# Tips on Writing Slam/Beat-down?



## Wings of Obsidian (Jun 17, 2013)

Hello all my favorite SS.org-ers:

My question to you guys is to see if any of you could give me some tips when writing some super brutal death metal (or deathcore) in the slam and beat-down category. Ya know, the kind of stuff that just makes you want to get in the pit and punch somebody......especially punch a baby. 

Anyway, I play guitar, bass, drums, and do keys and programming, so I was just wondering if anyone could give me some tips on note selection, scale construction, rhythm composition, "how to achieve brutality", etc. Pretty much just anything connected into writing slam/beat-down death stuff in the vein of Infant Annihilator, Oceano, Acranius, Pathology, etc...

Any and all tips are appreciated!


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## muffinbutton (Jun 17, 2013)

No synth. Synth can ruin a perfectly good song. That's my only advice.


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## Marv Attaxx (Jun 17, 2013)

Write a random riff.
Then play it halftime.
For extra-brootalz play it quarter time


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## Adeamus (Jun 17, 2013)

Listen to Deathcore. Regurgitate Deathcore.


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## Wings of Obsidian (Jun 17, 2013)

Adeamus said:


> Listen to Deathcore. Regurgitate Deathcore.



What? 

METAL INQUISITION: Deathcore: Now Only 99% Worthless Shit

(So then why does deathcore get so much hate?...)


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## RagtimeDandy (Jun 17, 2013)

palm mute chug in a cool pattern and end with a pinch harmonic. repeat as needed


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## Rev2010 (Jun 17, 2013)

Wings of Obsidian said:


> ......especially punch a baby. :lol



Never wanted to punch a baby, but I've come close to beating the piss out of several lazy/irresponsible/careless/self-righteous/ignorant parents 


Rev.


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## GiveUpGuitar (Jun 17, 2013)

To me, its all about the build up. Your disgustingly heaviness will go completely unnoticed if you do not flow into it the right way. The best part about slam music is how certain transitions can get the listener ready to go ape shit. 

Sadly, although this is an un-musical statement, the riffs/breakdowns don't matter. Slam tends to let the vocals and drums carry the music. Stay away from brighter notes, and be extremely chromatic. Dissonance is key, and my personal favorite;

AIR TIME. 

Some people convince themselves they wrote the heaviest shit ever, and when the riff finally drops, there's no air. The loudest note is a REST. Make people cower in fear with the amount of silence in between those chinas and snares. For those of you who've experienced the genre live, you know that the most people are getting hurt when all you hear is "CHH....... CHH........" and foot stomping.

Another bit of advicel; when writing slam music, don't make happy music. Don't make sad music. Make SCARY music. That's what the genre is about.

If I could shamelessly plug my band (in my sig), we have a little more of a slam influence than the next band. Not too much, because the rest of the dudes don't love it as much as I do, but there are parts that pay a little bit of homage.


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## Wings of Obsidian (Jun 17, 2013)

GiveUpGuitar said:


> AIR TIME.
> 
> Some people convince themselves they wrote the heaviest shit ever, and when the riff finally drops, there's no air. The loudest note is a REST. Make people cower in fear with the amount of silence in between those chinas and snares. For those of you who've experienced the genre live, you know that the most people are getting hurt when all you hear is "CHH....... CHH........" and foot stomping.



Thank you!!! And I must agree, AIR TIME is the key. (Same theory applies to things like dubstep I guess.) But I was just listening to the new remasters of Whitechapel's _The Somatic Defilement_, and the song "Prostatic Fluid Asphyxiation" pretty much does exactly what you said. Chromatic riffage, simple breaks and rhythms, but when it builds to the breakdown(s), you have pause with air time..........(*insert air time*)..........and then it drops and you know.


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## Mr-Jemhead93 (Jun 18, 2013)

don't forget to tune to drop z!!! haha I was going to mention the whole pause thing as well but Give Up Guitar beat me to it oh well


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## vilk (Jun 18, 2013)

The brutalest. This band has one demo that sucks balls, and one EP that rules everything I've ever heard. Literally every track on the EP is beyond solid. Their sound is so good.



two tricks I've noticed that they really do well is having one vocalist doing super long deep gutturals while the other vocals actually addresses the 'lyrical' vocal aspect. The other thing is that even though there is repetition in the guitar, the drums are changing it up quite frequently, to where it almost makes the guitar sound like it's a different riff even though it isn't.


