Deathcore/Death Metal Drum Replacement

[DavePiatek]

Normally, I use SSD to slightly augment the drums on straightforward rock, punk and hardcore sessions. I use Drumagog and usually end up triggering directly off of the mic'd performance, which generally yields good results.

A band of the "deathcore" persuasion has contacted me about recording and referenced Job for a Cowboy and the Red Chord as their preferred drum sounds. During some downtime over the last few days, I've been trying to figure out the most time-efficient way of getting the drum tones they requested, but I'm hitting a wall.

I know lots of guys use the SSD samples (quite successfully) in these styles of production, so my question to the community is this: What are the best practices in terms of fast, blast beat type drums?

I have triggers recording directly into tracks in Pro Tools, as well as close mics on each drum and appropriate cymbal mics. Quantizing the tracks to the grid is mandatory, of course, and I have no problem performing this operation. My main question is what to do after my tracks are quantized. It seems that on especially fast sections, the SSD .gog files don't quite sound the way I need them to, even when triggering directly from the trigger ticks (with auto-align off).

I suspect that some of the features in the Kontact player would be helpful here (envelope, etc), but triggering Kontact from Drumagog seems to be overly complicated. Plus, MIDI latency could be an issue. But in some ways, it seems like drawing the drums in MIDI by hand is the way to go. What do the big players in metal recording do for these types of drums? Is Drumagog/SSD the right way to deal with the trigger ticks? Or is there another software package and workflow that is the industry standard?

Any tips or advice would be much appreciated.

[BLUElightCory]

I produced and engineered the "Genesis" CD by Job For A Cowboy and would be happy to help you.

I'm not sure if Andy Sneap used the drum sounds we sent him when he mixed "Genesis", but I made samples of Elliott playing the soft, medium, and hard hits on the snare. I made samples of the close mic'd snare and also the snare through the overhead and room mics and kept them on separate tracks. Once the drums were quantized, I duplicated the snare track and then went through by hand (using Tab to Transient and Beat Detective) and placed the samples.

For blast beats and fills I used the medium strength hits (4 different samples) and alternated them to make the overall effect a bit more realistic and less machine-gun sounding. Everything else got alternating heavy hits. The idea was to have some really clean close-mic'd sounds so that they could be heavily EQ'd and compressed to help the drums punch through. The samples I placed were on the top snare, toms, and kick. I left the bottom snare alone and also left a copy of the original snare track for blending purposes.

I can't speak for Mr. Sneap, but in my experience once the drums are edited and (if you use them) the samples are in place, it's really just a matter of getting the EQ and compression right so that the drums cut through the guitars and bass. Not sure what Andy did specifically though.

Hope this helps!

[DavePiatek]

Originally Posted by BLUElightCory

I produced and engineered the "Genesis" CD by Job For A Cowboy and would be happy to help you.

I'm not sure if Andy Sneap used the drum sounds we sent him when he mixed "Genesis", but I made samples of Elliott playing the soft, medium, and hard hits on the snare. I made samples of the close mic'd snare and also the snare through the overhead and room mics and kept them on separate tracks. Once the drums were quantized, I duplicated the snare track and then went through by hand (using Tab to Transient and Beat Detective) and placed the samples.

For blast beats and fills I used the medium strength hits (4 different samples) and alternated them to make the overall effect a bit more realistic and less machine-gun sounding. Everything else got alternating heavy hits. The idea was to have some really clean close-mic'd sounds so that they could be heavily EQ'd and compressed to help the drums punch through. The samples I placed were on the top snare, toms, and kick. I left the bottom snare alone and also left a copy of the original snare track for blending purposes.

I can't speak for Mr. Sneap, but in my experience once the drums are edited and (if you use them) the samples are in place, it's really just a matter of getting the EQ and compression right so that the drums cut through the guitars and bass. Not sure what Andy did specifically though.

Hope this helps!

This is what I love about Gearslutz... straight from the source! Thanks, dude!

