First of all, have a kick ass great gig tonight (and all following), rock the old empires!
Biomechanoid#001 said:
It's mostly digital, I used to have a Mac and a Cubase 0.0,
Seriously it was an
old version. I have also a digital Yamaha desk, an A3000 Yamaha sampler and a few modules for the orchestral stuff. All the orchestral sounds are overlaid sounds from various sources. For example for the strings I use natural string samples overlaid by a Sound Canvas and a good old M1.
My best horn sounds come from the M1 and canvas too. The choirs both on Eight Moons and Empires were done through the A3000 sampler but it took a hell of a lot of work to articulate words for Absolution.
For the guitars we used the POD I mentioned before and for the bass we used a bass POD too. For the drums on eight moons we used Yamaha triggers and then treated the sound for the album.
Thanks for the detailed answers! Cool!
Lots of familiar stuff to see and what yet counts is to have the abilities to get the most out of this digital stuff, for which 8Moons and TEOTW is hell of impressing examples for! I´ve used some of the more low budget Yamaha stuff in the past (SW XG gear) for their great versatility and great basic sounds myself. Still use some for samplers nowadays. Thought I recognized some particular rimshot snare sound on 8Moons (the song) which I know from the mentioned XG gear.
The orchestration parts/sounds are huge and the choirs (Absolution) are epic!
Still impressed what the Pods deliver (off course considering any EQ´íng and other sound shaping that followed)! The bass guitar comes out better on TEOTW I think and thus one can better hear what a great bass player Jon is! Overall, TEOTW has the sound (straight in your face) that fits best with the songs and 8Moons is just the same (with a more "open" and dynamical sound).
Biomechanoid#001 said:
Nowadays I have switched to a PC with an RME optical card. Also using tones of pluggins , Waves etc
I use Cubase SX and have also got Giga studio orchestral sounds. I am still using the modules for some of the orchestral stuff and overlay the natural samples on top.
As said, very impressing what quality one can get out of these rather low budget gears nowadays and proof that it works for metal music alike!
Lots of brutal stuff one can do with plugins, that fit metal music quite well. Think I heard some "bit reducing" dirty effects for the voices on Disintegration and elsewhere.
Anyway, the blending of the vocals into each other causes some quite dramatic and intense effects, which i like very much! Everything comes together in the songs perfectly! Hard to imagine one could get something similar working with analog tape recorders.
Biomechanoid#001 said:
film music has been my inspiration for as long as I can remember. Yeah it was Polydouris. Great composer. I think Conan the Barbarian was his best score by far.
With the film scores you are right , it's a whole new universe out there of great film scores and composers.
I have many favourites but my top five are
John Williams, Jerry goldsmith, James Horner (Pre Titanic, Pre-Jumanji era),
Elliot Goldenthal, Alan Silvestri
If you get Star Wars get The Empire Strikes Back the original album.
It's easier to listen to and the music is amazing.
Yeah, it was Basil Polydouris, although I don´t know what other scores he wrote. Might be I listened to some without knowing it were some of him.
Put on my list. Yeah, accessability is quite important. Fortunately most film music has this attribute.
Biomechanoid#001 said:
Nice one man, glad you like the sound. We did work hard to get the result so it's cool to know.
I totally agree about the power of the orchestral music.
I was heavily in to soundtracks and I couldn't find anything as powerful anywhere else until I heard some metal and I got hooked straight away,
Check out Stravinsky's Firebird and The Rite of Spring. He is the first to take music to that direction and it's monumental compositions.
For more sweeping music check out Tchaikovsky, Symphony number 4 and 5 and Romeo & Juliet.
Also Carl Orff's Carmina Burana (the whole music), for more relaxed stuff you have to check out Debussy La Mer . It's a stunning composition. And also Richard Wagners Tristan and Isolde is both sweeping and powerful.
There is so much great music from the classical era. I have just scratched the surface to be honest. I wish I had more time to discover more composers
Yeah, the BD on "The Awakening" and most other songs sounds like something as 40" in size kicked by an elephant!
As said in my other posting, the results as heard on 8Moons to mate metal with classical orchester parts is the best and most natural sounding I heard so far!
Thanks for the composer recommendations! Most of the works I only know from name yet. The Carmina Burana is quite interesting, heard the full work long time ago. Most people only know the part which is used for Excalibur and the many bands using it as "opener".
Yeah, one can spend weeks and months on listening classical compositions, something one really needs to have the time for! One can definitely say these all are great inspirations if one works on his own music.
Biomechanoid#001 said:
Dunno much about Carmine Appice but Vinnie has done some great stuff!!
Yeah, Vinnie has these qualities when it comes to play the more slow and heavy stuff, although off course he is not that technical than say Scott Travis or Dean Castronovo. One can´t underestimate to have a superb drummer in a band! I remember well when Scott Travis replaced the rather uninspiring Dave Holland to play the drums on Painkiller! One can really hear how kick ass inspiring he was for all of the band members and they sound as they were playing for their lifes! The more sad it was when Rob left the band little later. I never understood this. Unfortunately I must say that I was very disappointed about Angel of Retribution. Well.