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## -One- (Jun 18, 2013)

Most of the key stuff has already been mentioned, but I'll give you my take on approaching slam-death and down-tempo hardcore stuff.

Step 1: Tune low. Really low. My band used 7-strings in drop F, and 8-strings in drop D#, so we're pretty low. Only band I can think of (off the top of my hand) that consistently tunes lower than drop D# is Black Tongue (who are in drop D on 7-strings, and I mean the D below a bass' E).

Step 2: Don't be afraid to play chromatically, or include accidentals in your riffs. It helps the riffing be a little more chaotic sounding, without getting _too_ chaotic.

Step 3: Don't just learn how to play dissonant notes, learn how to _use_ dissonance to your advantage, and in unique ways. Don't just chug, and throw dissonant chords between the chugs all the time.

Step 4: Get used to some off-time riffing, I find that some of the more interesting down-tempo stuff is _not_ in 4/4. I'm not saying you _can't_ use 4/4, but don't be afraid to get out of your comfort zone here either.

Step 5: *Air time*. When the breakdown or the slam kicks in, sure, there are always the medium speed, chuggy breakdowns, but have you ever seen a band with an unbelievably slow breakdown (think _Recreant_ by Chelsea Grin) play live? When the guitars and bass give the drums room to breathe, that's how you know the room's about to get wild.

Step 6: Don't be afraid to speed it up. I know a lot of slam bands and beatdown bands think speed is useless, but dynamics add a _lot_ to this type of music, and help keep it fresh.

Step 7: Don't intentionally ignore melody in every track. I'm not saying throw in a fast, major scale lead, but don't think you can't get some nice layering with a slow, dark melody over something heavy either.

Step 8: Try and use more than your two lowest strings. Seriously. I love beatdown music, but there are so many bands in that style that just hammer on the low strings, breakdown after breakdown, that it gets stale and boring.

Step 9: Most importantly, just have fun doing it, and don't stress yourself out over not writing something that's "heavy enough," or "slammy enough," or you're just going to get burnt out on writing it anyway.


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## hairychris (Jun 18, 2013)

Not the genre, but IMO a masterclass in how to work a breakdown in a song:



It runs 1:50 - 2:20, but more importantly it's the context that punches you in the cock. Up to 1:50 main song structure, but the change out at 2:20 is ....ing genius.


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## AfterTheBurial8 (Jun 18, 2013)

Don't play in drop tuning, I've been writing in C# standard tuning and it's opened up my playing tenfold. Also, forget scales/modes. I've spent years and years sticking to what's within the scale and key and now I've thrown it out the window, I'm being so much more creative!

Plenty of palm muting, and slow, sludgey riffs. I also think it helps to write really fast paced tremolo picked riffs, then work from that into a slam section and it with just make the slam sound so much phatter. A song just full of slam riffs just gets a wee bit boring after a while!


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## RagtimeDandy (Jun 18, 2013)

Any time someone asks what a slam song or breakdown is, this is the ultimate reference guide IMO 
Sorry if the name of the song offends anyone!

DANCE FAGGOT (DW INTRO) + DOWNLOAD LINK! [DEATHCORE,HARDCORE,MOSH,BEATDOWN,DOWNTEMPO] - YouTube


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## Wings of Obsidian (Jun 18, 2013)

baron samedi said:


> The brutalest. This band has one demo that sucks balls, and one EP that rules everything I've ever heard. Literally every track on the EP is beyond solid. Their sound is so good.
> 
> 
> 
> two tricks I've noticed that they really do well is having one vocalist doing super long deep gutturals while the other vocals actually addresses the 'lyrical' vocal aspect. The other thing is that even though there is repetition in the guitar, the drums are changing it up quite frequently, to where it almost makes the guitar sound like it's a different riff even though it isn't.




