The Life and Death of A Plea for Purging

[elmoe]

This sounds huuuuge! Best drum sound i heard in a long time. Everything else sounds awesome too. Do want moar!

 

[RandomAwesome]

Thanks Elmoe, the rest of the album is pretty killer, very dynamic with a bunch of softer songs. 55 minutes total. Thank you Allan, and yes, we spent 7 or 8 days getting all the parts right... very exhausting!

 

[brianhood]

dig that snare dude. Did you blend samples of the snare along with the mic?

 

[ahjteam]

joey and josh had a massive twitter arguement about this haha

I usually rule at using search engines, but I can't find it anywhere. Links?

 

[AllanD]

dig that snare dude. Did you blend samples of the snare along with the mic?

I think he said it's 100% natural with no samples or artificial reverb.

 

[brianhood]

I think he said it's 100% natural with no samples or artificial reverb.

He never mentions the use of samples.

The drums are 100% Aaron's custom Dark Horse Percussion kit and his AAX Sabian cymbals. Spent 7 or 8 days just tracking and fine tuning the drums. No reverb effects on anything on this album, just natural room acoustics on drums, guitars and vocals (besides reverb pedals for the way background layered lead-type things).

the way he worded it doesn't say whether or not he blended in samples of the actual kit. Not that it's a bad thing. Just curious if he managed to get consistent velocities without samples. In my experiences, it's nearly impossible to get that much "room sound" on the snare without the cymbals drowning everything out, unless I use a snare room sample.

 

[robfromthedeep]

Recording shells and cymbals seperately?

 

[Joematthews]

Sounds fucking massive, baaaaauuuwwwww

 

[AllanD]

He never mentions the use of samples.

So were there samples Josh?

 

[musickey]

Congrats man! Sounds killer! good to hear some bands still want an old school approuch to modern metal and i commend you for having the patience and balls to pull it off

 

[xTomx]

Not a fan of the music but this mix rules - good on you for taking the authentic route and not resorting to samples/ amp sims etc dude!

 

[Charles J]

drum definitely sound ALL natural to me... sounds like what a mix comes out like when I try to use all natural drums just a bit.... I usually am working with bands that are playing WAY TOO fucking fast or I just can't deal with the bleed.

I dig this for what it is, but was never a big Plea fan........

Josh's garage has the sickest decay time/sound =D

 

[PeterPaul760]

Drums definitely natural. I haven't heard natural tones this good in idk how long. But what really catches my attention is the vocals. Any open details josh? Mic, process? Really curious to know the "what how and why's".

 

[RandomAwesome]

Andy really does not enjoy recording vocals. He feels super stressed out about it because he will typically have one good day of vocals and lose his voice for 2 or 3 days. Dude is a beast and he just pushes so much volume that it kills his voice pretty quick. I think we did one song and then his voice was gone for 4 days and he was bumming out about it. I tried to combat the stress of this problem by keeping things really casual - very easy, considering everyone in that band is super chill - probably the most comfortable band I've ever worked with. But back to vocals - I also have a completely closed off vocal booth with no windows in it. Maybe I've been lucky not to have come across any claustrophobic vocalists so far, but they all really dig the private room. I keep a vocal mic in the main control area so everyone outside can communicate with the vocalist. I've done a lot of work on my vocal booth to keep it extremely comfortable - oil defuses, vocal tracking display monitor, volume controls, mood lighting, endless supply of throat coat/honey etc. To me, the best vocal takes are 70% in the vocalist's head, 20% the conditioning of their voice, and 10% the mic, preamp, effects, etc. So having the vocal tracking process be as absolutely comfortable as possible is extremely important to me. I spent a good amount of time going over the songs and trying to get the best performance from each line. I like my vocalists to be more like actors and try to convey their lyrics in such a way that it sounds believable - if you concentrate too much on the tone of voice and not the dynamics in the delivery, it can come across flat and monotone.

It's always more about the process than the gear for me. Mics were SM7B for Andy's screaming vocals and M-Audio Sputnik for Blake's singing. Both run through an MPA II. Also, I used no artificial reverb on anything for this album (except a few reverb pedals on background guitar layering), which includes vocals - both singing and screaming. The real space acoustics worked great with Andy's vocals and definitely added another layer of character. I love using natural acoustics for everything whenever I have the time to do it, because it puts all of the instruments in the same space, as opposed to layering all kinds of fake space into the mix. When all of the instruments are existing in the same room with the same reflection characteristics, it sonically puts the whole band together in a very unique way that reverb effects just can't touch. You'll really notice this on the vinyl edition

Sorry for the rant, just really proud of this record and all of the work the band and I put into it.

 

[iraobryan]

I never really listened to these guys, but I definitely wanna get my hands on the vinyl. I love the mix, and I love vinyl, how could it go wrong? Can't wait to hear it!

 

[RandomAwesome]

Plea just posted a new track

http://youtu.be/X1Az3Ar9oJM

 

[outbreak525]

The lyrics in this album.
Did they ever mention what they were about?
Because it seems pretty fucking apparent to me.

 

[Seth Munson]

Josh this is probably my favorite mix of yours.
You are doing great things!

PS we are in Michigan for the next couple of days, I wish we could come see you

 

[RandomAwesome]

Thanks Seth where are you guys playing in MI? How's tour going?

 

[iraobryan]

I just ordered the double vinyl. I can't wait to hear it!