESPECIALLY on your drumming!

 

[xturbox]

btw, what is this project name? to find it after its finished. Did you already recorded vocals?

 

[Erkan]

Too bad you're not into it yourself because I think it sounds pretty good. Nice drumming and I like the bass sound (though some additional bass might make it hit a bit harder, don't know if this will work however as it seems he's doing a lot of tremelo-picking). Only problem I hear is that the mix lacks a bit of depth and especially character. If possible I would dirty up the guitars a bit and use some more reverb on the drums and a bit on the guitars. Maybe experiment with some weird effects here and there and add some more nasty distortion. Remember this is black metal, so don't be afraid to sacrifice some clarity for added atmosphere and/or raw energy (depending on what your client wants of course ).

I will definately try making the bass guitar hit a little harder. You're right about the tremolo picking... he does it all the time basically (Secret: He doesn't even follow a "standard" like playing 16th notes etc. He does it at his own speed, which is kinda weird but when the guitars are layered on 4 or even 6 tracks (sometimes), it becomes quite thick and not noticable).

snare pokes its way out to high in the mix in just a couple small parts but nothing that can't be fixed with just a little volume automation. Other than that, I agree with the ideas of addign just a little more depth to the drums and pushing the guitars up a small amount. As for the overall sound ... I love it. The tones for the instruments are perfect for the style. Great fuckin job man ... ESPECIALLY on your drumming!

Thanks for the tip about the snare poking out too high Skinny, I hadn't really thought about it. It seems I have accidentally shut off my "detailed hearing" since I started on this guy's BM stuff (not that I have a very detailed hearing in the first place but..)

Thanks for the kind words! Yea him and I picked out the tones together so I guess we got best of both worlds or so to speak.. I'm glad it works in the big picture. And THANKS for thinking my drumming was OK, even if I refuse to agree myself!

btw, what is this project name? to find it after its finished. Did you already recorded vocals?

I will make sure to let you know when it is done. I can't say anything so far, but I will forward this to him and let him know that he already has some "demand" on his music Vocals are recorded for 4 songs, but those are actually another "album", a total of 50 minutes of music or something.. quite long songs. The vocals on the other 5 songs, which probably add up to 40 minutes or so, are supposed to be done sometime this month.

 

[Astrikos]

Ok i like the music.I think you played the drums very good and i have to say they have the black metal feeling (are you sure you don't like black metal ).Great sound too.I think you should raise the guitars a bit or have more gain to them,or maybe lower the other instruments.Bass sounds very good too.I think the prod fits just fine with this tracks.

 

[mr.L.]

I will definately try making the bass guitar hit a little harder. You're right about the tremolo picking... he does it all the time basically (Secret: He doesn't even follow a "standard" like playing 16th notes etc. He does it at his own speed, which is kinda weird but when the guitars are layered on 4 or even 6 tracks (sometimes), it becomes quite thick and not noticable).

Yeah that kind of thing happens more often in black metal and with guitars I think it can sound pretty cool sometimes (creating a kind of whirlwind of guitars) but with bass I guess this would quickly get you into mudville.

Good luck finishing this up. I'm interested to hear the end result.

 

[Morgan C]

Dude..
this drumming is after not having played drums for 9 months? The blast beats are tight! I'm so jealous.. I've just taken a month and a half off, and started playing again and I'm completely retarded ><.

Nice tones on the drums too.. I wasn't sure how this would turn out (sound-quality-wise) when you showed me the drums on that song you were making a while back, but I guess that was just a quick test, cos this rips. The blast beats sound really good.. and I'm rarely a fan of them. The only ones I've ever liked are the ones off Opeth's new album, forget the name of the song now, and these. Maybe its cos its a bit slower, or whatever. Really good job.


Only thing is that the mix sounds a little empty in the low mids area. Hard without the guitars to fill it up there. Dunno if you can convince him to use some sort of synth to fill up that area (not black metulz tho!), or add some more to the bass guitar there (althou this generally doesn't sound great), or add some decent ambience and reverb to the drums there (more mud). Bit of a problem :/

 

[Erkan]

Ok i like the music.I think you played the drums very good and i have to say they have the black metal feeling (are you sure you don't like black metal ).Great sound too.I think you should raise the guitars a bit or have more gain to them,or maybe lower the other instruments.Bass sounds very good too.I think the prod fits just fine with this tracks.