What is the name of the band please? (I can watch the video on here fine, but I can't open the link in a new Youtube window to view the name of it for some reason.)



But some bands like Infant Annihilator, Make Them Suffer (especially), and even The Agonist do exactly what you said with having the drumming constantly changing and using various different patterns under the same exact guitar riffs, so it all sounds different.


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## Wings of Obsidian (Jun 18, 2013)

-One- said:


> Most of the key stuff has already been mentioned, but I'll give you my take on approaching slam-death and down-tempo hardcore stuff.
> 
> Step 1: Tune low. Really low. My band used 7-strings in drop F, and 8-strings in drop D#, so we're pretty low. Only band I can think of (off the top of my hand) that consistently tunes lower than drop D# is Black Tongue (who are in drop D on 7-strings, and I mean the D below a bass' E).
> 
> ...



I FRICKIN' LOVE THIS. Thanks a ton dude! (Now that you've broken it down, even idiots like me can understand it.  )



But I just want to post a few of my replies to some of the steps you listed out:

Step 3.) I was actually working on that yesterday by interweaving dissonant chords I between consonant chords to make them either sound right and blend in, or either STAND OUT and you know it when you hear them. Fun little stuff. Some bands like Underoath and old-school Norma Jean make dissonant chords blend in so well with other consonant chords, or sometimes they just use chains and progression of nothing but dissonant chords (but of course it really doesn't sound too good at that point). --- Any particular advice on chugging either straight power chords or should I probably chug more atonal chords?

Step 4.) You're talking to a big Meshuggan fan here dude. I like to experiment in 4/4 or always push the boundaries with different time signatures. 

Step 5.) Air time again! Totally agree with you! (Haha - "Recreant" does in fact come to mind. So does "Crewcabanger".)

YOU ARE AWESOME BRO! All you guys here are for taking the time to contribute your points and ideas and tips! I so sincerely appreciate it!


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## Wings of Obsidian (Jun 18, 2013)

AfterTheBurial8 said:


> Don't play in drop tuning, I've been writing in C# standard tuning and it's opened up my playing tenfold. Also, forget scales/modes. I've spent years and years sticking to what's within the scale and key and now I've thrown it out the window, I'm being so much more creative!



I agree. I have thrown alot of contemporary musical theory out of the window. I do stick to some scalar patterns though that have helped writing (or have helped induce/inspire ideas for writing). Typically though they are just diminished half-whole scales or diminished whole-whole scales. Some times I will venture into augmented scale and chromatic scales, but really there is no need to be "that picky" about them and about the notes, unless a specific instance where melody is involved and calls for it, in which case I will just write a fun melodic section and maybe through in a solo for self-indulgence. 

(One side note: I play an 8-string, so I'm already tuned low. And I drop it lower into either Drop-E or I sometimes tune up into Drop-F or even Monuments tuning. So some of your tuning ideas are kind of beyond my reach at the moment. I must agree in that C# standard is a phenomenal tuning itself though because of its tonal qualities...same with B standard. But I used to keep my old 6-string tuned to C# in order to play some Dark Tranquillity riffage back in the day.)


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## jehu12141987 (Jun 18, 2013)

Roll bag full of marbles into moshpit and enjoy the show.


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## Wings of Obsidian (Jun 18, 2013)

jehu12141987 said:


> Roll bag full of marbles into moshpit and enjoy the show.



I hate hardcore dancers (they need to learn how to really mosh and get in a circle pit, push-pit, or wall of death). But DAMN that is a good idea!


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## jehu12141987 (Jun 18, 2013)

Wings of Obsidian said:


> I hate hardcore dancers (they need to learn how to really mosh and get in a circle pit, push-pit, or wall of death). But DAMN that is a good idea!


 


Thumbtacks work well too.


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## Esp Griffyn (Jun 18, 2013)

Sometimes I feel a little silly when non-metal people ask me what sort of music I'm into / play, and I tell them my favourite genre is "death metal". I'd feel really, really stupid if I had to tell people my genre was "beat-down".


