# Are metal mixers just... not as good as other genres?



## JohnIce (Jul 24, 2018)

Bear with me  So, I’m always looking for a great sounding rock/metal mix. I generally don’t find them. Today, I stumbled across this with mah headphones on:


Very often, I’m pretty blown away with the production and mixes of modern pop, hip hop and off-shoots of genres like those. Huge, tight low end, crisp yet smooth high end, warm and spacious midrange, monstrous reverbs and ear-tickling percussion. Sounds dynamic, open and contrasting even when brickwalled. And I almost never hear anything that sounds objectively ”bad”, as in unpleasant or unbalanced. Even when the productions are unremarkable they still sound totally fine.

With metal however… I feel like even the most celebrated metal mixes can’t REALLY compete. And below the top names, a surprising amount of popular metal actually sounds pretty cruddy but is released on major labels anyway, and most metal fans don’t really seem to mind all that much as long as it doesn’t sound like, you know, Death Magnetic. Like, that’s the bar. Am I the only one thinking this? I mean, there are definitely some factors that make metal hard to work with compared to pop:

- Live drums are harder to work with than pre-made sample packs. Everyone knows that.
- An electric bass is harder to get as consistent and full-bodied as a synth bass.
- Distorted guitars eat up frequencies like no other instrument.
- Metal is generally so busily arranged that it’s hard to get everything to fit while still leaving room for lush reverbs, vocal nuances and small percussion to shine through.

But I don’t care about what is more difficult now, I’m talking about results.

I mean… just come on:


Just… come on:


I’m wondering if I’m missing something here? Are there in fact metal music being made today that, from a mixing point of view, sounds as good or better as this stuff?

Not trying to be mean, but I seriously wonder why some metal mix engineers get so religiously followed and copied and tutorial-binged on forums like this one, when musical taste aside, they… don’t _really_ play in the same league as many pop, EDM and hip hop mixing engineers. Or do they?

Can you give me some examples of aggressive music with bass, drums and hi-gain that honestly sounds in the ballpark of the examples I posted, in terms of balance, depth of bass, crispness and stereo width? I would be really pleasantly surprised to hear it.

TL;DR: I sadly think that pop mixers are better than metal mixers. Prove me wrong


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## Clocks (Jul 24, 2018)




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## prlgmnr (Jul 24, 2018)

First thing that came to mind:  though obv you'll want to find better quality than that.


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## Lorcan Ward (Jul 24, 2018)

Good post and you will find a lot of people with a similar opinion. Aside from the big guys in pop having much bigger budgets and better gear to work with you also have to remember how much you can get away with in metal, its known for having "its fine, most listeners won't care" mixing. Its meant to sound similar to how it will sound live and that kind of thinking hasn't really changed in recent decades.

Its also worth noting how super produced pop is, people think metal has a lot of editing in it, it doesn't come close to pop. Your first clip the vocals are the equivalent of the Haarp Machine and the guy struggles so bad live.



JohnIce said:


> - Distorted guitars eat up frequencies like no other instrument.



In my opinion this is the clear reason. Hi-gain guitar has a hundred disgusting frequencies that need to be cut make it sound pleasing and to allow other instruments to breathe but then you run into another hundred issues of the guitars sounding scooped, thin, fizzy, dry, scratchy, harsh etc.


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## JohnIce (Jul 24, 2018)

Clocks said:


>




That sounds pretty stellar  Good call! I've been sleeping on Plini because I'm not really into instrumental music, but I could definitely ref my mixes against that!


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## Metropolis (Jul 24, 2018)

You pretty much answered to all of your questions in there.



JohnIce said:


> - Live drums are harder to work with than pre-made sample packs. Everyone knows that.
> - An electric bass is harder to get as consistent and full-bodied as a synth bass.
> - Distorted guitars eat up frequencies like no other instrument.
> - Metal is generally so busily arranged that it’s hard to get everything to fit while still leaving room for lush reverbs, vocal nuances and small percussion to shine through.



Modern pop like those rely so much on rhytm and bass with vocals on top is just a whole different animal than guitar oriented metal or rock mix. You can get it really bass heavy without losing definition, because there isn't happening anything else from time to time. Also electronic instruments/samples or what not are just super clear sounding when compared to real instruments. Something sounding better as a whole is completely subjective matter. And keep in mind that big selling artists like those have an army of producers and mixing engineers who are in top of their game. Almost nothing comes to close how edited and produced those songs are, just like Lorcan wrote there.


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## LiveOVErdrive (Jul 24, 2018)

This makes me curious to see what could happen if metal producers and writers took cues from pop when it came to songwriting and production. If we all leaned a little bit away from the "metal means distorted guitar" and more toward the "I'm gonna make this song and use whatever sounds seem appropriate" we might get some really cool shit.

In other words if we made the guitar serve the song instead of the song serve the guitar.


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## JohnIce (Jul 24, 2018)

Lorcan Ward said:


> Good post and you will find a lot of people with a similar opinion. Aside from the big guys in pop having much bigger budgets and better gear to work with you also have to remember how much you can get away with in metal, its known for having "its fine, most listeners won't care" mixing. Its meant to sound similar to how it will sound live and that kind of thinking hasn't really changed in recent decades.
> 
> Its also worth noting how super produced pop is, people think metal has a lot of editing in it, it doesn't come close to pop. Your first clip the vocals are the equivalent of the Haarp Machine and the guy struggles so bad live.
> 
> ...



Yeah, I'm definitely getting a vibe that most people mixing metal are a) a bit production-phobic, they don't want to try anything on record that they can't do live, whereas in pop music the two are considered two different things, and b) They only put the bar as high as other metal mixes. They want to sound as good as Sneap or Sturgis instead of aspiring to sound BETTER than that.

Personally I think that treating a recording that'll be played on someone's earbuds alone on a subway commute the same way you would a live show at 100dB in front of a social gathering, is a bit bonkers. Fletcher Munson aside, they're just completely different experiences and I don't see any harm in making the most out of the studio when you're in the studio, and making the most out of the live show when you're actually playing a live show.

As far as your other point, I don't think budget is a too significant factor, besides obviously the salary of someone really skilled. But I'm hearing so much great stuff done by up-and-comers with basic plugins and presets, I think it has more to do with the attitude (and influences) in metal than lack of funds. If you can afford a PRS and a Boogie halfstack/Axe-Fx you can afford some Waves plugins and a decent interface


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## cwhitey2 (Jul 24, 2018)

Most pop is not a 'recording'. It's samples...

How many metal bands write songs with just samples?

Also, I hate pop mixes as I find them to over the top and too 'perfect'. I love flaws in a recording...it reminds me/us that we are people and not perfect...well some are perfect


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## JohnIce (Jul 24, 2018)

Metropolis said:


> You pretty much answered to all of your questions in there.
> 
> 
> 
> Modern pop like those rely so much on rhytm and bass with vocals on top is just a whole different animal than guitar oriented metal or rock mix. You can get it really bass heavy without losing definition, because there isn't happening anything else from time to time. Also electronic instruments/samples or what not are just super clear sounding when compared to real instruments. Something sounding better as a whole is completely subjective matter. And keep in mind that big selling artists like those have an army of producers and mixing engineers who are in top of their game. Almost nothing comes to close how edited and produced those songs are, just like Lorcan wrote there.



Sure, but on that note, how do you feel about the Plini song that was posted here? To me, that's some top-tier solving of the problems you (and I) were talking about. And it sounds like he's taking some serious clues from the mixing styles of pop and EDM people, like LiveOVErdrive mentioned.

Like I said, I'm not really interesting in why metal mixing is an uphill battle (I know all about that :lol), I'm wondering if there are solutions and what we can (or should) learn from them.


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## LiveOVErdrive (Jul 24, 2018)

cwhitey2 said:


> Most pop is not a 'recording'. It's samples...
> 
> How many metal bands write songs with just samples?
> 
> Also, I hate pop mixes as I find them to over the top and too 'perfect'. I love flaws in a recording...it reminds me/us that we are people and not perfect...well some are perfect



Which is valid, and I agree with others that that tends to be the sound people want in metal: "real music" played by real people (except drums  ) 

Still curious what more poppy produced metal would sound like. Not as banal as most pop, just more song oriented and less musician oriented.


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## Metropolis (Jul 24, 2018)

LiveOVErdrive said:


> This makes me curious to see what could happen if metal producers and writers took cues from pop when it came to songwriting and production. If we all leaned a little bit away from the "metal means distorted guitar" and more toward the "I'm gonna make this song and use whatever sounds seem appropriate" we might get some really cool shit.
> 
> In other words if we made the guitar serve the song instead of the song serve the guitar.



Maybe something like these? Doom has guitars of course, but I mean these as a more electronic approach to metal, not neccesarily pop at all. More pop? Devin Townsend maybe?






JohnIce said:


> Sure, but on that note, how do you feel about the Plini song that was posted here? To me, that's some top-tier solving of the problems you (and I) were talking about. And it sounds like he's taking some serious clues from the mixing styles of pop and EDM people, like LiveOVErdrive mentioned.



I love Plini's work, it has definetly those traits as a whole. There is quite a lot going on in some places, but still everything is very well in order, clear and defined.


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## will_shred (Jul 24, 2018)

Anyone who has a lot of experience with mixing can testify that metal in particular is a difficult genre to mix, because of all the reasons you mentioned. Also, there really isn't much of a difference from metal production and pop production, the techniques are pretty universal as far as professional mixing goes. I also completely disagree that metal mixes in general sound worse that pop mixes, there are to many greatly produced metal albums to list but to name a new off the top of my head. Lamb of God, literally anything from Ashes of the Wake and up. Whitechapel, In Flames,
*Ne Obliviscaris*
Ice Nine Kills (Justin DeBlieck happens to have graduated from the same music school that i'm attending and came into my audio class to do a workshop on programming drums), Beyond Creation- The Aura, Archspire, Relentless Mutation, anything by Periphery. Most of shitty metal production comes from people just not really knowing what they're doing, or aesthetic choice, or time/budget constraints.


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## tedtan (Jul 24, 2018)

JohnIce said:


> Like I said, I'm not really interesting in why metal mixing is an uphill battle (I know all about that :lol), I'm wondering if there are solutions and what we can (or should) learn from them.



The biggest thing you can do to address the issue is arrange the track so it avoids the issues, as arrangement, to a large extent, dictates what is possible within a mix. But that will lead to the music sounding pretty different (e.g., there is only so much you can do with a tech death track, for example, as it is so busy).


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## LiveOVErdrive (Jul 24, 2018)

Yeah good examples. I guess the main difference I'm thinking of right now is how in a "band" you've got a guitar player and a bass player and a drummer and a singer and they all do those four things and nothing else. 

Obviously that's a simplification and there are groups that don't do that. 

I'll shut up now. I'm confusing myself.


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## Metropolis (Jul 24, 2018)

Seriously a lot of progressive, symphonic, alternative and industrial metal bands have some sort of similar approaches how to arrange or produce their songs. Is it really refreshing or intresting, decide by yourself. Amaranthe might be most modern pop'ish example of metal I can think of. By the way it might be my new musical guilty pleasure from now on because of this thread...


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## TedEH (Jul 24, 2018)

It's not that metal mixes are "worse" it's that they're being judged by a different standard. Pop aims to be shiny and easy to consume. Metal aims to be "cool".

There's a big issue in that metal mixes can't stray too far away from whatever standard we're used to, lest it be torn apart -> look at Opeth's latest for an example. There's toooooooons of bass to it, lots of texture, it's very different than a traditional mix for their audience, and it got torn to shreds. You can't make something "too perfect", lest you be accused of "faking it" or "lacking feel". If you do any of the production tricks to make pop sound 'perfect', you've somehow betrayed the values of the metal community. Corrected vocals? How dare you! Parts slowed down and sped back up so you can nail the parts? You lied to us! Used a really smooth pleasant sounding amp sim? It's not reaaaaaaaaaal man. Too obvious that drums are samples? That won't fly.

Metal mixes sound "worse" because that's what the audience wants. If you didn't record it yourself on a vintage boosted amp on a recto cab through a 57 with 8 noise gates and 34 compressors but kept all the mistakes in - then it's not "real" metal.


