My first go at "clicky drum' metal-core

Here is a band called Nex. See what you think...

[jbuntz]

Nice!

[LumenStudio]

Nice Mix!

I downloaded it to my PC, adding the .mp3 extension on the save. I then imported the file into Cubase SX 2.0 and now I'm hearing your work.

[bassmac]

That kicks arse!

[hmurchison]

Originally posted by Jules
Here is a band called Nex. See what you think...

Nex huh? You got something good hear. Lead singer has just enough voice to cut through. Love the energy! Shades of Rush in the guitar parts ;)

This is cool. Look forward to hearing more.

[Auxillary]

wanna let us know how you did the drums so metal-core-tastic sounding?

It is really a hard thing to get down that well.

[DigitMus]

F***ing rawks, Jules!! I clicked the link and it just launched iTunes and started playing. OS 10.3.3 & Safari.

Scott

[BevvyB]

lol clicky clicky clicky click

Good job you got an Engle for the wide open guitar sound, cool!

What did you do to compensate clattery drum room?

[ProFool]

Great tune and nice mix Jules, thats my cup of tea
that drum kick's A** man

Question, is this pre mastering? Loudest peaks go +-10db so i suppose this is the mix pre masterd?!

To get the sound

I

1) used NO room mic

2) Close mic'ed the cymbals to cut down on room sound - (I wanted NONE)

3) Made sure I equ-ed the drums to all "click" (checking on a small boom box while setting up)

4) A/B'd with an expensively recorded production while mixing and 'forced' my mix to get close tonally.

There's a "thematic" orchestral guitar melody that comes in on the last chorus (a bit like faith no more / modern Jane's Addiction - and I now miss it on the earlier choruses, but for the 'break through' purposes of this recording (it will exist as a super demo / potential self-release single) a raw undeveloped edge is the the most clever way to present a new band.

ASCAP UK have already invited the band to have the track on their next inter industry CD compilation (they send about 300 out every 2 months or so)

First stop for them is - find a manager... they have had full access to my contacts.

I want to do more with them, we had fun.

Re mastering - it's not been profesionally mastered, I have done some junior mastering on it - for it to get played around within the biz. It tonally & levelwise matched a cool released CD of the same genre at mixdown time. But I've just edited together and mastered a "spring show reel' and knotice that I've had to reduse a HELL OF A LOT of high mid to make it sit nicely on the compilation!

Here's how I 'cut down the room tone' - a few pix I took on the Nex session.

And a screen shot of the camera feed from the upstairs live area during a take -

This was a recording made before I installed any accoustic treatments on the walls. You can see a royer SF12 over the middle of the kit - we found this to be unusable as it was too ambient - We used instead the 2 x M149's close micing the cymbals in cardiod (hopefully regecting a nasty slapback off the low ceiling & general bare walled 'clatter' in the room. Also on the cheapo plastic wood flooring we put a VERY thick / spongey carpet (like a huge extra soft fabric judo mat - this extended right from the corner behind the drummer out to 3 foot past the kick drum tunnel BIG carpet (Ikea London))

I think later on before the final take we moved the Royer and put it infront of the kit / toms (unused in the mix) and lowered the M149's EVEN more!

We also aduditioned every mic pre to get the kit sounding nice and ended up with the Helios - We used 2 x Shure in line pads to tame the level prior to the Helios (too hot direct from the neumans)

On the mix I probably ran the whole kit through an SSL compressor followed by 2 x Tube Tech PE1 EQ valve EQ's - to boost click / add "sheen"

[Jax]

Holy smoke! Very good mix! I was expecting Tool for a few moments into the intro.



If I'd alter anything, I'd add maybe a little more snap to the snare, but just a hair.

Yes as I say it's my first go at this type of genre...

We used the citar sound on a Variax 500 leading into the cymbal wash entry of the M8 - for that "Jihad metal" vibe!!

[Kinsolrecording]

I really dig that mix! What was the guitar chain?

I forget exactly (sorry) but something like this

We split the signal to many sources with a Little Labs PCP Distro

Their own heads 4 x 12 Royer 121 - Neve 1073 - Fatso (warmth 3) Cranesong Hedd
Our Engl Savage 120 special edition head - sm 57 - Neve 1073 - Fatso (warmth 3) Cranesong Hedd
+ Marshall SE100 cab sim of an amp signal - Focusrite 215 - -
+ Direct out of Line 6 Vetta HD 1 head - Fatso (warmth 3)
+ SansAmp

All up on aux "input" channels in PT with TimeAdjuster plug ins on em tweaked to compensate for phase (as best as possible) then routed to ONE audio track in record....