[Anselmo]

Hey Cory,

Thanx 4 the inside info... I´ve listened to the Genesis album many many times all the way through and I´m a big fan of JFAC.

Any additional info on those sessions would be greatly appreciated, like for instance how´d you do the Guitar tracks? (amps, cabs, pres, mics etc...)
What mic/mics did you use for vocals?

Also, the extremely precise timing of each drum hit, how much time did it take you to quantize all the drums?? (do you go through that 100% before you track any of the other instruments?)


Good job!!


Peace.

[BLUElightCory]

Originally Posted by Einar

Hey Cory,

Thanx 4 the inside info... I´ve listened to the Genesis album many many times all the way through and I´m a big fan of JFAC.

Any additional info on those sessions would be greatly appreciated, like for instance how´d you do the Guitar tracks? (amps, cabs, pres, mics etc...)
What mic/mics did you use for vocals?

Also, the extremely precise timing of each drum hit, how much time did it take you to quantize all the drums?? (do you go through that 100% before you track any of the other instruments?)


Good job!!


Peace.

Thanks!

I'm pretty sure Andy used some re-amp'd 5150 tracks in the final mix, and I'm not sure what of the tones we recorded ended up in the final mix. We used a VHT Deliverance and a Krank Krankenstien with Ibanez guitars and EMG pickups through a Mesa Traditional Slant cab with V30s. Mics were a 57, MD421, and Royer R121 all lined up to be blended together later. Like I said, not sure exactly what ended up in the final mix because I was just trying to give Andy Sneap plenty of options.

Vocals were just a Beta 58 through a Universal Audio 2108. I cranked up the input gain so that the pre was saturating and distorting when Jonny was digging into his vocals (which is pretty much 100% of the time). When tracking metal/hardcore vocals, I'd much rather put the mic in the singer's hand and sacrifice some audio fidelity to achieve better emotion and energy.

Drum editing took several hours per song, but that's probably more due to the fact that I hadn't worked on anything quite as technical as "Genesis" and was still developing my editing workflow. I was also trying to keep things sounding realistic so it probably took a bit longer than it would have if we just threw up Soundreplacer or something and called it a day. I did all the drum editing before we tracked anything else. I had a PT rig at home; I'd take the hard drive home from the sessions and edit drums every night. It was a lot of work but it was a great experience for sure.

[DavePiatek]

Originally Posted by BLUElightCory

Thanks!

I'm pretty sure Andy used some re-amp'd 5150 tracks in the final mix, and I'm not sure what of the tones we recorded ended up in the final mix. We used a VHT Deliverance and a Krank Krankenstien with Ibanez guitars and EMG pickups through a Mesa Traditional Slant cab with V30s. Mics were a 57, MD421, and Royer R121 all lined up to be blended together later. Like I said, not sure exactly what ended up in the final mix because I was just trying to give Andy Sneap plenty of options.

Vocals were just a Beta 58 through a Universal Audio 2108. I cranked up the input gain so that the pre was saturating and distorting when Jonny was digging into his vocals (which is pretty much 100% of the time). When tracking metal/hardcore vocals, I'd much rather put the mic in the singer's hand and sacrifice some audio fidelity to achieve better emotion and energy.

Drum editing took several hours per song, but that's probably more due to the fact that I hadn't worked on anything quite as technical as "Genesis" and was still developing my editing workflow. I was also trying to keep things sounding realistic so it probably took a bit longer than it would have if we just threw up Soundreplacer or something and called it a day. I did all the drum editing before we tracked anything else. I had a PT rig at home; I'd take the hard drive home from the sessions and edit drums every night. It was a lot of work but it was a great experience for sure.

Did you use the same techniques for the DOOM EP?

[BLUElightCory]

Originally Posted by DavePiatek

Did you use the same techniques for the DOOM EP?

Ha ha I don't like to talk about the sound quality of that CD. I barely knew anything about recording metal at the time and was still getting used to my studio. I guess I'd say it was a learning experience.