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## KnightBrolaire (Jul 24, 2018)

LiveOVErdrive said:


> This makes me curious to see what could happen if metal producers and writers took cues from pop when it came to songwriting and production. If we all leaned a little bit away from the "metal means distorted guitar" and more toward the "I'm gonna make this song and use whatever sounds seem appropriate" we might get some really cool shit.
> 
> In other words if we made the guitar serve the song instead of the song serve the guitar.


you need to listen to more steven wilson/porcupine tree.


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## karjim (Jul 24, 2018)

I produce myself some synthwave, Zimmer style soundtrack, some hip hop just for me and produce my metal band...with my humble level of course and I can say one thing. Metal is just a nightmare to mix, even with URM boyz and a ton of tutos on youtube its just impossible. Extreme metal is just comprises. This kind of music is not suposed to be pleasant or clean if I can choose that world. It s a bloody mess. You cant compared Katy Perry to Humanity last breath . It s like saying ` The sound of the sea or cascade is so much pleasant to hear that an earthquake or an avalanche`. And people want to hear every detail of the earthquake like every detail of the birds the waves and the boat on an italy beach. It s just impossible, it s just nature of sounds, it s physic


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## Mathemagician (Jul 24, 2018)

I feel like a couple of Escape The Fate songs off their albums “This War is Ours” and “Escape the Fate” have some higher levels of polish. They decided to live away from it on future records, but that album REALLY got me thinking about this topic. The vocals come in so clear, the guitar parts do not blend together, they use vocal synths/effects on a few tracks. It’s very pop-y, and compared to what I normally listen to it was very refreshing at that point in time. Content/material aside it did not “feel” like it was recorded as a metal album.


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## bostjan (Jul 24, 2018)

So, you're saying that most metal bands recording live instruments in a studio with a $1-2k budget don't sound as polished as your typical pop recording composed of samples and loops (recorded meticulously by other artists, then chosen by the current artists for their polish), and done with a $20-50k budget? 

Okay. 


I guess what I feel I'm missing is the antecedent of that statement. Like, "we should try to sound more like..." _insert artist here_.


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## JohnIce (Jul 24, 2018)

cwhitey2 said:


> Most pop is not a 'recording'. It's samples...
> 
> How many metal bands write songs with just samples?
> 
> Also, I hate pop mixes as I find them to over the top and too 'perfect'. I love flaws in a recording...it reminds me/us that we are people and not perfect...well some are perfect



I think there's a significant difference between flaws in performance and flaws in production though. I LOVE when a performance feels raw and unedited, especially in rock and metal, but captured with great skill and mixed with great taste. I think Slipknot and some of the big Grunge bands are a great example of this, the tempos and tunings and amp hum is all over the place and I love it, but the production and mixing is still top. But I haven't heard a lot of unedited, live-in-a-room sounding metal bands since, I guess 2005?



tedtan said:


> The biggest thing you can do to address the issue is arrange the track so it avoids the issues, as arrangement, to a large extent, dictates what is possible within a mix. But that will lead to the music sounding pretty different (e.g., there is only so much you can do with a tech death track, for example, as it is so busy).



Agreed 100% 



TedEH said:


> It's not that metal mixes are "worse" it's that they're being judged by a different standard. Pop aims to be shiny and easy to consume. Metal aims to be "cool".
> 
> There's a big issue in that metal mixes can't stray too far away from whatever standard we're used to, lest it be torn apart -> look at Opeth's latest for an example. There's toooooooons of bass to it, lots of texture, it's very different than a traditional mix for their audience, and it got torn to shreds. You can't make something "too perfect", lest you be accused of "faking it" or "lacking feel". If you do any of the production tricks to make pop sound 'perfect', you've somehow betrayed the values of the metal community. Corrected vocals? How dare you! Parts slowed down and sped back up so you can nail the parts? You lied to us! Used a really smooth pleasant sounding amp sim? It's not reaaaaaaaaaal man. Too obvious that drums are samples? That won't fly.
> 
> Metal mixes sound "worse" because that's what the audience wants. If you didn't record it yourself on a vintage boosted amp on a recto cab through a 57 with 8 noise gates and 34 compressors but kept all the mistakes in - then it's not "real" metal.



So are you saying the conservative attitudes of metal fans are mainly what's hindering artists from experimenting with their sounds, bringing new influences into their productions and aspiring to a new and improved standard? I think that may definitely be the case, and it's something that I find very disheartening about metal lately.



bostjan said:


> So, you're saying that most metal bands recording live instruments in a studio with a $1-2k budget don't sound as polished as your typical pop recording composed of samples and loops (recorded meticulously by other artists, then chosen by the current artists for their polish), and done with a $20-50k budget?
> 
> Okay.
> 
> ...



I'm not saying anything, I'm asking  I think both the Plini and DOOM examples posted here are very good examples of what I'm searching for, i.e. modern "metal" productions where the well known hurdles and "compromises" of metal recording have been overcome and allowed for the mixes to be a little clearer, more open and lush than what most modern metal achieves. I think it's no coincidence that you can hear lots of non-metal influences in both those songs, pointing to the fact that the producers would be familiar with a lot of production styles outside of metal too. I think it's neat, exactly what I started the thread for


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## axxessdenied (Jul 24, 2018)

This is a pretty sick mix considering how intense the music is. Compare how many elements are fighting for room and how much information is being provided to the listener in such a short amount of time. The chainsmokers vid on the other hand is super simple when you take into accounts the elements that are being mixed. A lot of these pop artists also have entire teams of songwriters putting songs together who also take into account how the elements will sound when being mixed. The pop industry has the whole thing down to a science now. Metal is slowly catching up though.


I think the complexity of the music is a big part of it. A ton of editing is involved in making great mixes. Guys producing pop typically work with bigger budgets which means they can afford to spend much more on editing stems they get sent before actually sitting down to mix things. Not only that. A lot of producers that do pop basically have a template created right from the engineering aspect to the mixing aspect. They know exactly how to get the source material to sound in order to make it slam through their mixing rig.


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## axxessdenied (Jul 24, 2018)

I'm a huge fan of this mix 

The low end control is absolutely incredible


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## JohnIce (Jul 25, 2018)

axxessdenied said:


> A lot of these pop artists also have entire teams of songwriters putting songs together who also take into account how the elements will sound when being mixed. The pop industry has the whole thing down to a science now. Metal is slowly catching up though.
> 
> 
> I think the complexity of the music is a big part of it. A ton of editing is involved in making great mixes. Guys producing pop typically work with bigger budgets which means they can afford to spend much more on editing stems they get sent before actually sitting down to mix things. Not only that. A lot of producers that do pop basically have a template created right from the engineering aspect to the mixing aspect. They know exactly how to get the source material to sound in order to make it slam through their mixing rig.




A lot of the things you mention sound like things any serious band or mixing engineer should do though  I.e. "having it down to a science", "taking into accounts how elements will sound when mixed", "spend time editing the stems before mixing", "know how to get the source material to sound in order to slam it through their mixing rig".

When you put it that way, it makes anyone who doesn't do that seem like a lazy amateur  Especially for a self-producing home studio owner who has all the time in the world to get great takes, edit, get feedback from other experienced ears (which is what a "teams of songwriters" really is good for).

As far as editing goes, I find most metal I've heard since roughly 2005 has been so quantized and cut up that I really don't think your typical pop song is that much more edited. More automated and layered for sure, but not more edited really.

And this isn't a response to you, but since a lot of people in the thread brought up samples as being the big difference, why not have a listen to this practically all-live instrument track. To me this is some top-tier production and mixing of a live band.


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## TedEH (Jul 25, 2018)

JohnIce said:


> So are you saying the conservative attitudes of metal fans are mainly what's hindering artists from experimenting with their sounds, bringing new influences into their productions and aspiring to a new and improved standard?


No, that's not really what I'm saying. Metal experiments a lot. Metal does strive to higher standards. But are are **DIFFERENT** than pop standards. The goals are different, the audience is different, the message being put across by the mix is different. Metal is often regarded as a translation of a performance, whereas pop production is almost a part of the song in itself.

The rest of the "values holding us back" side, while not really what I mean, is kind of true on certain levels though? I mean that in the sense that there's definitely certain audiences that are entirely turned off by production that strays too far into pop territory. I suppose I sort of said that? It wasn't really my intent though.



axxessdenied said:


> This is a pretty sick mix considering how intense the music is.


Honestly, that sounds like every other metal mix I've ever heard. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It's the same drum sampled, buried grindy bass, 110% guitars and gurgles mix on a bajillion songs out there. That doesn't mean it's bad, it does sound good to my ears, but it's not that interesting from a mix perspective, I think.

I find it funny that we've suddenly turned to "metal really should do like pop and have it down to a science" when we sort of do already. Browse around the forum enough and you discover that everyone is basically doing the same thing. The same drum samples, the same panning patters, the same multi-tracking of guitars, we use the same mics, the same splitting of the bass into clean low and grindy highs, the same ducking techniques, etc etc etc......
Every time someone posts their new "sick metal mix", I basically just hear "oh look, someone else read the Systematic Guide..."


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## JohnIce (Jul 25, 2018)

TedEH said:


> I find it funny that we've suddenly turned to "metal really should do like pop and have it down to a science" when we sort of do already. Browse around the forum enough and you discover that everyone is basically doing the same thing. The same drum samples, the same panning patters, the same multi-tracking of guitars, we use the same mics, the same splitting of the bass into clean low and grindy highs, the same ducking techniques, etc etc etc......
> Every time someone posts their new "sick metal mix", I basically just hear "oh look, someone else read the Systematic Guide..."



Isn't everyone sticking to the same thing kind of the opposite of being scientific? I agree that a lot of metal sounds incredibly similar from a production and mixing point of view, it seems everyone is striving for the same sound almost regardless of subgenre even.

What I like about pop as a concept, is that while it definitely relies heavily on familiarity, you also need a fresh sound to get into the real top chart positions. Trying to chart with a song today that sounds like it was made in 2014 simply doesn't work, so it's just an inherent part of working with pop music to try to discover_ something_ new for each single. Keep in mind I'm talking about the real creme de la creme singles here, not the legions of generic radio-filler that record labels are pumping out.

Case in point: The ridiculously crispy snare/snap/clap combo in the Chainsmokers song is definitely their own thing. In the Ariana Grande song, I've never heard that bass synth that sounds like they sampled someone with a flu trying to breathe. In the Dua Lipa song the use of vocoders and the drum fill into the chorus is significant of that song and that song only.

To me this is an attitude that is very rare in metal. And while that's not inherently bad, after 10+ years of not much new happening in metal production it does seem a bit anti-science compared to pop.


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## TedEH (Jul 25, 2018)

JohnIce said:


> Isn't everyone sticking to the same thing kind of the opposite of being scientific?


"Down to a science", conversationally generally means it's been figured out rather than people experimenting.



JohnIce said:


> Keep in mind I'm talking about the real creme de la creme singles here, not the legions of generic radio-filler that record labels are pumping out.


I honestly can't tell the difference. Those things don't sound unique to me at all. I've heard that same drum pattern a bajillion times. I'm not saying that to be smug or something, I literally don't know what the distinction here is. It all sounds like pumped-out/manufactured/filler to me. I think this might be a case of elevating the songs you like over the "filler" by simple virtue of you finding something to like in those tunes. That's not to say all pop music is garbage by default, but I don't think there's any valuable observation being made here. You've effectively pointed out the idea of "hooks" that a ton of pop music strives for.



JohnIce said:


> To me this is an attitude that is very rare in metal.


Keep in mind that you're literally comparing popular music to niche music. One that does everything it can to hook everyone it can, to one that exist to satisfy a very specific set of tastes. If it strayed too far from what metal is or what those tastes are, it wouldn't be metal anymore. I don't mean that is criticism or a value judgement (some people do), but I mean it literally - the attitude of experimentation and hooks and progressing and blending and creating new genres all exist, but the results are likely to either fall outside of what can still be called metal (so the umbrella of metal can't claim the result as it's own anymore) or isn't going to appeal to the niche tastes of the original audience if those are the people you're still trying to appeal to.


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## bostjan (Jul 25, 2018)

JohnIce said:


> but since a lot of people in the thread brought up samples as being the big difference, why not have a listen to this practically all-live instrument track. To me this is some top-tier production and mixing of a live band.


