newest production! - Mesa Trem-o-Verb!

[Charles J]

first crabcore band we've ever produced.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/786150/Sonic%20Assault%20Studios/Oceanfront%20EP%20FINALS/OF%20-%20Song%202%20FINAL%20MP3.mp3

i think it came out pretty decent... it's loud as fuck. I know. i wanted it to go more in the fat rock low-end roomy kind of direction... just to make it a bit different from the typical ultra-dry crabcore stuff...

don't say the vox are too wet. Ryan's already made his sentiment clear on that, ahahaha.

this is already done and about to be pressed (i believe)... just wanted to update everyone on what we're up to!

GTRS were :

OD820 - Dual Tremoverb - 421+57 - 7602MKII

can't wait to post the finals of the band that just got done tracking this weekend. BEASTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

any questions, ask!

 

[Ermz]

Cool stuff dude. I dig the sound of the amp. I wish in some ways the guitars were more prominent!

I agree with Harvz about the vox being too wet, but hey I suppose that may be one element that will help it stand out from the other waves of core stuff flooding the market these days.

 

[xdarkknightx]

Sounds awesome. I'd personally like some info on the bass and drums. I always have trouble getting a thick bass sound that locks in with the guitars but doesnt overpower the kick, and you got the sound I always try to achieve but fail miserably at haha.

 

[Charles J]

Thanks dude!

I know I had 3 tracks of bass going... we tracked using a mexican P-Bass which sounded quite good, straight into the 7602MKII DI. From there, my memory is hazy but I used a bass sim on the DI, POD Farm I believe (the same tone we used to track with) and usually I'll switch this out w/something else but it worked!

Then, duped that track, ran onqel's TSE sim on one of the dupe's, HP/LP eq'd to shit and as to not fuck with low-end and phase on the 'amp' track. THEN, I sent these two tracks to a Drawer compressor (analog) and totally smashed the fuck out of it... blended that back in w/the other two tracks, bounced, and did a few little EQ tweaks to the combined bass track.

Drums are programmed w/SSD 3.5 w/multiple samples blended on the kick/snare. What really makes them cut through is I sent them each to the Drawmer to smash the living hell out of them and once printed back in the DAW, did a lot of filtering, further EQ, etc and viola, the drum sound was rockin'.

I don't think this would work well with the style of music I usually do (brutal deathcore extreme whatever) but the parallel compression thing worked quite well in this case.

Hope it helps!

 

[GarethSE]

this drum sound is fucking insane charlie

 

[Pedro Teixeira]

Shit! Agree with Gareth, those drums sound insane! I actually like the amount of wet vox and the whole mix itself stands out a bit more as a more "interesting" than all the usual crabcore productions flowing right now. I really like it. Congrats dude

 

[lolzgreg]

Sounds great charlie. I would actually like the snare to not be "so" upfront. Maybe you could get a little more reverb on it, tame the snap just a bit, and boost the low mids.

 

[Charles J]

Thanks sooooo much dudes!

I was doubting the sonics of this project like CRAZY so I'm glad to hear I'm not totally losing all my sense of grounding...

I am quite happy w/the drums. The snare, well, I was walking a fine line between too much room and not enough... there is a lot of SSD room in there as well as a Bricasti impulse and I was demo'ing the new Lexicon reverb plugs, so there's a nice fat plate on the snare from there as well.

Come to think of it, that may be why the vox came out a bit wet, ahahaha. Lushhhhh Lexi reverb.

=D

 

[Metaltastic]

Yo dude, sounds pretty solid overall, nice job! However, the first thing that stands out to me is that the bass is a bit boomy IMO, and the attack on the snare is a bit strange, I feel like all I hear is upper mids/snap, kinda unnaturally lacking the core-mid "pop" (in the 1k ballpark) - maybe it's just how it's tuned (or just a bit too much snap for my tastes), not sure (but at least it's plenty audible)

Otherwise, kick and cymbals sound great, though I too feel the vox are a bit too wet (but not ridiculously so, they just do feel a bit pushed back, especially in the chorus, when there's so much other ambience going on, I'm guessing a held synth pad, or maybe octave strummed guitars with a lot of verb; either way, it's all just a bit too wet in that section in particular IMO) Guitars I would say sound great in the context of the mix, but aren't really doing it for me all that much beyond that, though I think with the bass boominess reduced I'd like 'em better (as they'd sound fuller). They still could use a bit more cut though IMO, and are a bit upper-middy. But overall, definitely sweet dude!

 

[Ermz]

I think that might be a by-product of over-compression on the snare, Marcus. The Slate stuff has a very strong, plastic sounding attack that can get downright obnoxious if pinned down any further. It's one of the elements of his drums that I find hardest to deal with and is why I *always* use the Slate samples as a blend, and never as the body of the drum sound. It's not so much that it's lacking, but rather that it's over-processed. Bringing the attack back down with an L1 or something would've done it some good.

 

[Morgan C]

Yeh, agreed with the snare.. it sticks out far too much and sounds weird.

The rest blends together amazingly. Maybe its a bit messy.. too much room sound on the drums, and especially the cymbals perhaps (would def turn it down a bit on the cymbals). But it works. Fix the snare and you've got a killer mix. I like limiting a snare and THEN compressing it.

I love the work you've done with synths here, works really well (what synth did you use?). And the guitars and kick sound amaaaaaazing.

 

[Charles J]

SHIT!

L1 is an amazing idea, I totally forgot about that! Definitely keeping that in mind for future projects... I do recall using GClip to tuck the snare back a bit but a little L1 would have been perfect.

Ahhh, kind of the pitfall of mixing every project totally from scratch and kind of flying blind. I mean, I have a few mainstay plugs I use but most of the time I don't use any particular formula, just keep messing about until it sounds the way I hear it in my head.

The synth is actually just a Microkorg going stereo line-in to the 002. No MIDI taken or anything, haha. I had them change a LOT of parts that sounded really... well.... dumb and cheesy.

Don't remember what I did to it exactly, a LOT of LP/HP and EQ'ing out really nasty frequencies as the raw synth patches we used had some of the ugliest high-end you ever could imagine. Might have compressed w/either the Tubetech plug or Fairchild emu from IK and then of course, copious amounts of Random Hall from the new Lexi plugs. =D

Still kicking myself about the L1 thing now, though! This project is all said and done as I don't like going back and obsessing... always have trouble w/my snares sticking out too much... this may be my answer!

Cheers all... thanks for making me feel like I still 'got it'. =D