We did use the same vocal chain as "Genesis," and I think guitars were an Earthworks and an R121 combined into my 2108 pre.

We didn't track to a click or edit any drums, though I did blend kick/snare samples using Soundreplacer. Wouldn't recommend it!

[s34nsm411]

Originally Posted by BLUElightCory

We didn't track to a click or edit any drums, though I did blend kick/snare samples using Soundreplacer. Wouldn't recommend it!

not tracking a metal band to a click makes me cower in fear. i take it you didnt double the guitars.

also, that drummer must be pretty damn on time, i never thought about the drums not being quantized and ive heard that entombment of a machine song so many times

thanks for sharing the info!

[Anselmo]

When recording this type of music, how many tracks of rythm-guitar do you layer and how do you pan them?


(p.s. I love the vibe and the sound of Doom!! And now that I know that it was not done with click track - I´m gonna love it even more)

[Tom Hakala]

Added Bearing The Serpents Lamb to my references
I have a metal session coming next month.

[BLUElightCory]

Originally Posted by Einar

When recording this type of music, how many tracks of rythm-guitar do you layer and how do you pan them?


(p.s. I love the vibe and the sound of Doom!! And now that I know that it was not done with click track - I´m gonna love it even more)

I like to just get a meaty guitar tone for each player and do one rhythm track on each side, and then layer any other parts that are necessary. I'm not personally a fan of quad-tracking as I feel it tends to muddy up the overall sound a bit, and it strips out a lot of the raw character and energy that I like to hear in guitar-heavy bands. Sometimes it can be really cool, but most of the time it's not my thing. I like to hear the guitarist using his hands, not just a big wall of distortion.

[ericstadium]

And here I thought I was the only sucker doing "tab-to-transient" sound replacing. Tedious, possibly stupid, and an awful thing to do to your soul, but damn it sounds good.

[Markus Stock]

Originally Posted by ericstadium

And here I thought I was the only sucker doing "tab-to-transient" sound replacing. Tedious, possibly stupid, and an awful thing to do to your soul, but damn it sounds good.

Massey's DTM is faster and equally good (once you shifted a FEW hits around), so you guys are wasting your time IMHO.

[TehGuitarist]

Can i ask how you quantized the drums without everything in the overheads and room mics all going screwy as all hell?

[phillis]

Originally Posted by TehGuitarist

Can i ask how you quantized the drums without everything in the overheads and room mics all going screwy as all hell?

make a drum group and edit all the drum tracks at the same time.

Massey DTM- where can i find it?

[vtone]

Originally Posted by BLUElightCory

I like to just get a meaty guitar tone for each player and do one rhythm track on each side, and then layer any other parts that are necessary. I'm not personally a fan of quad-tracking as I feel it tends to muddy up the overall sound a bit, and it strips out a lot of the raw character and energy that I like to hear in guitar-heavy bands. Sometimes it can be really cool, but most of the time it's not my thing. I like to hear the guitarist using his hands, not just a big wall of distortion.

I've found this to be true too-- even when the playing is super tight and multiple amps are used, quad-tracking seems to over compress what should be full of dynamics. I've found it more effective if used sparingly.

[DavePiatek]

Originally Posted by Markus Stock

Massey's DTM is faster and equally good (once you shifted a FEW hits around), so you guys are wasting your time IMHO.

Massey's DTM isn't available any more. I'd love to get my hands on a copy... sigh.

[Anselmo]

Originally Posted by BLUElightCory

I like to just get a meaty guitar tone for each player and do one rhythm track on each side, and then layer any other parts that are necessary. I'm not personally a fan of quad-tracking as I feel it tends to muddy up the overall sound a bit, and it strips out a lot of the raw character and energy that I like to hear in guitar-heavy bands. Sometimes it can be really cool, but most of the time it's not my thing. I like to hear the guitarist using his hands, not just a big wall of distortion.

I have to totally agree with you there.



...and again, thanks for the info Cory!!