Dude, that song is sampled to hell and back. The handclaps, the bassline at the beginning (vocal line was recorded by one of the engineers, sampled, and used as a sequence patch), the drums throughout (snare is even the same velocity throughout the song), the build-ups to the bass drops... Gap Band even successfully sued over uncredited samples of "I Don't Believe You Want to Get Up and Dance (Oops)", and the horn parts were recorded at a different studio by a different band for the song. That's probably the worst example of "practically all-live instrument." I really like the song, but I really don't think you could have chosen a worse example to make your point.


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## JohnIce (Jul 25, 2018)

TedEH said:


> I honestly can't tell the difference. Those things don't sound unique to me at all. I've heard that same drum pattern a bajillion times. I'm not saying that to be smug or something, I literally don't know what the distinction here is. It all sounds like pumped-out/manufactured/filler to me. I think this might be a case of elevating the songs you like over the "filler" by simple virtue of you finding something to like in those tunes. That's not to say all pop music is garbage by default, but I don't think there's any valuable observation being made here. You've effectively pointed out the idea of "hooks" that a ton of pop music strives for.



I don't know man, I follow current music quite religiously. If you're not listening to new releases on a weekly basis, you don't see the timeline. Being first vs. being a trend hopper after the fact is a significant detail that is lost on those who don't care for pop music. But the New Rules track got 1,3 billion views in a year, I think that even for the uninitiated and uninterested, that's not "filler", that's a worldwide smash hit. Personal taste aside, not equating popularity to quality, but that's not a "filler" by popular vote.



TedEH said:


> Keep in mind that you're literally comparing popular music to niche music. One that does everything it can to hook everyone it can, to one that exist to satisfy a very specific set of tastes. If it strayed too far from what metal is or what those tastes are, it wouldn't be metal anymore. I don't mean that is criticism or a value judgement (some people do), but I mean it literally - the attitude of experimentation and hooks and progressing and blending and creating new genres all exist, but the results are likely to either fall outside of what can still be called metal (so the umbrella of metal can't claim the result as it's own anymore) or isn't going to appeal to the niche tastes of the original audience if those are the people you're still trying to appeal to.



That is my take on it also.



bostjan said:


> Dude, that song is sampled to hell and back. The handclaps, the bassline at the beginning (vocal line was recorded by one of the engineers, sampled, and used as a sequence patch), the drums throughout (snare is even the same velocity throughout the song), the build-ups to the bass drops... Gap Band even successfully sued over uncredited samples of "I Don't Believe You Want to Get Up and Dance (Oops)", and the horn parts were recorded at a different studio by a different band for the song. That's probably the worst example of "practically all-live instrument." I really like the song, but I really don't think you could have chosen a worse example to make your point.



A sample of a live band is just a recording of a live band  I see your point, but it's not what I was getting at. I didn't say it was a "live recording of a studio performance", I said it was an all-live instrument track. Which, sans some synth overdubs, it is.


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## TedEH (Jul 25, 2018)

JohnIce said:


> not equating popularity to quality, but that's not a "filler" by popular vote.


Except that's exactly what you're doing. "not filler by popular vote" is exactly equating quality to popularity. I'm very strongly not of the opinion that popularity is any indication of quality. I really enjoy many things that are garbage by popular standards, and find things to be garbage that are supposed to be "smash hits" by popular standards. Pop culture is just not for me. Nor is it for many people. I've said it before and I still stick to it -> I think that we're at a weird point where there is no majority taste anymore. Media maintains the illusion of it, but in reality, everyone's tastes are all over the place. Pop is still the biggest slice, but it's the biggest out of a collection of bajillions of tiny slices of peoples tastes and attention. There's not much universal common ground for music taste anymore, IMO. Same thing with other media as well. I could be wrong, but so far I've yet to come across anything that strongly/convincingly challenges my thoughts on this.



JohnIce said:


> If you're not listening to new releases on a weekly basis, you don't see the timeline.


I agree with you 100% on this point, in that there's a lot that I'm going to miss in terms of evaluating a whole type of music that I don't follow.

But this is all straying pretty far away from the original point that metal production quite simply has different goals in mind, rather than being of lower quality.


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## KailM (Jul 25, 2018)

Metal isn't supposed to sound polished, pretty, and perfect. /Thread

Seriously though, I think if we had a metal band record, mix, and master with any of the top producers in pop music -- with all their high-budget gear and know-how, the end result wouldn't achieve what we want it to achieve. Production values are kind of part of the art; metal has never been about ultra-polished perfection the way pop music is. I'd rather hear a band that sounds like they're on the verge of going out of control. That feel is part of the aesthetic I look for in metal.


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## TedEH (Jul 25, 2018)

KailM said:


> Metal isn't supposed to sound polished, pretty, and perfect.


I'd argue that for some, those are part of the goal, but they'd define those things differently. A polished metal drum sound just means something different than a polished pop drum sound.



KailM said:


> what we want it to achieve


I do think on some level that tolerances for metal being "cvlt" and dirty sounding are slowly changing. I remember a comment a while ago about a hevvy devvy album coming out where someone praised the release as being "what pop-metal should sound like" or something along those lines. Which makes sense to me, cause I think his style of production is (relatively speaking) fairly pop-influences and pretty and shiny and polished and all of that stuff.


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## bostjan (Jul 25, 2018)

JohnIce said:


> A sample of a live band is just a recording of a live band  I see your point, but it's not what I was getting at. I didn't say it was a "live recording of a studio performance", I said it was an all-live instrument track. Which, sans some synth overdubs, it is.





JohnIce said:


> To me this is some top-tier production and mixing of a live band.



Two posts in, and I'm already getting frustrated. I'll see myself out.


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## JohnIce (Jul 25, 2018)

TedEH said:


> Except that's exactly what you're doing. "not filler by popular vote" is exactly equating quality to popularity. I'm very strongly not of the opinion that popularity is any indication of quality. I really enjoy many things that are garbage by popular standards, and find things to be garbage that are supposed to be "smash hits" by popular standards. Pop culture is just not for me. Nor is it for many people. I've said it before and I still stick to it -> I think that we're at a weird point where there is no majority taste anymore. Media maintains the illusion of it, but in reality, everyone's tastes are all over the place. Pop is still the biggest slice, but it's the biggest out of a collection of bajillions of tiny slices of peoples tastes and attention. There's not much universal common ground for music taste anymore, IMO. Same thing with other media as well. I could be wrong, but so far I've yet to come across anything that strongly/convincingly challenges my thoughts on this.



Man, I REALLY thought I made myself clear enough there  I was defining how I view the word "filler", as a neutral definition. A filler, a placeholder, a disposable in-between, call it whatever, it is the _opposite_ of a main attraction, a main course. I don't give one iota about good or bad or "quality" based on popularity and I explicitly said so, I'm ONLY saying that a song that millions of people play on repeat for months is, per definition, NOT a filler. "Judas be my guide" by Iron Maiden is one of my favourite songs of theirs, but THAT is a filler. Run to the Hills, is not.

And believe me, I know you don't care or know much about pop music, which I respect. But it also makes it damn hard to discuss the topic in detail with you  I want to keep a civil tone as you always do with me, so it's all good, but it does feel like a waste of both our time in many instances.


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## JohnIce (Jul 25, 2018)

bostjan said:


> Two posts in, and I'm already getting frustrated. I'll see myself out.



Sorry for the confusion bost, I don't doubt that I'm hard to follow sometimes  I agreed with your point, I just think it had to do about semantics rather than, well, production.


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## TedEH (Jul 25, 2018)

I think we considered "filler" to mean very different things in this particular case. I tend to think of "filler" as just a shortcut to "music that's isn't particularly great". But I see what you mean now. Edit: I guess in my little bubble, I tend to think of any music that doesn't stand out to me in particular as "filler". As in it's not good, but it's not offensive either. It just fits in that space where there needs to be music for whatever reason, but it need not be notable. I don't doubt I misuse the term pretty badly.


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## JohnIce (Jul 25, 2018)

KailM said:


> Metal isn't supposed to sound polished, pretty, and perfect. /Thread
> 
> Seriously though, I think if we had a metal band record, mix, and master with any of the top producers in pop music -- with all their high-budget gear and know-how, the end result wouldn't achieve what we want it to achieve. Production values are kind of part of the art; metal has never been about ultra-polished perfection the way pop music is. I'd rather hear a band that sounds like they're on the verge of going out of control. That feel is part of the aesthetic I look for in metal.



In my personal opinion, I agree with you. I don't like a lot of metal that came out after 2010, because it IS too quantized, perfect, polished etc. Not necessarily pretty, maybe  And that's kind of what I'm getting at with this thread, I don't hear a lot of metal these days that sounds like it's trying to be raw and gritty on purpose, like for example an old Deftones record. It rather sounds like a band that spent months mixing to get everything absolutely perfect, but in my opinion falling way short of that compared to your average pop hit. If modern metal wasn't so hell-beant on achieving perfection, I wouldn't have compared it to Ariana Grande in the first place. Kill 'em All vs. The Chainsmokers is apples to oranges, but your average home-studio djent band of 2018 vs. The Chainsmokers isn't reeeeeally that big of a stretch to my ears.


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## Cynicanal (Jul 25, 2018)

TedEH said:


> I find it funny that we've suddenly turned to "metal really should do like pop and have it down to a science" when we sort of do already. Browse around the forum enough and you discover that everyone is basically doing the same thing. The same drum samples, the same panning patters, the same multi-tracking of guitars, we use the same mics, the same splitting of the bass into clean low and grindy highs, the same ducking techniques, etc etc etc......
> Every time someone posts their new "sick metal mix", I basically just hear "oh look, someone else read the Systematic Guide..."


Forum bubbles aren't the real world. The "split your bass track, keep one clean and one super ugly" thing in particular is something that no one outside of the SSO/Youtube guitarist scene does AFAIK. The bands that I'm friends with are either recording bass through amps and micing a cab, using the Darkglass pedal, or, occasionally, DIing and using the Ignite Amps bass amp sim. Likewise with mics; yes, everyone is using 57s on guitars, but I know a lot of guys who aren't using the standard picks for vocals (I've even seen a Rock Band mic used to record vox). I'd never even heard of ducking until reading that post (I was familiar with the idea of using sidechain compression during to bring the level of one instrument down when another is coming in, but hadn't heard it referred to by that name).

Multi-tracking and then panning the guitars L/R is done because it works (I recorded four guitar tracks for my band's upcoming album, tried lots of panning techniques, and settled on two guitar tracks, panned hard left/hard right; quad tracking sounded better on its own, but became too cluttered in a full mix), but there's a ton of room for variance within that. How you EQ the guitars, what sort of delays/reverbs you use, whether you pan the delay/verb to the opposite side of the track; all stuff that isn't really standardized at all, at least in the circles I walk in. 

@JohnIce , if you think there's not metal that's not quantized bullshit, you aren't looking. Just a few big names off the top of my head -- Pseudogod, Abhomine, Imprecation, Demoncy, Cruciamentum, and Maveth.


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## TedEH (Jul 25, 2018)

^ I'm not criticizing those techniques, I just mean that a lot of metal out there is produced in a lot of the same ways. The bubble of this forum is just an example of that. Ducking is a very generic term - sidechain compression is a more specific thing that, in the right context, sometimes could mean the same thing. Lots of people split bass into multiple tracks to process them though - the high track being covered up with tons of gain is a bit of a cliche on this forum, but these techniques obviously weren't invented here. My point was just to point out that these are just a subset of tools that lots of people use, but on this forum in particular (as an example of a bubble where lots of metal gets produced), these get treated as sort of the "canonical process" by some people for how to produce metal.


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## Cynicanal (Jul 25, 2018)

I think the "by some people" is the part that has to be emphasized. Outside of the folks who watch Ola Englund and friends, there's not nearly as much of a set process; none of the bands who have members I'm friends with (including some that are on larger labels like Osmose or Dark Descent) are using the "clean bottom, distorted mids" DI bass technique, for instance, and most are either using Darkglass or old Trace Elliot heads into 8x10s.

There's more to metal in 2018 than the djentyboiz.


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## Descent (Jul 25, 2018)

Peter Tangtren in general does really good work. Also anything studio Fredman.


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## TedEH (Jul 25, 2018)

Cynicanal said:


> I think the "by some people" is the part that has to be emphasized.





Cynicanal said:


> none of the bands who have members I'm friends with


Some people is a lot of people though. Your friends aren't a representative sample either. 