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## DarkWolfXV (Jun 18, 2013)

I will give you serious advice here. So here we go:
1. Slams are most often the first 5 strings played chromatically. You can bother with a scale if you want to do a melodic slam (Like WTC - Blood Splattered Satisfaction), but it depends on what you want to achieve. If you play in band otherwise not slamming, you might want to go for a melodic slam.
2. Breakdowns are chugging, and we all know that, but to get the heaviest chugs ever, do a tritone instead of normal chug. Like this:
-1
-1
-0
3. Look up tabs for Chelsea Grin, a lot of people say its dumb shit music, but its actually _....ing clever_. Instead of doing a riff like:
-2-1-0-1
-2-1-0-1
-2-1-0-1
Chelsea Grin does it like:
-1-0-1-0
-1-0-1-0
-2-1-0-1
In order to amp up the heaviness. Just look up My Damnation and Recreant.

4. If you are ever going to record, dont forget the BASS GUITAR. You wanna be heavy ass or pussy shit? I imagine the first one, so crank that ....er up and be heavier than Mortician (Check out song Zombie Apocalypse, the heaviness is 90% bass)

5. Build up tension before slams and/or breakdowns. Very fast blasty section is often used in slam to do it (Devourment Babykiller), or just placing the slam/breakdown in the end of song. I told it already but check out Recreant. It gets people two stepping EVERY ....ING TIME.

6. Tune low. As low as you wish, but nothing higher than C should be used. Cattle Decapitation might be heavy in Eb, but when they play a slam it is not as mosh-inducing as it would be in Bb for example. You also can use drop tunings, if you want, and using drop tuning doesn't make you worse than others (If elitists only knew Nile plays in drop A...)

7. Use china cymbal for slams/breakdowns. The bigger the better. 24" China breakdowns are DEVASTATING. Dont bother using them for normal non-breakdown sections though because breakdowns will lose their impact, also leads me to point:

8. Dont use too many breakdowns/slams. They need a good momentum, and if you pull an Emmure you wont gather much of it, and breakdown stops to be THE moment in the song if its like everywhere. Of course i enjoy Emmure but the reason is different than great momentum. The momentum thing can be explained shortly - If you want to make a bang, drive train at full speed into rock wall. You DO want to make a bang with breakdowns, yes? Driving at half speed, then surviving and turning back and driving into again wont make such big impact. We dont want ANYONE to survive our $LAM DA FUQQ DOWN moment, so use rocket boosters.

I hope i helped.


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## Wings of Obsidian (Jun 18, 2013)

DarkWolfXV said:


> I will give you serious advice here. So here we go:
> 1. Slams are most often the first 5 strings played chromatically. You can bother with a scale if you want to do a melodic slam (Like WTC - Blood Splattered Satisfaction), but it depends on what you want to achieve. If you play in band otherwise not slamming, you might want to go for a melodic slam.
> 2. Breakdowns are chugging, and we all know that, but to get the heaviest chugs ever, do a tritone instead of normal chug. Like this:
> -1
> ...


 
My dear friend and good sir, you have helped more than you know!  And thank you for addressing a little more than just "guitars-meedly-meedly" here. Forever respect to ya! 

(Side note: I always thought there was a "little more" to that in Chelsea Grin's music. Watching playthroughs, it just CANNOT be stuff like:
0-1-2-1
0-1-2-1
0-1-2-1
You have confirmed my beliefs and suspicions that their music is a bit more "technical" or that there is more to it. I rest my case. )


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## Konfyouzd (Jun 18, 2013)

GiveUpGuitar said:


> To me, its all about the build up.



That's music in a nutshell, brotha...


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## Konfyouzd (Jun 18, 2013)

Esp Griffyn said:


> Sometimes I feel a little silly when non-metal people ask me what sort of music I'm into / play, and I tell them my favourite genre is "death metal". I'd feel really, really stupid if I had to tell people my genre was "beat-down".


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## MikeH (Jun 18, 2013)

Copy this.


Done.


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## Wings of Obsidian (Jun 18, 2013)

MikeH said:


> Copy this.
> 
> 
> Done.