We got the basic idea for the sounds from the bands own amps then enhanced or replaced it with all these other sound sources.. there was a lot of blending of sound sources going on..

LOTS of blending / mixing & matching

Note: I recorded the guitars WAY too dark IMHO, at mixdown they required a hell of a lot of HF boost to make them 'cut through' well.

[Bosco]

Jules,was the Transient Designer part of the drum chain.Just curious.

[alphajerk]

nice track jules. kinda mars voltaish... drums are a bit tinty for my tastes, wheres the beef? guitars sound great.

tho too squashed as the choruses lose the drive and push the drums too far back.

id like to hear more from this band.

Yes Alpha well put - I think this track was brought tonally in line with "pliars on the mix eq" - and "the beef" did suffer - I've since remastered it - knocking back a lot of hyped mid - thus revealing more "beef"

We might have used the SPL Transvestite Designer on the overheads to knock out the 'room' a little with it's de-ambience / anti sustain function - but I can't excactly remember now... sorry.

[blackcatdigi]

Originally posted by Jules
I've since remastered it - knocking back a lot of hyped mid - thus revealing more "beef"

Let's hear it!

[Rader Ranch]

to my ear there's something really nasty going on w/those toms.....

Oh well...

I think they have a hot basket ball on concrete type sound...

[Rader Ranch]

Originally posted by Jules
Oh well...

I think they have a hot basket ball on concrete type sound...

that's it exactly!!!

Probably the early reflections I had been hoping to rid my drum room of prior the accoustic treatment work I just did. It was a bare walled, low ceilinged ex office up until just recently.

[Rader Ranch]

i've also heard this where the drum is dampened too far away from the edge and miked too close to the edge (for my taste of course).

[Sofa King]

Originally posted by Jules
Here is a band called Nex. See what you think...

Nice job,
I love that first scream!!
very very rocking.

[DavidO'K]

Jules; First let me tell you how much I am learning from this NG and what a wild, whackey and knowledgable bunch of... well what ever you guys are.

I've been a video engineer and video editor for the past 15 years, but have been playing drums for about 35. 20 yrs pro. I understand why some of the posts refer to the drum sound as tinny, or thin. In fact it is. But as you intuited in the recording process, they're appropriate for the song. The tempo is extremely fast, and the drummers style is based largley on 1/32nd note figures. (I havent heard that style since 1966's "Talk Talk" by the Music Machine, the guy's really good)

For the listener to perceive the articulation of these figures, which play a prominent role in driving the band, the snare and other drums must have a short ASDR envelope - if you will - or they would become indecipherable mush.

There have been others that use the same approach over the years:

Bill Bruford: Yes
Dave Garabaldi: Tower of Power
Bobby Colomby: Blood Sweat & Tears
Stewart Copland: Police

and to a lesser extent

Bernard Purdie: Aretha + scores of charting singles
Billy Cobham: Worlds best living drummer.

and lets not forget
Allan White: Owner of a Lonely Heart
FYC: She Drives Me Crazy.

John Bonham singlehandedly redefined Rock drumming with a rare mixture of subtlity technique and bombast. He's still my favorite. But a good deal of his awesome technical work is blurred within the ring of those huge (and huge sounding) drums.

The gentleman on the clip might benefit from rounding out the sound of his toms, but in my opinion any "Fattening" would compromise the unique drive that he provides for the band.

(I hope I'm using "rounding" and "fattening" in the right context, you get my drift though.)

Very Respectfully,

DavidO'K

ps A Drummer walks in to the store and tells the salesman that he wants "A Gibson Stratoblaster with Fried Rows pickups".

The salesman looks at him and says "You're a Drummer aren't you?"

The Drummer says "Yeah, how did you know?"

The salesman looks at him and says "This is a Pet Shop".
(cue laugh track)

[NeoVXR]

very brilliant,
but regarding the missing "beef",

I think it is taken away by the limiter. the bass sounds are being pushed to an fro like cattle on a fast truck. no steady punch in the kick drum, just the "click" is perfect.
there should be no tradeoff between click and bass, but of course between loudness and bass.
you might examine the spectrum of bass guitar, kick drums, and toms, and you might program a display (like in the wave editor) that shows below 200Hz the envelopes of these tracks so to compare. here you can check out why the limiter pushes these around. then you can do something within the single tracks about controlling the envelopes (which should give a steady pattern within 2 or 4 bars or so, and take care of the accents - which one is the master instrument of a single accent etc)

as you are telling that mastering is only for demo purpose, maybe things change very much with detailed mastering, using better tuned multiband compression.

Time to post the remastered version then eh?

Yes I found this too 'tinny' myself

Here is the beef-y-er version see if you think it is an improvement.