IMO Darkglass as your bass tone absolutely fits the mold of djentyboiz though. Just add a multi-scale bass and you're fit for SS.org. 

Consider that if you're not a professional, or have some kind of relevant education/training, 90% of your source of "how to mix rock and metal" is going to be those same youtube personalities and forum posters who tend to default to the same techniques that are relevant to their bubble. And those particular methods are (to my ears) tailored towards emulating the bigger name- and budget- sounds that less people have access to anyway.

At the end of the day, it's all a roundabout way to say that there are pockets of very same-y sounding mixes.


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## TedEH (Jul 25, 2018)

Putting aside the methods, there's definitely a sort of "metal sound". When someone tried to "produce a metal mix" there's definitely a template or a sound that comes to peoples mind. Not everyone thinks of it as exactly the same sound per-se, but I think it would be fair to say there's a ballpark. When you hear a metal song, there's no mistaking what it is. If it strays too far from that template, you probably wouldn't call it metal anymore.


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## Descent (Jul 25, 2018)

Also lets not forget that the whole retro return to fuzz/doom/stoner and whatnot is bringing back retro mixing. A lot of the new stuff produced now is made to sound like the 70s stuff, not necessarily all good. There are some horrible mixes by some quite major bands in their respective genres.


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## JohnIce (Jul 25, 2018)

Cynicanal said:


> if you think there's not metal that's not quantized bullshit, you aren't looking. Just a few big names off the top of my head -- Pseudogod, Abhomine, Imprecation, Demoncy, Cruciamentum, and Maveth.



Those are big names?  Anyhow, I don't think that all metal is quantized bullshit. The bands you mentioned definitely don't belong to that pack, however, they probably won't impress anyone from a mixing standpoint either. And that's what the thread is about.


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## TedEH (Jul 25, 2018)

JohnIce said:


> Those are big names?


This is metal, "big" is very much relative.


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## Cynicanal (Jul 25, 2018)

If the sound of "Joined in Darkness", "Charnel Passages", or "Satanae Tenebris Infinita" don't blow your mind, I honestly wonder what you're looking for in a metal mix.


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## Drew (Jul 25, 2018)

I think it's a combination of this, particularly the two bolded bits: 



JohnIce said:


> I mean, there are definitely some factors that make metal hard to work with compared to pop:
> 
> - Live drums are harder to work with than pre-made sample packs. Everyone knows that.
> - An electric bass is harder to get as consistent and full-bodied as a synth bass.
> ...


...and the fact that pop outsells the living _shit_ out of metal, so there's a lot more money being thrown at the problems in a pop mix than a metal one.


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## JohnIce (Jul 26, 2018)

Drew said:


> ...and the fact that pop outsells the living _shit_ out of metal, so there's a lot more money being thrown at the problems in a pop mix than a metal one.



Do you have any examples of how you'd throw that money if you had it? If we're talking stereotypical current pop where the theoretical mix is indeed all samples, and it's written, produced and mixed ITB by the artist and/or their teenager with a laptop wunderkind teammate. It seems to me that this is how most artists work these days. Even when you're Taylor Swift visiting Max Martin's studio, it's _kind of_ still just a couple of people at a computer. That's why I'm asking.


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## TedEH (Jul 26, 2018)

JohnIce said:


> Even when you're Taylor Swift visiting Max Martin's studio, it's _kind of_ still just a couple of people at a computer.


You're completely throwing any sort of valid perspective out the window when you think this way. You can boil almost everything down to "just someone in front of a computer" at this point, but it's a non-statement. It says nothing. It's not about how big or famous the studio is, it's about the budget (as in *time*) and the expertise available. Random forum poster with a day job is only going to have a couple of weekends and information scraped from websites to hope to cobble together a decent sounding album. Any recording with a large enough budget will have people with years of experience, a large amount of problem-solving and iterating time, and they'll be working off of equipment that doesn't introduce as many problems to start with.

Any sort of engineer is essentially a problem solver - be it an audio engineer, software engineer, etc. The end result produced by someone trying to engineer a solution for something is almost always going to be better when there's fewer barriers, easier problems, and more time to do it in (all of which costs money).

Are they both just "a guy in front of a computer"? Sure. But one's a well paid, experienced guy, with the time to do the job right, on a computer that runs well, connected to great sounding gear. The other might be not paid at all, has no experience, rushing through the project on a laptop that barely runs the software needed, using "prosumer" grade gear for everything. Obviously these are the two extremes, but hopefully you get the point.


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## BuckarooBanzai (Jul 26, 2018)

TedEH said:


> You're completely throwing any sort of valid perspective out the window when you think this way. You can boil almost everything down to "just someone in front of a computer" at this point, but it's a non-statement. It says nothing. It's not about how big or famous the studio is, it's about the budget (as in *time*) and the expertise available. Random forum poster with a day job is only going to have a couple of weekends and information scraped from websites to hope to cobble together a decent sounding album. Any recording with a large enough budget will have people with years of experience, a large amount of problem-solving and* iterating* time, and they'll be working off of equipment that doesn't introduce as many problems to start with.
> 
> Any sort of engineer is essentially a problem solver - be it an audio engineer, *software engineer*, etc. The end result produced by someone trying to engineer a solution for something is almost always going to be better when there's fewer barriers, easier problems, and more time to do it in (all of which costs money).
> 
> Are they both just "a guy in front of a computer"? Sure. But one's a well paid, experienced guy, with the time to do the job right, on a computer that runs well, connected to great sounding gear. The other might be not paid at all, has no experience, rushing through the project on a laptop that barely runs the software needed, using "prosumer" grade gear for everything. Obviously these are the two extremes, but hopefully you get the point.



As soon as I read that first word I knew you were the second


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## JohnIce (Jul 26, 2018)

TedEH said:


> You're completely throwing any sort of valid perspective out the window when you think this way. You can boil almost everything down to "just someone in front of a computer" at this point, but it's a non-statement. It says nothing. It's not about how big or famous the studio is, it's about the budget (as in *time*) and the expertise available. Random forum poster with a day job is only going to have a couple of weekends and information scraped from websites to hope to cobble together a decent sounding album. Any recording with a large enough budget will have people with years of experience, a large amount of problem-solving and iterating time, and they'll be working off of equipment that doesn't introduce as many problems to start with.
> 
> Any sort of engineer is essentially a problem solver - be it an audio engineer, software engineer, etc. The end result produced by someone trying to engineer a solution for something is almost always going to be better when there's fewer barriers, easier problems, and more time to do it in (all of which costs money).
> 
> Are they both just "a guy in front of a computer"? Sure. But one's a well paid, experienced guy, with the time to do the job right, on a computer that runs well, connected to great sounding gear. The other might be not paid at all, has no experience, rushing through the project on a laptop that barely runs the software needed, using "prosumer" grade gear for everything. Obviously these are the two extremes, but hopefully you get the point.



Everyone knows all this, dude  Calm down, I asked Drew a question. Drew is a good engineer, more than capable of making good stuff, as is a lot of the people making pop hits. I bet working with Max Martin is expensive NOW, but it wasn't when he made Baby One More Time and launched Britney's career. At that point he was just a talented young guy, like a lot of people making current hits are, except today they have a lot better and cheaper equipment than Max Martin had in '98. So I'm asking because I'm actually curious, what Drew has in mind when he's talking about throwing money on a song.


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## bostjan (Jul 26, 2018)

Think of it this way - "Indie" music is essentially pop with a smaller budget. If you want to take budget out of the equation, compare an Indie mix with a more popular metal mix. There are a lot of differences, but both styles of mixing are so incredibly general that it's difficult to speak in absolutes or even in averages when referring to either one.

Even in the same band, contrast Metallica's mixes from one album to the next; they're all over the place.

Also, what makes a "good mix" is almost 100% subjective. If you can clearly make out each instrument and the mix has tons of dynamics, it might still not be considered a good mix.

The reason sampled audio sounds so damned good is that it's the cream of the crop. No one is going to bother marketing a sample of a shitty mix. Now take pop, a genre of music where literally a majority of the songs are some combination of I, ii, IV and V chords, in the key of either G or C, over a 4/4 meter with one or maybe two of six different drum beats, all using some subset of electric bass, drums, guitar, piano, strings, and synth, and you have a genre of music that is almost perfectly engineered to be made of sound samples. It's not a bad thing, it just is what it is.

If you want to make some Indie music, all you have to really do is go on a site like splice, or a similar iPhone app, download your sound samples, fix them to the same tempo and the same key, then mix them right in the site window. It's easy, because good or even great sound samples are really easy to find, and they will have pretty evenly matched volume levels and such. The end result track will cost you nothing, but it can easily sound like a thousand bucks worth of studio recording. Do the same in your DAW with a few hundred bucks worth of plugins and it'll sound maybe even ten times better.


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## TedEH (Jul 26, 2018)

JohnIce said:


> Everyone knows all this, dude  Calm down


I'm very calm.  Making the point just to make the point, not to be argumentative or anything, or to suggest you didn't already know. My comment isn't directed "at you", so much as just being thrown out there. I don't assume anyone just knows everything, so it doesn't hurt to spell things out. The way you worded the statement though made it seem as though you're very dismissive of the value of budget and experience, but maybe I read it wrong.

My  is just that if the general question was "how does throwing money at a production make it better", then the answer is that it gives you access to experience and the time to make good use of it. It would be very difficult to be more specific than that.


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## TedEH (Jul 26, 2018)

Mo Jiggity said:


> As soon as I read that first word I knew you were the second


I don't hide what I do at all.  I bring it up pretty often actually.


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## JohnIce (Jul 26, 2018)

TedEH said:


> I'm very calm.  Making the point just to make the point, not to be argumentative or anything, or to suggest you didn't already know. My comment isn't directed "at you", so much as just being thrown out there. I don't assume anyone just knows everything, so it doesn't hurt to spell things out. The way you worded the statement though made it seem as though you're very dismissive of the value of budget and experience, but maybe I read it wrong.
> 
> My  is just that if the general question was "how does throwing money at a production make it better", then the answer is that it gives you access to experience and the time to make good use of it. It would be very difficult to be more specific than that.



Aight, my bad  Nah my point was that obviously people only get expensive AFTER they show talent and skill. If you had a million dollar budget of course you COULD hire all the grammy winners and call it a day, but judging by the charts, that's not how most artists do it today. New producers are coming out of the woodwork with big hits every day, especially in hip hop and EDM which is pretty much what pop is today. Because as bostjan pointed out, it can be this easy: 


bostjan said:


> All you have to really do is go on a site like splice, or a similar iPhone app, download your sound samples, fix them to the same tempo and the same key, then mix them right in the site window. It's easy, because good or even great sound samples are really easy to find, and they will have pretty evenly matched volume levels and such. The end result track will cost you nothing, but it can easily sound like a thousand bucks worth of studio recording. Do the same in your DAW with a few hundred bucks worth of plugins and it'll sound maybe even ten times better.



Case in point:


So maybe that explains my curiosity over what really has to cost more in a pop production, as opposed to the comparative "low budget" of the metal world.


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## TedEH (Jul 26, 2018)

The whole "does it really have to cost this much" thing is an interesting question to think about, IMO, because of how accessible things are to the average person now. A very skilled person could, with very little budget, produce a lot of cool stuff, but in practice, that's not really how it happens. I could write a long post about all the reasons, but meh. Maybe it's a hindsight thing -> once you've already gone through the process of thinking things through, trying stuff, making mistakes, etc., then you're potentially left with a result that *could* have been done super quickly if you had known from the beginning what the end result was going to be.


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## GunpointMetal (Jul 26, 2018)

Pop arrangements aren't usually nearly as dense, transient attack is much less important, and the songs have 10 people working on the arrangement to keep the pad synth out of the way of the melody keys, etc. Lots of newer stuff has really big, wide, full production, though. The newest Rivers of Nihil album sounds AMAZING as far as the production goes. There's a band out of Minnesota called By the Thousands and their newest album sounds almost too good. Big, huge, tight low end, crystal clear percussion and vocals, non-aggravating guitar tones that sit perfectly in the mix...and I know they don't have a huge budget. I think stuff like technical death metal and similar aren't ever gonna have that kind of production because they music can't support it. You can't really have your kick thunder through the subs with massive bass if you're playing a double pedal at 220bpm because it starts to sound like a helicopter. You can't really make your bass into a steel beam of low end if you're changing notes/strings on every 16th note. I would like to see more metal stuff get more intense with the automation, though. There's no reason slower/"bigger" parts can't use those pop techniques and scale it back to support faster/busier arrangements, but it seems like a lot of metal gets a mix where "This is the guitar for the whole album, this is the kick drum for the whole album, this is the bass tone for the whole album" and then song to song is just leveling stuff so it all sounds the same.