Already addressed Black Tongue.  Lol. I'm not much of a fan of down-tempo, but it works excellent within the beat-down field. Considering BT is Eddie and Aaron from Infant Annihilator.


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## vilk (Jun 19, 2013)

Wings of Obsidian said:


> What is the name of the band please? (I can watch the video on here fine, but I can't open the link in a new Youtube window to view the name of it for some reason.)
> 
> 
> 
> But some bands like Infant Annihilator, Make Them Suffer (especially), and even The Agonist do exactly what you said with having the drumming constantly changing and using various different patterns under the same exact guitar riffs, so it all sounds different.



Misericordiam is the band and Unanimity and the Cessation of Hostility is their (only) good EP. Honestly it's almost upsetting how bad their other stuff is. I wish they would make more music like the good EP.


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## muffinbutton (Jun 19, 2013)

Wings of Obsidian said:


> But some bands like Infant Annihilator, Make Them Suffer (especially), and even The Agonist do exactly what you said with having the drumming constantly changing and using various different patterns under the same exact guitar riffs, so it all sounds different.



I don't listen to IA, but I definitely agree about Make Them Suffer. I never noticed how the guitar always sounds pretty much the same until I looked up tabs. I always seem to pay more attention to the piano. Which I think definitely adds to any deathcore. Like them and some of Whitechapel's songs.


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## mcsalty (Jun 19, 2013)

as far as the slam parts go, write some simple, low, chunky, atonal riffs, and throw in a bunch of pinch harmonics haha. add some heavy/groovy drums and you're good!


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## muffinbutton (Jun 19, 2013)

What's the basic song structure for deathcore and related genres anyway? I suck at figuring that stuff out.


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## vilk (Jun 19, 2013)

muffinbutton said:


> What's the basic song structure for deathcore and related genres anyway? I suck at figuring that stuff out.



That's a pretty broad question don't you think? I'd say that deathcore and slam have pretty different type song structures, and once you get into tech. death it get's even farther out the door.

I'd say deathcore generally contains an intro riff, 2-3 main riffs, a chorus, and usually about two breakdowns. er, at least this is typical for many Veil of Maya songs. Some deathcore bands have solos as well.

Slam would probably have an intro riff, then 2-3 main riffs. 

Tech. Death metal is like infinity riffs, no chorus, possibly some uber techy/fast breakdown-ish parts, and of course as many as several guitar solos. Think about Spawn Of Possession; one 8 minute song from them has more ....ing riffs than you can count. Sometimes I don't think they repeat anything even once.


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## The Reverend (Jun 19, 2013)

muffinbutton said:


> What's the basic song structure for deathcore and related genres anyway? I suck at figuring that stuff out.



There's not generally a standard structure for the songs, like in a pop format or something. There's definitely standard parts, but you can arrange them however you please. There's also transitions that are standard, usually going into a breakdown or chorus. Just listen to any deathcore song and make notes to yourself, you'll see it soon enough.


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## Mprinsje (Jun 19, 2013)

Tune down, breakdown, 2step


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## Wings of Obsidian (Jun 19, 2013)

Mprinsje said:


> 2step



I know this isn't the "hardcore pit two-step" you are talking about. I'm sorry, but I couldn't resist. 

UNK 2 STEP VIDEO - YouTube


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## Wings of Obsidian (Jun 19, 2013)

baron samedi said:


> That's a pretty broad question don't you think? I'd say that deathcore and slam have pretty different type song structures, and once you get into tech. death it get's even farther out the door.



I have drawn some parallels between deathcore and slam. I mean, some slam is just slam after slam. And some deathcore is just breakdown after breakdown. Some slam, like some of Acranius's new stuff, does not have a defined song structure. Alot of deathcore, like old Here Comes the Kraken from their debut, also has no defined song structure and is just "riff-salad". Granted, there are songs is both subgenres/categories that will have perfectly perceivable song structures, like something from Veil of Maya maybe which falls into deathcore and into the tech-death category. 

See, the problem with me is that I love super technical, complex riffage. And I am stuck mainly trying to combine super heavy deathcore and tech-death. The reason I mentioned slamming in this thread originally is because I have been studying brutal slam death metal and that shit is heavy! Slams can serve a number of purposes as a transition in the context of some songs.


