Aaaw, you are guys are adorable!
Haha, I was so mad last night but now that I'm reading all this and after a few hours of sleep it feels like I'm uplifted by a fresh breeze of air.
Haha I dig this mix a lot man...It's perfect for BM. Nice song too.
What was your recording setup?
Guitar setup?
-Joe
Thanks a bunch Joe! The recording setup was:
Drums: Pearl Export kit with semi-old Emperor Clear heads > JJLabs cheap drum mic set (similar to Samson brand or something) > Cheap Thomann XLR cables > Profire 2626 > REAPER
Straight forward micing on the drums, 1 for each drum (snare, 3 toms, kick) and an extra on the snare bottom for some high end. No additional cymbal mics other than the OH which was set up sort of in an ORTF kind of way. The only drum mic that wasn't some cheap ass mic was the bottom snare mic where I used an SM57. But to be honest, the cheap mics don't really sound that bad, especially compared to the 57 on snare. I always have trouble getting a good snare sound even with the 57 =[
Guitars: He had a Gibson Flying-V (don't know much else about it, didn't care too much anyway) with passive stock hambucker > Profire 2626 > REAPER (the guitars are running through a modified version of my standard guitar chain where WarpVST is the amp sim)
Bass: Some Fernandez 5-string > Profire 2626 > REAPER
Vocals: SM58 with popfilter > Cheap Thomann XLR Cable > Profire 2626 > REAPER
it honestly sounds fine, coming from a big bm fan (liking both the old mayhem/darkthrone/burzum productions, and newer clear productions). the guitars are sort-of weak due to the reverb but I don't see why you can't simply lessen that and play with the eq a bit so its more full.
are the drums programmed or did you play them again? they're great either way.
So it doesn't sound as bad as I think it does? Thanks =) I have a hard time "thinking black metal" and this is just way out of my way of mixing but if it works for him, I'm happy since that means I'll be done with him! Haha ^^ Yeah I will try to lessen the reverb and see if he's gonna go all necro krieg on my ass for it.
Oh right I totally forgot to mention about the drums. The kick is programmed because the way he wanted some drum parts on some songs I figured I was not going to be able to play it and there would have to be waaaaaay too many edits so I simply programmed the kick but played everything else. The kicks are being fired from ApTrigga in Random Mode and it's the RRKick samples... can't remember who it was from this forum who made and shared those but they're awesome! Had to cut lots of highs away from the samples though, it was not "necro" or "true" enough for black metal with all the clicky clicky =)
I think it sounds pretty good....for what it sounds like the guy is after.
Are they real drums? Cause it seems like there is some impossible cymbal manuevers, mainly in the first blast part. So if they're real, pretty sick.
And dude, seriously....production is despised in Blackmetal. But i'de definitly wanna hear the guitars with a more Dark Tranquillity - Skydancer type tone. Like super verby but well-defined. Or a more Dissection type feel. It definitly seems a little thin, but you already mentioned that.
I will have to take that impossible cymbal comment as a compliment becuase that is played by me! =) As I just wrote above though, the kick is programmed due to the circumstances. Thanks for the tips about the guitar tone, I'll dig something up with those bands and listen later.
the only thing i would change is the amount of verb on the guitars. Although i would say this mix is perfect for this style. It sounds pretty awesome.
also what did you do for the drums, they sound great.
Thumbs up, thanks for the comment. I'm not really happy with the drums yet, but he won't let me make it sound "too good" so I just left it at this level of "goodness". There's really nothing special going on with the drums except the kick as I mentioned. It's just your everyday standard procedure with EQ and Compression (and the high dosage of the "oh so godly" reverb). I had to cut a loooot of mids out of the toms to get them to sound anything other than cardboard boxes though. I think the combination of old heads and those drum mics are giving me a shitload of mids on the drums... I'll change to Pinstripe heads soon, that should give me back some nice attack =)
Other than that, I don't know what to say about the drums... it's just very basic. I tried to keep the amount of plugins low and just trying to generally keep it simple.
I think best BM produced album is last Marduk. Sound so evil and natural at the same time