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## Drew (Jul 26, 2018)

JohnIce said:


> Do you have any examples of how you'd throw that money if you had it? If we're talking stereotypical current pop where the theoretical mix is indeed all samples, and it's written, produced and mixed ITB by the artist and/or their teenager with a laptop wunderkind teammate. It seems to me that this is how most artists work these days. Even when you're Taylor Swift visiting Max Martin's studio, it's _kind of_ still just a couple of people at a computer. That's why I'm asking.


First off, thank you - that's pretty high praise from a guy who's also pretty damned serious about this stuff, and I appreciate your saying that.  

I mean, before I address your question, I just want to be clear that I do think the two bolded bits are _huge_ challenges in metal that you rarely have in ppop - heavily distorted guitars eat up a ton of bandwidth and tend to mask other instruments, there are massive dynamic swings, and huge, complex, layered, busy arrangements are the norm where you want everything to sound huge and nothing to sound small, and a super tight, punishing low end is kind of the minimum, which is NOT easy to do with fast kick drum and bass parts. So, I think the material is a huge part of the reason why metal is so hard to mix. 

But, I do think the ability to throw money at the problem is a factor, in two important ways: 

1) If I've learned anything in the way-closer-to-20-years-than-I'm-comfortable-admitting that I've been a home recording hobbyist, it's that signalchain matters. Mine's gotten pretty good - on guitars, usually a SM57 and a MD421 into a two-channel BAE 1073MP, through a pair of Neve 551 EQs, and into an Apogee Ensemble - and the source is either a Roadster or a Mark-V and one of a small arsenal of guitars I love, so if I'm recording raw tones that don't sound pretty damned good the moment they hit my DAW, then I'm doing something wrong.  But, there's definitely room to improve - my room is small and entirely untreated so if we're talking sky's the limit budget, a really nice live room would be first up. I've got two excellent Neve style channels and two excellent API style channels, but certainly expanding both the number of channels as well as getting a few more flavors of preamp in my arsenal would be the next spot I'd start spending money. I'd also LOVE to own some sort of opto compressor for tracking acoustics (which already sound pretty damned good through the CAPI V28s I picked up), and while my mic locker is, while focused, pretty good, I would love to pick up a few more LDCs, though that's a low priority because I rarely work with vocalists and really, really like my se4400s on my acoustic. So, yes, part of it is that there's a lot of really botique gear I'd like like to pick up, and I'd like to have a better space to work in.

2) ...but as you're reading this, I think a theme that's pretty clear here is that that while it's partly the gear, it's also a matter of matching the gear to the application. Like, I have two distinctly different two-channel mic preamp options at my disposal, and while I'm still pretty new to the mic pre world, I already have disctinct preferences for one over the other for certain applications. Or, as another example, I grabbed a sE VR1 ribbon after REALLY liking a demo I'd heard done with one, and being pretty impressed by my 4400s, and immediately decided I didn't like it on my Mark-V, which is already a very dark sounding amp, at least the way I dial it in for lead. However, while I haven't gotten a chance to check, I suspect it'll sound fat as hell on my Roadster on Ch. 4, and I may find myself using that and a SM57 for rhythm while sticking with the MD421 and SM57 for leads with my Mark. Or, even that is a pretty good example, using a different amp for different parts based on its strength, and on a guitar board that's probably a better jumping off point because thats an example we all know and understand pretty well, and it's a good filter to think about mic preamp or mic selection when it comes time to find the right signal chain to record, say, a pop singer's voice. And that level of familiarity with recording gear takes a LOT of experience to get to the point where you or I could be playing a riff in a room and turn to each other and say, "you know, this part really would sound better through a Recto," where an engineer could listen to, oh, Ariana Grande's voice and think, "ok, Nuemann U87, Avalon, LA-2A, and the EQ from that old Neve board with a light 1.5khz boost, and we're in business." And, giiven that we're in a capitalist market and that experience is a scarce resource, the guys who can just _do _that command the highest fees for working on a project, and if you're an engineer with those sorts of chops, then you could make metal albums - which as we've discussed are a pain in the ass - for fairly modest money, or go make pop albums for a major label with multi-million-dollar recording budgets. 

Now, some people would say fuck the money and do the former just because it's hard. I mean, my hobby is riding road bikes up mountains, so I totally get doing something just because it's challenging. In fact, that's half the reason I like recording my own music. But a whole bunch of guys are just going to follow the money, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. 

So, ignoring the challenges metal presents (and this is a huge part of it, I think), a lot of it is that working with really, really good gear does make a difference, especially if you have the ability to mix and match said gear and really put the right source through the right signal chain... And, if you want to make money as a mix engineer, you're going to get into pop, where you have the highest budgets getting thrown around to make albums because the expectation is they're going to go platinum. 

I guess a bone-simple example here is everyone loves to hate Nickelback, but only while also talking about how killer their mixes are, and that has a LOT to do with budget and the know-how of the guy tracking and mixing them.


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## Drew (Jul 26, 2018)

GunpointMetal said:


> I would like to see more metal stuff get more intense with the automation, though. There's no reason slower/"bigger" parts can't use those pop techniques and scale it back to support faster/busier arrangements, but it seems like a lot of metal gets a mix where "This is the guitar for the whole album, this is the kick drum for the whole album, this is the bass tone for the whole album" and then song to song is just leveling stuff so it all sounds the same.


That's actually a good point and a good example, and I think a lot of the better engineers in metal ARE doing that. It takes time to set that kind of stuff up, though, and time is money, so... If you're working on your own, then that's not a constraint, but in a studio, that kind of mix automation (or shipping the drums out for processing and paying someone else to do all the editing for you, etc) are things that can add to the cost pretty quickly, and if you don't expect to sell more than a couple tens of thousands, it's hard to justify from a return on investment perspective.


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## TedEH (Jul 26, 2018)

Drew said:


> everyone loves to hate Nickelback, but only while also talking about how killer their mixes are


Kind of off-topic, but I recently went back and listened to a couple of their very old albums. I don't know what their budget was for the first and second, but I think there's a point to be made that zero-budget at-home recordings have easily surpassed the quality of reasonably-budgeted studio recordings from the 90s, in my opinion.


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## Drew (Jul 26, 2018)

TedEH said:


> Kind of off-topic, but I recently went back and listened to a couple of their very old albums. I don't know what their budget was for the first and second, but I think there's a point to be made that zero-budget at-home recordings have easily surpassed the quality of reasonably-budgeted studio recordings from the 90s, in my opinion.


Their first major label, The State, was a fairly low budget affair. Silver Side Up had a significantly larger budget, and next few are probably a whole exponential level beyond that.

One of the reasons at-home recordings CAN compare well to professional releases, though, is that the single most expensive part of a studio recording is time, and at home working with your own gear, it's a non-issue. I couldn't even tell you how many hours I spent recording, editing, and mixing for my album, and while I'm happy with how it came out (it's far from perfect, the next one will be better, but I'm not embarrassed by the quality at all), if I actually had to assign a "cost" to the time I spent on it, we'd go from an album where I broke even and even turned a modest profit, to one where I would have been _deep_ in the hole. 

I guess the reason I mention this is because it kind of aligns with Gunpointmetal's post - if time is a constraint in a pro studio because you pay by the hour, then for a home recording, time is your biggest asset and your biggest potential advantage, because you're not on the clock so you CAN set up complex automation or go in and laboriously cut out all the bleed around your snare hits rather than simply throwing a gate at it and hoping it's good enough. Or, if it takes you 37 takes to get that solo _just _right, you can do that, whereas on the clock you might have just lived with your third take. 

Idunno, it's kind of an interesting line of thought, looking at how a home recording setup can potentially offer advantages. That one's big, as is the fact that because I mostly just record my own music and I write instrumental guitar music, that my mic locker and recording signal chain is really optimized for guitar, since I don't have to worry about being a generalist.


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## Drew (Jul 26, 2018)

JohnIce - I'm actually going to kick that question back to you, as well, since I'm interested in your thoughts here too. If you were able to throw pop album budget type money at a metal mix, where would you be spending it?


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## JohnIce (Jul 26, 2018)

Drew said:


> JohnIce - I'm actually going to kick that question back to you, as well, since I'm interested in your thoughts here too. If you were able to throw pop album budget type money at a metal mix, where would you be spending it?



First off, thanks for the informative answer  Your point about engineers getting so skilled that they eventually turn to pop for the higher budgets is an interesting one that I hadn't thought about. That certainly makes a case for the idea that the best mixers and producers in the business are indeed working with pop rather than metal, even though there are of course exceptions.

I think if I had a large budget to make a metal album, and the idea was to push the envelope rather than just recreate let's say a vintage Sabbath vibe, I would definitely audition several producers and mixers. On the engineering side you'd obviously need someone who has the ears and the mic locker, but in addition to that I'd love to bring in a producer who works in for example dubstep or trap, given their fresh take on what aggressive, heavy and ominous soundscapes mean. A lot of these producers make music that's heavy as balls, and it would be interesting to see what they'd do to, let's say, an expertly mic'd baritone guitar through a recto and a fat Spector or Warwick. I'm willing to bet these guys rarely get to work with a $5000 guitar rig and would EQ, compress, pan and mangle them in ways your average metalhead would never have thought of.

Similarly, I'd send the mix out to 5 or so different people and see who came up with the coolest one, again going for people who are really good at something other than metal. And like Gunpoint suggested, I'd definitely do this on a per song basis, at least for the singles.

I'd also spend a little time auditioning locations for the drum recordings, and bring in a drum collector to lend their expertise and collection for building the perfect kit for the application and for the room. As a sidenote to this, we just filmed a music video at a theater and were just floored by how good the drums sounded in there, so we'll cough up to record our drums there next time as opposed to our own studio.

Now, if I personally was the chosen mixing engineer, that's a more difficult question  I'd like to think I'm doing all I can to make the best mix regardless of budget and I'm yet to feel that my gear is limiting me (oh what a place to make a pun...). In college I worked on an SSL and lots of neat outboards for a few years so I'm pretty confident in saying I'm getting as good results with plugin emulations, which speaks to the fact that I'm not yet good enough to take full advantage of the real thing if I could afford it. That's from a mixing perspective that is, if I was also engineering the record there's a LOT of gear I'd gladly buy


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## JohnIce (Jul 26, 2018)

GunpointMetal said:


> I would like to see more metal stuff get more intense with the automation, though. There's no reason slower/"bigger" parts can't use those pop techniques and scale it back to support faster/busier arrangements, but it seems like a lot of metal gets a mix where "This is the guitar for the whole album, this is the kick drum for the whole album, this is the bass tone for the whole album" and then song to song is just leveling stuff so it all sounds the same.



I feel the same way! I've learned a lot of neat tricks from EDM producers, things that are helpful when working with a rock/metal mix. I think the reason metal bands don't often do this is because there's often such a clear distinction between band, engineer and mixer. A lot of the time there's not even a producer. In many genres that don't feature a "band", the artist is often the producer, or the producer is the songwriter, and if it IS sent to a third party mixing engineer, all those time-consuming automations and sidechains and delay trails and swooshes etc. are already in place as part of the production, and the mixing engineer can literally just mix.


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## Drew (Jul 26, 2018)

Good answer. And I hear you on the importance of a great live drum room - I don't think it'll be my next album, but at some point I do want to work with live drums and unless I have a killer room of my own (and enough quality mic channels to do the kit justice) I may ship that out to a pro studio to track the drums, and then handle the rest of the tracking and mixing on my own. For now though I've really been impressed by Superior 3 - the kits sound awfully natural and can be mixed in a lot of different ways. 