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## GiveUpGuitar (Jun 19, 2013)

Mprinsje said:


> Tune down, breakdown, 2step



2-stepping is avoided at all costs in slam music. Happiness is a no no 

People seem to confuse slam with death core, but they're are a significant amount of differences.


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## DarkWolfXV (Jun 19, 2013)

GiveUpGuitar said:


> 2-stepping is avoided at all costs in slam music. Happiness is a no no
> 
> People seem to confuse slam with death core, but they're are a significant amount of differences.



There is difference, but in todays slam death scene slam is absorbing deathcore and vice versa, but people refuse to acknowledge it. Look at Abnormity Irreversible Disintegration. Its kind of slam/deathcore hybrid which was originally started by Waking The Cadaver.


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## NovaReaper (Jun 19, 2013)

rofl


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## Wings of Obsidian (Jun 19, 2013)

DarkWolfXV said:


> There is difference, but in todays slam death scene slam is absorbing deathcore and vice versa, but people refuse to acknowledge it. Look at Abnormity Irreversible Disintegration. Its kind of slam/deathcore hybrid which was originally started by Waking The Cadaver.



Waking the Cadaver is another of my little influences on here. But I am surprised no one has asked me why I am asking about slam AND deathcore. Sure, the two are different (one is brutal death metal and the other is...well..."deathcore"), but I agree with what DarkWolf is saying. Between the usage of breakdowns and slams and slow-downs (and other such techniques in song dynamics), they all are beginning to bring together both slam and deathcore. I believe that slam is absorbing deathcore (listen to Acranius), and I believe deathcore is absorbing slam (listen to Infant Annihilator or Black Tongue, even though they are beat-down).


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## thrsher (Jun 19, 2013)

technical slam=brutal death for the most part


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## Mprinsje (Jun 19, 2013)

GiveUpGuitar said:


> 2-stepping is avoided at all costs in slam music. Happiness is a no no
> 
> People seem to confuse slam with death core, but they're are a significant amount of differences.



Psh, good music isn't good music without 2step


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## leftyguitarjoe (Jun 19, 2013)

Its possible to have really interesting breakdowns. Just look at Vildjharta.


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## Wings of Obsidian (Jun 19, 2013)

leftyguitarjoe said:


> Its possible to have really interesting breakdowns. Just look at Vildjharta, Veil of Maya, Meshuggah, or Humanity's Last Breath.



FIXED.


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## ittoa666 (Jun 19, 2013)

Devourment. Let the groove take over.


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## Wings of Obsidian (Jun 20, 2013)

ittoa666 said:


> Devourment. Let the groove take over.




^^^ Seeing them live in my hometown in October.


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## -42- (Jun 20, 2013)

Esp Griffyn said:


> Sometimes I feel a little silly when non-metal people ask me what sort of music I'm into / play, and I tell them my favourite genre is "death metal". I'd feel really, really stupid if I had to tell people my genre was "beat-down".


It's even more fun having to tell people I play powerviolence.


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## blackhawk308 (Jun 20, 2013)

this song has,imo, one of the best slams in modern death metal. 
starts around 2:04


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## DarkWolfXV (Jun 20, 2013)

blackhawk308 said:


> this song has,imo, one of the best slams in modern death metal.
> starts around 2:04




Thats cool and all i like it but its not a slam it is a breakdown.


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## DarkWolfXV (Jun 20, 2013)

Wings of Obsidian said:


> Waking the Cadaver is another of my little influences on here. But I am surprised no one has asked me why I am asking about slam AND deathcore. Sure, the two are different (one is brutal death metal and the other is...well..."deathcore"), but I agree with what DarkWolf is saying. Between the usage of breakdowns and slams and slow-downs (and other such techniques in song dynamics), they all are beginning to bring together both slam and deathcore. I believe that slam is absorbing deathcore (listen to Acranius), and I believe deathcore is absorbing slam (listen to Infant Annihilator or Black Tongue, even though they are beat-down).