Hey, thanks for your words. Yea I'm pretty sure I don't like black metal really, although some of the riffs get stuck in my head sometimes and drive me absolutely crazy, but the same thing can happen with Britney Spears' songs too so...

Hmm about the guitars and gain, I can't increase the gain since I wanted to try taking a "dangerous" approach at this project by actually recording the distortion. Believe it or not, but we used my Hughes & Kettner Warp Factor distortion pedal for all the distortion, hahaha... it's not the greatest pedal in the world but I guess that's what made it work quite decently for this music! The cabs are impulses though... but perhaps I can fiddle around with adding a little bit of saturation to the already distorted sound, to see if it makes any (good) difference. Otherwise I'll just leave it like it is, but I will raise the guitars up slightly, as you said. It's on my to-do list

Yeah that kind of thing happens more often in black metal and with guitars I think it can sound pretty cool sometimes (creating a kind of whirlwind of guitars) but with bass I guess this would quickly get you into mudville.

Good luck finishing this up. I'm interested to hear the end result.

Yea! Nicely put, "whirlwind of guitars" I got this urge to try putting a rotary speaker simulation on the guitars haha... talk about whirlwind!

Most definately mr.L, I will make sure that you can reach this project when it is done. I'll probably just link it on the forum when it's done. The guy should put them up on a MySpace or something I guess.

Dude..
this drumming is after not having played drums for 9 months? The blast beats are tight! I'm so jealous.. I've just taken a month and a half off, and started playing again and I'm completely retarded ><.

Nice tones on the drums too.. I wasn't sure how this would turn out (sound-quality-wise) when you showed me the drums on that song you were making a while back, but I guess that was just a quick test, cos this rips. The blast beats sound really good.. and I'm rarely a fan of them. The only ones I've ever liked are the ones off Opeth's new album, forget the name of the song now, and these. Maybe its cos its a bit slower, or whatever. Really good job.


Only thing is that the mix sounds a little empty in the low mids area. Hard without the guitars to fill it up there. Dunno if you can convince him to use some sort of synth to fill up that area (not black metulz tho!), or add some more to the bass guitar there (althou this generally doesn't sound great), or add some decent ambience and reverb to the drums there (more mud). Bit of a problem :/

Yea dude, I used to practise on a routine basis but quit doing it 9 months ago. I used to get behind my kit, almost every day of the week, and just practise 8ths, 16ths, hands, feet, whatever. Really boring stuff when you think about it, but I really wanted to become like one of those extreme metal drummers, but I kinda had to give up... it took too much time and I wasn't noticing ANY progress after a while so I just gave up.

Since then, I have only played with a guitarist friend of mine, like once every other week, where we just jam out and play some funk or soft rock. It's almost as if I haven't been playing at all really... especially when it comes to metal, double kicks and blast beats and what not. Believe me, I looked like I had ran a marathon after I recorded those songs. My muscles were burning and aching.

But I look at it from the bright side. I have become much better at guitar than I was while aiming to become a drum machine, and I have become a much better songwriter. I was too into death metal back then, and now I have finally let it go and exploded into all kinds of music... except 80's heavy metal and black metal, as mentioned


Yea you bring some good points about the mix. I will look into the lower mid area as you mentioned... maybe a combination of raising the guitars at that freq and the bass would fill it up. Otherwise, I still have reverb to apply to the mix, so maybe that'll help fill it out a little too... maybe bump up that freq on the reverb ... ah well, I'll come up with something.

Thanks a ton for the feedback and comments!

 

[GarethSE]

Sick mix
Sick drum playing
I really have nothing to add to this topic that hasn't already been said

 

[Djabthrash]

Sounds very nice and fits the music well !

Congrats on the drumming also !

As some others already stated, it's too dry/clear sounding at now, so maybe some reverb and stuff might help.

Thinking about good sounding black metal albums that do not sound overproduced, you should check out some Keep of Kalessin : http://www.myspace.com/keepofkalessin

 

[Teddyboy]

It sounds really great Gojira!!!! Nice job! Throw a bit of reverb,bring the guitars up and it will be ready!
Thnx for the info about recording-mixing process

 

[Felix Neumann]

Hell yeah, this really kicks my ass!! Very pleasent memories to Emperor, when I hear it..like it a lot. Drums really fits well into. Congrats, dude