While software emulations are getting awfully good... I think I'm philosophically veering further and further towards the workflow of printing as much of the final "tone" as I can to disk rather than recording fairly neutral and then adding color in the mix. At the same time I use the Sonimus console emulation plugins I have on damned near everything, but that's as much because I really like their low pass and high pass as any desire to really add saturation, but still, I suppose that makes me a bit of a hypocrite.  But, end of the day, when I'm tracking, I want to hear guitars that sound pretty much like a record. It was almost shocking to me the first time I threw a single SM57 on my cab with a Neve 551 in line behind my BAE - a slight bump at 1.5khz and a little bit of low pass at 8k and suddenly I had something that, to me, sounded pretty much like what I thought a lead guitar should, and that was just with a single mic on the cab.  This is a bit of a tangent, but I guess for me that's the appeal of working with outboard gear rather than emulations, though of course this is primarily from a tracking standpoint. Mixing, ITB is just easier. 

Anyway, interesting discussion. And I suspect a dubsteb artist working on a metal mix would yield interesting results.  I think there's a lot of things they would do very well (bass would be interesting), but, for example, I think a typical metal drum performance would be a challenge for someone totally unfamiliar with working with metal drums.


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## gienek (Jul 26, 2018)

Im suprised these guys didnt come out



Personaly i dont like this production, its kinda 'too much', and whats mean to be metal came to industrial teritory


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## KailM (Jul 26, 2018)

gienek said:


> Im suprised these guys didnt come out
> 
> 
> 
> Personaly i dont like this production, its kinda 'too much', and whats mean to be metal came to industrial teritory




If this is what it means for metal to have "great" production, I'll take my cassette-deck-recorded-in-a-concrete-basement Norwegian black metal production any day of the week.


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## Metropolis (Jul 26, 2018)

David Maxim Micic is amazing just like Plini. Dynamic, very tasteful and right things happening in where it means to happen a lot. His approach to progressive (metal) music played with guitar is really fresh sounding.


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## Carl Kolchak (Jul 28, 2018)

Going off on a tangent here, but Pop really isn't about individual expression. Not to say that Metal hasn't become a dumping ground for mindless sonic conformity either (djent?!?!), but is all Pop creating in the ears of the masses a kind of immediate/non-threatening familiarity. Metal, by contrast (or at least it used to be this way) was always about sonic polarization/radicalization. 

Also, there's that whole thing from the fallout of the whole EMG> ts> SM57> 5150/6505> Mesa OS 4X12 w/ V30s. If you were on the Andy Sneap boards about 10 years ago this was all you heard about.

As for rock/metal mixes that sound as highly polished as pop, I think this is a good example.


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## JohnIce (Jul 28, 2018)

Carl Kolchak said:


> Going off on a tangent here, but Pop really isn't about individual expression.



Wow  Way to throw at least 50% of all musicians under the bus. All pop isn't written in a boardroom you know, plenty of huge pop artists write their own lyrics and write from just as honest a perspective as anyone making metal.


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## Carl Kolchak (Jul 28, 2018)

JohnIce said:


> Wow  Way to throw at least 50% of all musicians under the bus. All pop isn't written in a boardroom you know, plenty of huge pop artists write their own lyrics and write from just as honest a perspective as anyone making metal.



I'd throw more than 50%, trust me.


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## will_shred (Jul 29, 2018)

axxessdenied said:


> This is a pretty sick mix considering how intense the music is. Compare how many elements are fighting for room and how much information is being provided to the listener in such a short amount of time. The chainsmokers vid on the other hand is super simple when you take into accounts the elements that are being mixed. A lot of these pop artists also have entire teams of songwriters putting songs together who also take into account how the elements will sound when being mixed. The pop industry has the whole thing down to a science now. Metal is slowly catching up though.
> 
> 
> I think the complexity of the music is a big part of it. A ton of editing is involved in making great mixes. Guys producing pop typically work with bigger budgets which means they can afford to spend much more on editing stems they get sent before actually sitting down to mix things. Not only that. A lot of producers that do pop basically have a template created right from the engineering aspect to the mixing aspect. They know exactly how to get the source material to sound in order to make it slam through their mixing rig.




A professional mix engineer will have their personal preference of music, but you have to put that aside and serve the song. Pop producers and big studios don't have some magic book that metal engineers don't have access to, the techniques are all exactly the same, applied in different ways. There are certain tools that all professional engineers use regardless of what music is being mixed, they're just used differently in every case to serve the particular sound you're going for. Example, look at Andrew Scheps' portfolio. He has been a mix engineer for Beyonce, Black Sabbath, Adele, Metallica, RHCP, and more, and i'm sure if he was hired for it he could just as expertly mix a death metal record. Compression, EQ, Automation, Quantization, and yes even pitch correction are all tools that are pretty universal for professional mix engineers and it doesn't matter if its Adele or Aborted.


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## Descent (Jul 29, 2018)

Drew said:


> One of the reasons at-home recordings CAN compare well to professional releases, though, is that the single most expensive part of a studio recording is time, and at home working with your own gear, it's a non-issue. I couldn't even tell you how many hours I spent recording, editing, and mixing for my album, and while I'm happy with how it came out (it's far from perfect, the next one will be better, but I'm not embarrassed by the quality at all), if I actually had to assign a "cost" to the time I spent on it, we'd go from an album where I broke even and even turned a modest profit, to one where I would have been _deep_ in the hole.



Recently went in the studio to record a 4 song EP, which is currently getting mixed. The engineer is a big name and came at $90/hr which on overdubs especially had me sitting around and getting pissed that this much $$$$ goes to someone to punch in "REC". He did get us a good drum sound that we probably wouldn't have gotten on our own. On the other hand, our drummer choked by the pressure, as did the other guitarist. Drummer had to just power thru and I think it somewhat reflected in his performance. Other guitarist we overdubbed later and fixed things. So far the only benefit that I saw was that we had better drum mic chain for tracking and better vocal mics. However, with modest condenser at home I didn't get too far from the vocal chain in the studio. Well, maybe it has 2% extra fairy dust on it but it wasn't that discernible. 

I thought I will enjoy having someone do punch ins with me but I felt much better doing it at home as I didn't have to spend the time with someone communicating. 

So, I can see where studio budget is a very limiting factor. In our case we could've spent the $1500 we left at the studio for mics and a multi channel interface, that would've been a kit of mid priced drum mics and a 16 channel interface...but that meant that I would have to painstakingly engineer the whole thing until my brain blows up, which was exactly what I wanted to prevent. So in our case I did hybrid approach - recorded as much basic tracks as possible at the studio, did overdubs at home and am getting it mixed by someone else as 1) I want fresh pair of ears 2) it is an independent party, so I am out of band politics and can't be blamed why say bass is low 

Back to the subject - I think the main problem with metal productions is that bands usually have a $20k budget as opposed to say the crap that lady Gaga or Adelle puts out, which has $500k budget. If you look back at the days when metal had that kind of budgets, you'd find much better recorded albums. For example Metallica Black Album, Megadeth "Youthanasia", Slayer "Seasons...", etc.


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## Alex79 (Jul 29, 2018)

This is how it should sound.


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## axxessdenied (Jul 29, 2018)

will_shred said:


> A professional mix engineer will have their personal preference of music, but you have to put that aside and serve the song. Pop producers and big studios don't have some magic book that metal engineers don't have access to, the techniques are all exactly the same, applied in different ways. There are certain tools that all professional engineers use regardless of what music is being mixed, they're just used differently in every case to serve the particular sound you're going for. Example, look at Andrew Scheps' portfolio. He has been a mix engineer for Beyonce, Black Sabbath, Adele, Metallica, RHCP, and more, and i'm sure if he was hired for it he could just as expertly mix a death metal record. Compression, EQ, Automation, Quantization, and yes even pitch correction are all tools that are pretty universal for professional mix engineers and it doesn't matter if its Adele or Aborted.


There's a huge difference between the metal world and say hip-hop or pop in general. The returns on one song are way bigger than off of one metal song. bigger budget = better products. They can spend more time doing takes to get things right, etc. or hire a session musician to nail the takes if time is an issue.


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## TedEH (Jul 31, 2018)

Metropolis said:


> David Maxim Micic is amazing just like Plini. Dynamic, very tasteful and right things happening in where it means to happen a lot. His approach to progressive (metal) music played with guitar is really fresh sounding.


Don't take this the wrong way - I really like DMM in particular - BUT-
Those mixes are, to my ears, the EXACT template of "I learned to mix on the internet" style that you hear on this forum all the time. I recognize all the samples, the amp models, etc. I can hear the same "modern metal production" on basically every solo proggy- "it's totally not djent guys" album that's come out since people started getting good at programming drum samples.

They're absolutely very good examples of that kind of production - super well executed - perhaps they are the template from which the others draw inspiration - and that's fine, but they're suuuuuuper cookie-cutter sounds. It's not refreshing to my ears at all.


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## TonyFlyingSquirrel (Jul 31, 2018)

Mixing only one genre will bend your familiarity more in that direction, so I think that it is healthy to mix a variety of genre's. I do this frequently between metal bands, worship teams at church's, & "coffee house" artists. You learn the different rooms, and you learn the difference nuances of each genre' and how to apply those skills toward a much more objective mix overall. I think it's a wise thing some metal bands to have a non-metal mixer take on their project as it can bring a freshness to the table. There are so many more sonic details sometimes in more pop oriented mixes that mixers that don't specialize in metal are sensitive to. Look at Alan Parsons' mix of Dark Side of the Moon. It's a very dense mix, but the details are heard.


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## Drew (Jul 31, 2018)

will_shred said:


> Example, look at Andrew Scheps' portfolio. He has been a mix engineer for Beyonce, Black Sabbath, Adele, Metallica, RHCP, and more, and i'm sure if he was hired for it he could just as expertly mix a death metal record. Compression, EQ, Automation, Quantization, and yes even pitch correction are all tools that are pretty universal for professional mix engineers and it doesn't matter if its Adele or Aborted.


...except, half of my argument was that a death metal band likely can't _afford_ to hire Andrew Scheps.  The really good guys, and let's be honest, this is an art form like any other, and there ARE people who are better at using those tools than others, can (and do) charge much higher fees. Google suggests that "top name" engineers like him can charge around $10-15k per song, plus points on the output, which for a 10-song album is $150k, just for the guy at the desk. Add in other fixed costs like studio time, the label's share, etc, and how many copies do you really have to move before $150k for an engineer becomes cost effective?


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## fps (Aug 1, 2018)

Drew said:


> ...except, half of my argument was that a death metal band likely can't _afford_ to hire Andrew Scheps.  The really good guys, and let's be honest, this is an art form like any other, and there ARE people who are better at using those tools than others, can (and do) charge much higher fees. Google suggests that "top name" engineers like him can charge around $10-15k per song, plus points on the output, which for a 10-song album is $150k, just for the guy at the desk. Add in other fixed costs like studio time, the label's share, etc, and how many copies do you really have to move before $150k for an engineer becomes cost effective?



I listen to a band like Aborted, just put on a random track to check I meant what I was posting, The Extirpation Agenda, and I have to say, I don't see how this could be recorded better, from the *listenable/well-mixed/shiny* direction. It's brutal but really clear and has great energy, to me.

Could someone else do something else? Maybe. But, a random example from a different heavy area, Baroness got a lot of polarised opinions about their Purple mix, which is definitely an attempt to do something else (I love it)


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## karjim (Aug 2, 2018)

Ramnstein comes to mind when I think about pop arangement production. I m surprised no one mentioned these guys.


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## Matt Ress (Aug 2, 2018)

Just discovered this thread, gonna read and listen to all examples provided. 

*Breaking Benjamin - Phobia* is an example of excellent production. I know it's not metal but a lot of the riffs are proper headbangers.


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## JohnIce (Aug 3, 2018)

karjim said:


> Ramnstein comes to mind when I think about pop arangement production. I m surprised no one mentioned these guys.



Good call! I've been lucky enough to talk to their producer a couple of times. According to him it's an incredibly perfectionistic process and he's said something to the effect of "Everytime we finish a Rammstein record, I need a vacation"


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## fps (Aug 9, 2018)

axxessdenied said:


> There's a huge difference between the metal world and say hip-hop or pop in general. The returns on one song are way bigger than off of one metal song. bigger budget = better products. They can spend more time doing takes to get things right, etc. or hire a session musician to nail the takes if time is an issue.



A lot of hip-hop and pop also begins with cream-of-the-crop samples and sounds. In contrast, every guitarist, drummer etc wants to use their own gear, plays differently (this simply doesn't happen when you're MIDI-ing and quantizing samples, so much more universally accessibly), and frankly needs more to sound great in the first place.