The slam/deathcore absorbing each other reminds me of Starcraft II. Zerg and Protoss will combine into Hybrids and rule the universe . By the way, i agree with Infant Annihilator part u said, even when they play a breakdown they play it in slam rhythm, so its boom boom boom like instead of quick 16th chugs.


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## Wings of Obsidian (Jun 20, 2013)

leftyguitarjoe said:


> Its possible to have really interesting breakdowns. Just look at Veil of Maya.









One of my absolute favorite memes. Hands-down. Doin' it up Okubo-style


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## that short guy (Jun 21, 2013)

Wings of Obsidian said:


> Hello all my favorite SS.org-ers:
> 
> Ya know, the kind of stuff that just makes you want to get in the pit and punch somebody......especially punch a baby.



So far there is very few bands that make me want to get in the pit anymore, but White chapel is at the top of that list, so I'd take a page out of there book and learn their style so to speak and apply it to my own if it were me


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## Decapitated666 (Jun 21, 2013)

Give this a listen. Especially the title track. I think this may be one of the heaviest albums I've ever heard. Listen with headphones though! That's the only was the low frequency bass drop hits on each slam section will sound perfect. But writing wise... Chromaticism, chugging, tons of bass in the guitar tone, bass drop decimations, and keep the drums at a steady pace! I find that all my favorite slams all happen while the drums keep a solid 4/4 beat and a 16th or 32nd note pattern on the kick. I mean, just listen to the album I tagged in this post. It'll ....ing plow you down.


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## RagtimeDandy (Jun 21, 2013)

Wings of Obsidian said:


> One of my absolute favorite memes. Hands-down. Doin' it up Okubo-style



It's so true though. The reason I dig VoM so much more than any other modern deathcore band is that the breakdowns are so tasteful and well made they aren't really even breakdowns. With a lot of bands the songs are just breakdowns with fillers - not songs with breakdowns


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## UV7BK4LIFE (Jun 21, 2013)

Droptune. Use only fret 0, 1, 3, and 4 . Start chugging. Then if you come up with a cool rythmic pattern, try moving that pattern up and down the neck. Add squeals, fast runs or dissonant chords at the end of every 4th instance of the pattern.

The above is not very creative, just another way to get started.


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## Tyler (Jun 21, 2013)

write when youre genuinely pissed off


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## Wings of Obsidian (Jun 21, 2013)

nellings6 said:


> write when youre genuinely pissed off



Well, hell naw, brah!

Some of us like to write happy K-pop-influenced slapdown-core music.


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## Wings of Obsidian (Jun 21, 2013)

I think this shit slams hard...





(I think this ought to appease Mprinsje.)


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## Wings of Obsidian (Jun 25, 2013)

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread! Very helpful insight and tips.


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## metaljohn (Jun 25, 2013)

Listen to Suffocation, Dying Fetus and Skinless discographies on repeat. Pick up guitar. WRYTE [email protected]!


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## DarkWolfXV (Jun 25, 2013)

metaljohn said:


> Listen to Suffocation, Dying Fetus and Skinless discographies on repeat. Pick up guitar. WRYTE [email protected]!



Im afraid none of these bands are slam death metal. Just plain brutal death metal.


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## Wings of Obsidian (Jun 25, 2013)

DarkWolfXV said:


> Im afraid none of these bands are slam death metal. Just plain brutal death metal.


 
Agreed. But the first two Suffocation albums are rather credited for introducing the concept behind SLAMS.

Edit: I'M AT 1,000 POSTS!


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## DarkWolfXV (Jun 25, 2013)

Wings of Obsidian said:


> Agreed. But the first two Suffocation albums are rather credited for introducing the concept behind SLAMS.



Yes, the influence is undeniable, but still not slam, also someone mentioned in the second post "no synths". That is bullshit imo, to throw out just because "it doesn't work in my genre". I've never heard synths in slam death setting (Fleshgod Apocalypse is not slam...), so go give it a try and make symphonic brutal/slam death metal. Make the unexpected. Put melody into seemingly atonal genre. Same could go for extremely melodic genre like power metal, you could try atonality and put in there some kind of "cheesy power metal slam", for variation.


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