This was a band of young guys that came in. We tracked drums, one of the guitars, and bass live in my (basically) one-room studio. Drums were live. Bass was DI. Guitar amp was in my storage cellar two rooms away. We ended up retracking the bass as the drummer was tearing down - the bass player thought he would be tighter when he could concentrate and listen closely. Then we did a handful guitar overdubs, experimented with some weird stuff, and then got the vocalist to do his thing. The whole song was tracked in 11 studio hours. (14 hours total including a few breaks).
I’m not sure how much you guys listen to this genre so I figured I’d toss one your way and get an “outside the genre” set of opinions.
A couple notes:
Yep, the lyrics are repetitive. The artist was adamant about wanting to convey the frustration of reaching out for help over and over and never getting it. One of the ways they wanted to do that was through that repetition. There are also some really gross sounding chords to try to paint that picture, too.
Vocals are screamed and include some…language. Don’t listen loud with your young kids.
Guitars are 7-strings drop-tuned to A. The bass was a 5-string drop-tuned to A as well. It’s low. I tried to keep it from getting too out-of-hand in the mix.
Mixed ITB except the mix bus went through the line inputs of my Chameleon Labs 7602 X-Mods into the Stam SA4000.
Hey Tyler, I have to agree with @Wicked - this was a pretty tough listen.
The good news is, it was nothing to do with the mix, and everything to do with the genre. Mercifully, the song is short - I don’t know how you could face 14 hours of it, but as they say… different strokes… etc…
That said, the mix is excellent IMO… sounds very pro and genre-appropriate.
About the only place where I feel it could be improved is where the drums go to the double-time/punk-polka beat. The hits sound really soft and wimpy there compared to the slower tempo sections. Perhaps you could slide in some hight velocity samples there to get the intensity of the drums to match the intensity of the part.
It’s funny. Sometimes the messiest, grossest, least listener-friendly stuff is the stuff I do best with. I’m not sure why but I’ll run with it, I guess!
Good thoughts on those blast beat sections, CRS! If they come back with any revisions, I’ll definitely add that in! There’s a little bit of a one-shot sample of that snare drum (from that day) blended in under the live snare that’s just adding some consistency. I could ride that up a little to give it a little more impact in those sections.
I’ll try not to harass you guys into listening to too much more of this type of stuff. It sounds like this is going to turn into an EP project so I’ll have a few more of these come out of the studio when the guys get time to get together and play it all down.
Wow, schmalzy, that was intense! Considering the intensity of the emotion they were out to convey, I think you made it pretty tasty. Without the dynamics that were evident in your mix, this song would sound like a bunch of teenagers in a garage, hehe.
As it is now, it sounds like a serious, polished, metalcore band with all the accoutrements imaginable. I bet they’re thrilled with what you’ve done, dude. I don’t think just anyone could squeeze so much out of such a song.
Hi Tyler, At the first hearing of the intro, it hit me as aggressive (I’m not gonna like this) but it quickly became coherent. I agree with @steban I do think the idea was excellently expressed right to the end of the song, There is a lot of creativity put into this composition. I can’t comment too much on the recording quality, I’m using el cheapo headphones but it sounds OK to me. I believe the message was conveyed.
I love metal, not a fan of this style at all, but it sounds like Emmure and for what it is it sounds pretty on point.
A little too much mid resonance on the toms and kick I think.