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## fps (Aug 9, 2018)

JohnIce said:


> Good call! I've been lucky enough to talk to their producer a couple of times. According to him it's an incredibly perfectionistic process and he's said something to the effect of "Everytime we finish a Rammstein record, I need a vacation"



See, they are proper sonic perfectionists - they aren't interested just in music as the notes being played, they're interested in music as the sounds you hear. There are maybe more metal musicians than any other genre who fail to recognise that these elements are equally important.


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## Marv Attaxx (Aug 9, 2018)

Off the top of my hat, these would be my best metal mixes


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## JohnIce (Aug 10, 2018)

fps said:


> See, they are proper sonic perfectionists - they aren't interested just in music as the notes being played, they're interested in music as the sounds you hear. There are maybe more metal musicians than any other genre who fail to recognise that these elements are equally important.



That's a really interesting point to me! Having your own sound and the intricacies of tone is such a glorified concept in the guitar world, yet very few guitarists really care or know much about how to actually play to make a band or mix sound its best anyway. I weep for mother earth when I see a guitarist militantly defending the use of rainforest woods in their guitar for "tone", then write their guitar parts in such a way that it sounds like garbled ass as soon as the bass and drums come in.


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## Andrew Lloyd Webber (Aug 10, 2018)

JohnIce said:


> I weep for mother earth when I see a guitarist militantly defending the use of rainforest woods in their guitar for "tone", then write their guitar parts in such a way that it sounds like garbled ass as soon as the bass and drums come in.



Mother Earth: _RAPED AGAIN_.


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## isispelican (Aug 10, 2018)

IMO a metal mix shouldn't have to compete with other genres, that's only going to homogenize things and make everything sound too similar and neutral. What it should do though is serve the music and have a unique character to some extent, making it stand out from the rest. Sometimes it needs to be super clean and polished and sometimes it needs that raw and dirty feel. I don't see much of that happening in the last decade in the metal world, most mixers tend to just play it safe and try not to strive too far away from what the other guys do. Below are two examples, one on the raw side and one super clear. I think these are excellent production choices, truly serving the music, but only for these specific albums.


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## Stijnson (Aug 10, 2018)

Been following this thread since it came up, and I thought I'd stir the pot a little here, by reversing the questioning of it. Is metal mixing just... harder then mixing pop?

Bear in mind, I'm not saying it is! Just wondering if there is any truth to it, considering all the aforementioned points. (raw drums vs samples etc)
One could also wonder if a top metal mixer (pick your favorite) could get equally good mixes of let's say, the Dua Lipa song. Or vice versa, could Josh Gudwin (mix engineer on that song) get a metal mix that is either better then your favorite metal mix, or equally good?
Obviously that is hard to answer, the principles of mixing are the same, but experience with certain sounds, and how to process them undoubtedly influences this greatly.

I personally listen to a lot of pop music, just because of the awesome production and mix, (and as a consequence it's inherent catchyness will get stuck in my head haha) but there are some great metal mixes out there, and especially some stuff that crosses the lines between the 2 shows what "metal" mixers can achieve. 
ie:


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## Drew (Aug 10, 2018)

Stijnson said:


> Been following this thread since it came up, and I thought I'd stir the pot a little here, by reversing the questioning of it. Is metal mixing just... harder then mixing pop?


I think we all came to a consensus agreement pretty early on that at least half of the challenge here is yes, it is - there are unique challenges in metal, between the density of the arrangements and the, how to say this, transient density, I guess, of the performances - a lot of stuff is getting rammed into a mix and a lot of that stuff is challenging to work with (metal guitars are basically tonal white noise, when you get right down to it, and getting an electric bass to sound "stable" in the low end is a nightmare that after nearly two decades of recording basses as a hobbyist I STILL don't feel like I can do consistently). 

I don't think that's the full picture, though, but certainly a big chunk of it is that metal typically comes with a lot more problems that need to be solved than a pop-rock trio.


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## fps (Aug 10, 2018)

JohnIce said:


> That's a really interesting point to me! Having your own sound and the intricacies of tone is such a glorified concept in the guitar world, yet very few guitarists really care or know much about how to actually play to make a band or mix sound its best anyway. I weep for mother earth when I see a guitarist militantly defending the use of rainforest woods in their guitar for "tone", then write their guitar parts in such a way that it sounds like garbled ass as soon as the bass and drums come in.



People are so concerned about their own tone, but then don't mic it properly, or their tone doesn't through properly in a mix because actually they were listening from a different place, or didn't dial it in for a band, or...or...or...

Also, let's be honest, a lot of metal guitarists write stuff they can't play to a proper standard. I've been tracking some acoustic guitar at home recently, fingerpicked stuff. Sounds like nothing on record, hard as a bastard to actually get a good tone on it with the fingers. It's like Phil Rudd in AC/DC - yeah, it's just 4/4, but the way he plays it and makes it sound, it's goddamn rock perfection.

Tone, writing, playing - very few musicians have all three.


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## axxessdenied (Aug 10, 2018)

I would much prefer to just get a DI track for mixing guitars than a mic'd up / axe / kemper stem. The drums and bass will dictate the kind of tone you need for the guitar and you have no idea what will really fit until you actually do mix the drums and bass. Then you can reamp the guitar to make it work in the mix. if a guitarist you're working with is set on a tone. Let them record with that tone so they feel comfortable. grab a di as well (should be standard practice to always capture a di in the metal world imo) and then let them think their tone is what you'll use and just do what sounds good. Guitarists are dumb (speaking as a guitarist who moved to mixing, we are dumb! lol).


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## axxessdenied (Aug 10, 2018)

But then you got drummers who will want "natural" sounding drums and reference tracks that have samples all over them. *shrugs*


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## dozicusmaximus (Aug 11, 2018)

Interesting read as I am just starting this path of recording and mixing.
I have nothing to contribute to the conversation.


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## IGC (Aug 12, 2018)

I think some bands are more into an "old school" sounding vibe. One of my favourites are: Skeleton Witch - Beyond The Permafrost is a great example. They even said in some interview I saw on line somewhere " we are old school" . That to me means less refined, honest, straight forward, no frills, not perfect, more "real world everyday people" sounding. Not all done up, don't care if I miss a note.
And why do they fancy that approach? Maybe because they aren't perfect people, don't fit into society, don't like the criticality of being a perfect person and don't want their music, or it's production to reflect them trying for perfection?


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## Drew (Aug 13, 2018)

axxessdenied said:


> I would much prefer to just get a DI track for mixing guitars than a mic'd up / axe / kemper stem. The drums and bass will dictate the kind of tone you need for the guitar and you have no idea what will really fit until you actually do mix the drums and bass. Then you can reamp the guitar to make it work in the mix. if a guitarist you're working with is set on a tone. Let them record with that tone so they feel comfortable. grab a di as well (should be standard practice to always capture a di in the metal world imo) and then let them think their tone is what you'll use and just do what sounds good. Guitarists are dumb (speaking as a guitarist who moved to mixing, we are dumb! lol).


While I'm all for getting guitarists to think more "how will this work in the mix" than they do, I think this is going one step too far. 

Ideally, before even getting into the studio, the band should have spent some time working on how they sound, so that the guitar tone, bass tone, range and pitch of the vocalist, etc etc etc all work together reasonably well and that nothing's fighting TOO aggressively for space. "Back in the day" this was pretty much a prerequisite before making a record - you had to have a good enough live sound to convince some A&R rep to front the cash for a record - but even today that's something that bands should be thinking about, "does my guitar tone 1) support the song and work for the type of music we're doing, and 2) compliment the rest of the band sound?" I realize today that's hardly a given, though. 

But, when mixing... No one instrument is sacred and no one instrument should be fully subjugated to any other one (with the possible exception of vocals, or whatever the centerpeice of the song is). You certainly shouldn't be starting with a huge guitar sound and carving away everything else out of the mix to make it work (unless that's what the song calls for - see basically anything by Devin Townsend), but nor should you nail down bass and drums in isolation and only then turn to the question of what sort of guitar tone you have room left in the mix to squeeze in there. 

I'm obviously a little biased as a guitarist (as are you, and IMO you're overcompensating for that bias here), but as a music lover, a large part of the sound of a band is from its guitars, I'd say second only to its vocalist, when taking about vocal music. Taking a huge part of a band's identity (and a huge part of what their live sound would be) and tossing it out the window doesn't, to ME, seem like serving the song.


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## TedEH (Aug 13, 2018)

^ I really waaaaaaaant to agree with you, but in practice, I don't think I've ever met a band that really thought that far ahead in terms of getting their sounds to fit together. A drummer can only do so much to fit in a space, guitarists want to dominate everything, and bassists tend to overthink their space just because they don't get heard otherwise. I'm 100% for getting these things straitened out ahead of time and trying to capture real performances through an amp in the odd case I can get away with it, BUT steps like described also compensate for the inevitable egos that come along with "getting my tone right".

Is it too far? Maybe. But I'd rather go too far than not far enough. I guess it comes down to knowing who/what you're dealing with.


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## Drew (Aug 13, 2018)

TedEH said:


> ^ I really waaaaaaaant to agree with you, but in practice, I don't think I've ever met a band that really thought that far ahead in terms of getting their sounds to fit together. A drummer can only do so much to fit in a space, guitarists want to dominate everything, and bassists tend to overthink their space just because they don't get heard otherwise. I'm 100% for getting these things straitened out ahead of time and trying to capture real performances through an amp in the odd case I can get away with it, BUT steps like described also compensate for the inevitable egos that come along with "getting my tone right".
> 
> Is it too far? Maybe. But I'd rather go too far than not far enough. I guess it comes down to knowing who/what you're dealing with.


I mean, every band I've played in, I've definitely put a lot of work into making sure the sound I was using fit in nicely with the rest of the band, and then you hear things like Rudess and Petrucci dueling solos with tones that are hitting similar enough frequency ranges that sometimes it's tough to hear where one ends and the other begins, or the Smashing Pumpkins having this huge, massive, heavily layered guitar sound, which totally works because somehow Corgan's vocals sit on TOP of it, rather than fighting for the same space, and his lead tone and his voice are falling in the same ranges, etc etc etc...

...but maybe I'm the odd one out here, haha, or maybe it's just that successful bands often do this without thinking much about it consciously.  Who knows. either way, it's something I'm DEFINITELY thinking about while tracking, making sure that all of the various sounds I'm recording Tetris together well enough to work as a mix.

I can pretty much say with 100% confidence though if I was working with a mix engineer who told me "oh, don't record an amp tone, just send me a DI, and I'll figure out what sort of tone I can use to fit in the mix after I finalize bass and drum tones," then I _wouldn't_ be working with that engineer.  Sure, it's a higher bar when you're an instrumental guitarist than when you're in a vocal band, but even then (and maybe this comes from also being interested in recording and mixing) I'd definitely be thinking, "is the tone I'm using here both something that resonates with me and that I can live with as part of my musical identity, and ALSO something that works with the pitch, range, and timbre of our vocalist?" while recording. And while I'd be happy to have that discussion as part of the band, I'm absolutely not outsourcing that decision to a third party. I mean, there's a wide range of different guitar tones that I like and could get on with, there's always some room for flexibility. However, there's an even larger range of tones I DON'T like. 

Idunno. I need to get going on a new album. I've got a bunch of pretty (IMO) decent song demos and ideas, I've got a way better recording signal chain, and I'm kind of psyched to start working with some fresh material. I just need more free time.


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## TedEH (Aug 13, 2018)

Drew said:


> "oh, don't record an amp tone, just send me a DI


I've definitely been there haha. Both in terms of "hey, can we just send you DI and you'll come up with a tone for me later?" and "yeah, you can mic your amp if you want, but I'm taking the DI just in case too".

I definitely feel like something gets lost in that process, just in terms of my own taste, buuuuuuuut that's getting farther and farther off topic.


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## Drew (Aug 13, 2018)

TedEH said:


> I definitely feel like something gets lost in that process, just in terms of my own taste, buuuuuuuut that's getting farther and farther off topic.


Isn't that half the joys of internet discussion forums?  

