Some Radio Rock (Headcrusher's band) - SD2.0, Impulses, Panic Room Master!

[Ermz]

Did this one late last year. Finally managed to get it mastered by Plec, and be proud to show it off.

It was essentially the first commercial, radio rock type material I worked on.

You can stream it here: http://www.myspace.com/ermin_h

Just turn off the auto player in the top left, and scroll down until you see the sample player. Click on 'Good Will Out - Paranoid'.

Hope you dig.

You can find the band here: http://www.myspace.com/goodwillout

 

[Harry Hughes]

Good work dude
Translated well to both my monitors and fairly crap computer speakers that I use for cross referencing, a great mix indeed.
Great mastering on Plec's part too.
The tune isn't exactly something I'd sit there and listen to something on repeat though

 

[lolzgreg]

Sounds awesome, Ermz. The digital clipping during the hold outs and tom fills still bother me quite a bit; I don't think that extra .5 dB of volume is worth having audible clipping on a song. I think talking to Plec about this would help you for future work. His masters sound amazing, but digital clipping just drives me up a wall. I'm not sure if I'm blowing this out of proportion, but I believe if it's the only thing that I can point out as "bothersome" about a recording, it's worth addressing.

 

[Ermz]

Not many radio rock guys around eh? hehe.

Thanks for the comments guys. I can understand your qualms about clipping, Greg, and I'm constantly at odds with that myself. But really with this kind of stuff I'm just attempting to conform with the genre as best as possible first, before breaking any boundaries. Most of my reference records have minor to moderate amounts of clipping on fills, so I'm happy to live with it. Plec is normally fairly conservative on the volume and I'm commonly the one that pushes him to get it up there. I build my mixes with a certain RMS range in mind, so anything more or less usually just sounds wrong. As it is, I'm fairly happy with this as a master. So if there are any reservations, point the blame at me, not him

I think after the band's vocalist puts some more hard yards in they'll have something fairly marketable going on. I'm impressed mostly by the fact that this whole thing was done entirely with sampled drums, a fairly rudimentary bass DI and my Bugera 6260 lined into Ryan's impulses.

 

[gabriel g.]

Sounds fantastic but the digital clipping is annoying!!!
Also I would say the vocals could come a bit (because of Radio-rock)

but great work!!!!

 

[Lasse Lammert]

cool.only listened on laptop so far, but sounds good here.

could go on tour with a band I worked with ( )

 

[Ermz]

Wow, no kidding Lasse. Well Austria isn't exactly far from Germany, so chances are it's already happened!

 

[Felix Neumann]

Basically I´m so fucking sick of this typical Radio harmonys, but the production is great, indeed! Though I don´t think, the song has to be that loud?

 

[FIXXXER]

i just can't figure out how to stream the track

 

[~BURNY~]

Not trying to offend Headcrusher but that's some seriously bad ass turd polishing.

 

[Ola Englund]

agreeing with everyone in here... sounds really nice and clean! Good work ermin...

 

[JonWormwood]

Sounds delicious.

 

[Charles J]

Pretty fucking rockin' dude! I don't like the vocals, but that's personal taste. Instrumentation sounds ACE!

Really liking the drum sounds... definitely can hear your CLA/Staub influence coming through...

CLA is my #1 as well, ahaha. =D

 

[AudioPhile777]

Sounds awesome, Ermz. The digital clipping during the hold outs and tom fills still bother me quite a bit; I don't think that extra .5 dB of volume is worth having audible clipping on a song. I think talking to Plec about this would help you for future work. His masters sound amazing, but digital clipping just drives me up a wall. I'm not sure if I'm blowing this out of proportion, but I believe if it's the only thing that I can point out as "bothersome" about a recording, it's worth addressing.

I personally dont hear the digital clipping... but I did just wake up... so...

Sounds great, guys.

 

[Erik Monsonis]

Amazing, I like the music too. Love those vocal harmonies and she sings pretty good!

 

[El_Gato]

agree with the clipping issue. too much. Drums could have been a bit deeper. but good overall.

(OT) how much I hate those 4 fuckin chords!

 

[FloridaRolf]

Man how the hell do you get the S2.0 snare to sound like that? If I'm trying to get massive attack like this the snare kills all the headroom and still sounds like ass
Nice work.

 

[MetalJonesy]

Sounds v nice Ermin, like the kick alot!! a shit load different and much better than the original one you did to land the gig!

 

[HeadCrusher]

K, so I guess I'll chime in as well.

Here's the "original" Master by John @ panicStudios if you'd like to check it out: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2075327/GoodWillOut/Paranoid-Download/GoodWillOut-Paranoid.mp3

Curious to see which version you guys like best.
Personally the clipping in Plec's version bugs me as well.

Lasse/Ermz: Wisecrash sounds nice although I'd say they are just a tiny bit more "Metal" than Good Will Out.

As for the quality of the original tracks I already commented on that in the original thread where I uploaded them for everyone to mix. This was a one-off shot that had to be done pretty quick and that's what we came up with. I know we all would love to have weeks and weeks in the studio to experiment with sounds, arrangements and so forth but that's just not happening these days. All the reactions the band has gotten (including those from industry professionals) have been nothing but positive. Not a single person complained about the drums being fake or the guitars being DIs. In fact I doubt anyone ever thought about these possibilities. Therefore I'd say "Mission accomplished".

 

[Plec]

Again, I got to say that Ermz work makes me look good.

In terms of distortion and loudness, I believe in getting the client what the client wants. Originally I did a version that was even 1.5db louder than this but Ermin asked me to back it off a tad. IME having this amount of audible clipping at these kinds of RMS is quite rare, but if you'd like to eliminate audible distortion altogether you'd need to back it off not some, but quite a bit still. I don't think that the distortion on there is "that" apparent compared to other equally loud productions but it's all a delicate balance of how much of it you're willing to accept vs. how impressive you want it to appear.

It's still a fact that most non-engineering ears perception of quality is directly linked to loudness and level.

So.. choose your posion. :Shedevil:

On the other side of things... I just had a great experience mastering the new Watain record together with Tore Stjerna of Necromorbus here on the forum, and we agreed on a nice comfy -13 to -10dbFS RMS on it. So there's some dynamic black metal for you.