I mean, really, I guess one of the most fundamental things you're doing when mixing a song is figuring out what and where the identity of that song _is_, and then fostering and supporting that identity. If the answer is "absolutely not the guitars," then sure, go with a DI, and use whatever best serves the song. And, honestly, to a certain extent I'm doing that with, if not the "main" rhythm tracks, at least background overdub rhythm tracks, where the search for the right tone for a particular supporting part is as important as getting the performance right... But I guess as a guy who mainly records his own music and is working as both the artist and the engineer, for me I can make that experimentation with different tones part of the recording process. Idunno. Probably getting philosophical here, but I just feel like there's a world of difference between handing the engineer a DI and telling them to go nuts, and printing a tone to tape (metaphorically speaking) while tracking, but not being totally dead set that "this is my tone, and nothing shall ever change it" and using the same sound for everything. I think that as a guitarist, writing instrumental music, I'm thinking in terms of tone and color a lot when putting an arangement together, and for me the actual sound of a guitar part is definitely part of how I'm expecting the song to come together. 

And maybe there, at least, I can say that I doubt I'm alone.


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## TedEH (Aug 13, 2018)

All of that makes a ton of sense. In stuff I track myself at home, I definitely count the amp sound as part of the performance and try to capture the whole thing. One of the last mixes I did for the band though, time was a constraint so the DIs were kept as a fallback since we didn't have a great tracking room and didn't want to get stuck if we ended up with a tone that kinda sucked. In the end, it ended up saving the guitar tone - since the high end was missing something and I was able to fill in the gaps with an amp sim. I imagine I'd have gotten quite the pushback if I suggested tracking it all again. Was it "authentic" to our sound? Not really. But the end result was much better for going that route.


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## JohnIce (Aug 14, 2018)

If you're a mixing engineer wanting to fundamentally change a band's sound to your own liking by re-amping and sample replacing and whatnot, I think you need to learn your place in the hierarchy. It's not YOUR band. If I ask a photographer to take a picture of me, I don't want them saying "Sure it's $50, but is it ok if I take the picture of my girlfriend instead, I think she looks better on camera than you"  If the band sends you the tracks and say "This all sounds a bit shitty so do everything you want to make it sound better, we trust you" then that's one thing. If that happens, charge more  But other times, you just have to shut up and serve the band's vision even if the result won't be entirely to your liking, especially if the only reason you even got the gig is because you're local and cheap and the band couldn't afford the person they actually wanted. You're not God, you're just a mixing engineer.

Also, if you NEED to replace everything with your own guitar tones, bass tones and drum samples to make a decent sounding mix, what you REALLY need is to get better at your job.


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## TedEH (Aug 14, 2018)

JohnIce said:


> It's not YOUR band


In my case, it almost always is.  I don't do any mixing professionally, or for money, I mostly do it cause we're too cheap to hire someone better than me.

I have been in the opposite situation though, where we recorded with someone else doing the engineering work - and this guy insisted on using his own amps, samples on everything, he edited the bajeeezus out of the drums, etc. People say it sounds good, but I find it unlistenable. It doesn't sound like us at all. I'd never go back to record with that guy again, just cause his style and his sound is so far removed from my tastes. I think we probably over-compensated in the opposite direction with the next release cause it was very... raw sounding. 



JohnIce said:


> Also, if you NEED to replace everything with your own guitar tones, bass tones and drum samples to make a decent sounding mix, what you REALLY need is to get better at your job.


I suppose there's something to be said about being able to make the best out of what you've got.


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## JohnIce (Aug 14, 2018)

TedEH said:


> In my case, it almost always is.  I don't do any mixing professionally, or for money, I mostly do it cause we're too cheap to hire someone better than me.
> 
> I have been in the opposite situation though, where we recorded with someone else doing the engineering work - and this guy insisted on using his own amps, samples on everything, he edited the bajeeezus out of the drums, etc. People say it sounds good, but I find it unlistenable. It doesn't sound like us at all. I'd never go back to record with that guy again, just cause his style and his sound is so far removed from my tastes. I think we probably over-compensated in the opposite direction with the next release cause it was very... raw sounding.



Yeah, it's never good to overstep your role in a production. I noticed a lot of that entitlement in the audio engineering community when I studied it in college, this attitude that you always know better than the dumb artists, and it's always bugged me. The same goes for live sound engineers. If you wanna make creative decisions about the music, then make your own damn music  It doesn't matter how much better you are (or think you are) at someone else's job, you do what you're hired for. For example, my sister works as an editor for the largest TV channel here. Like most people that high up she's also directed, produced and shot some incredible work, but that doesn't matter, if she's paid to just be the editor she will shut up and edit. Sometimes that means polishing a turd, but that's life.


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## GunpointMetal (Aug 14, 2018)

JohnIce said:


> Yeah, it's never good to overstep your role in a production. I noticed a lot of that entitlement in the audio engineering community when I studied it in college, this attitude that you always know better than the dumb artists, and it's always bugged me.


If you're doing it right you've figured that stuff out long before you ever set up a mic or import stems or whatever. I know some guys who can do GREAT "djent" mixes, but I would never ask them to work on any of my stuff because they can't actually mix without ReValver, their Custom SD3 kit, and all the premade channel presets. They would make a stoner doom record sound like a djent record. What I consider "real" mix engineers (and I really don't include myself, lol) is that they serve the artist's idea of what they sound like. If someone sends me Mastodon records as their reference, but the band sounds like Converge, we'd have to talk about that ahead of time i.e. certain production elements aren't going to go favorably with the "sound" etc.


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## TedEH (Aug 14, 2018)

^ I suppose to bring it back around to the original topic, that's potentially a big difference between metal mixes and pop mixes -> A pop mix is a much more general beast, requiring a sort of good-over-all engineer, whereas a lot of metal mixes (in my experience) tend to come from guys who, although not "bad" at what they do, basically work out of their established bubble of what works for them in the context of doing their flavor of metal mixes. That's a lot of why I don't consider myself to be a "good" audio guy in the sense that I could do it professionally. I've figured out a process that works for me, and most of my results end up sounding a particular way as a product of that process. But put me in charge of a mix for a style of music I'm not familiar with, and I'd probably be lost.


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## Drew (Aug 14, 2018)

JohnIce said:


> If you're a mixing engineer wanting to fundamentally change a band's sound to your own liking by re-amping and sample replacing and whatnot, I think you need to learn your place in the hierarchy. ...Also, if you NEED to replace everything with your own guitar tones, bass tones and drum samples to make a decent sounding mix, what you REALLY need is to get better at your job.


I mean, you're obviously going to get no arguments from me on this.  I think part of the identity of the band is the sounds of their instruments, and identity is something that should never be left on the cutting-room floor. 



GunpointMetal said:


> If you're doing it right you've figured that stuff out long before you ever set up a mic or import stems or whatever. I know some guys who can do GREAT "djent" mixes, but I would never ask them to work on any of my stuff because they can't actually mix without ReValver, their Custom SD3 kit, and all the premade channel presets. They would make a stoner doom record sound like a djent record. What I consider "real" mix engineers (and I really don't include myself, lol) is that they serve the artist's idea of what they sound like. If someone sends me Mastodon records as their reference, but the band sounds like Converge, we'd have to talk about that ahead of time i.e. certain production elements aren't going to go favorably with the "sound" etc.


...this in a nutshell is a huge part of my long-running, ongoing, and futile war against the use of "mix templates," where the mixing process is just loading up a new batch of stems into a saved template, and hitting export. The sheer number of "hey! I just tweaked my template, check out my new mixtest!" threads that you'll see here tells you just how well that's going.  

Templates CAN be useful for workflow reasons, if you have a couple fairly standard routing things you usually do - for example, my default Reaper "template" when I load a new project has Superior already loaded and routed into a multi-out series of channels/drum bus. I experimented with a bigger one for a while, where I also had pre-loaded bass, rhythm, and lead tracks/busses with the appropriate inputs already loaded, but honestly it's annoyed me more than it's helped me and half the time when demoing an idea I'm just creating a new track from scratch anyway. 

Anything more than that, though... If your template already has all of your various EQ and compression plugins loaded with presets already in place... One, that's not a good use of processing power for tracking (not that most of these guys track their own music, what with all the Periphery stems they can just mix instead), and two, that means you're not critically listening to the music and honing your ear and your ability to identify and fix problems. It's a shortcut, and it's only hampering your growth.


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## Drew (Aug 14, 2018)

TedEH said:


> I've figured out a process that works for me, and most of my results end up sounding a particular way as a product of that process. But put me in charge of a mix for a style of music I'm not familiar with, and I'd probably be lost.


If you ever get the chance to do this, though, you should. I do instrumental rock, and I'm having a _blast_ doing a vocal, roots-rock/folk/blues project with my dad and uncle, because it has so little to do with the usual challenges I'm trying to solve. I mean, it's also frustrating as hell, not the least because we have very different levels of attention to detail in the studio, lol, but it's also a blast to get that far outside my comfort zone.


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## TedEH (Aug 14, 2018)

I almost ended up working on a friends blues album, but it never materialized. I should poke that guy again and see if he's still planning on doing that.


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## axxessdenied (Aug 14, 2018)

JohnIce said:


> If you're a mixing engineer wanting to fundamentally change a band's sound to your own liking by re-amping and sample replacing and whatnot, I think you need to learn your place in the hierarchy.



Go listen to a bunch of stuff mixed by Andy Wallace. Mixed a bunch of different bands who had a pretty unique sounds. But, at the end of the day the mixes were all Andy Wallace mixes. Play them back to back you'll start to notice he uses the same drum samples and the guitars are usually mixed in a very similar fashion, etc.


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## TonyFlyingSquirrel (Aug 14, 2018)

Michael Wagener is another who likes to reamp extensively, but he's a master at it.


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## JohnIce (Aug 14, 2018)

axxessdenied said:


> Go listen to a bunch of stuff mixed by Andy Wallace. Mixed a bunch of different bands who had a pretty unique sounds. But, at the end of the day the mixes were all Andy Wallace mixes. Play them back to back you'll start to notice he uses the same drum samples and the guitars are usually mixed in a very similar fashion, etc.



I'm not saying that being a good mix engineer means having no personal style or taste. I'm saying don't hijack a band's sound just because you can't work with what you're given. Andy Wallace is a great example of someone who's mixed anything under the sun and never let his sound get in the way of the band. He's never reamped Coldplay to sound more like Nirvana, or tried to make Linkin Park sound more like Slipknot. I can't imagine Andy Wallace telling Avenged Sevenfold he wants their DIs so he can see what guitar tone fits his mix the best


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## axxessdenied (Aug 14, 2018)

A band's sound comes down to how they write and perform their music. I think this ties into what I was saying about guys who have a formula and template down and know how to get a specific sound. Andy Wallace is a great example. He definitely goes after a particular sound. So, I would say... yes... he does hijack a band "sound" as you say but he knows how to do it properly which is the whole point of going to a producer who knows their shit when it comes to engineering and mixing.


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## JohnIce (Aug 15, 2018)

axxessdenied said:


> A band's sound comes down to how they write and perform their music. I think this ties into what I was saying about guys who have a formula and template down and know how to get a specific sound. Andy Wallace is a great example. He definitely goes after a particular sound. So, I would say... yes... he does hijack a band "sound" as you say but he knows how to do it properly which is the whole point of going to a producer who knows their shit when it comes to engineering and mixing.



I don't know if we disagree or not. I'm not saying Andy Wallace doesn't have an identifiable sound. That sound is the main reason people pay so much to have him mix their stuff. What I'm saying is he doesn't override what the band, producer and recording engineer created in the studio. He wouldn't re-amp Tom Morello through a Dual Rectifier just because HE prefers it... and he wouldn't replace Joey Jordison's kicks with samples of Dave Grohl. Stylistic decisions like that are up to the producer and recording engineer in the room with the band. You did call Andy a "producer" but that's not what he's most known to be. I'm sure he's produced some records but not the ones he's famous for.


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## prlgmnr (Aug 15, 2018)

axxessdenied said:


> Go listen to a bunch of stuff mixed by Andy Wallace. Mixed a bunch of different bands who had a pretty unique sounds. But, at the end of the day the mixes were all Andy Wallace mixes. Play them back to back you'll start to notice he uses the same drum samples and the guitars are usually mixed in a very similar fashion, etc.


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## TonyFlyingSquirrel (Aug 15, 2018)

You can hear Mutt Lange's influence on all the artists that he produced, most noteably AC/DC & Def Leppard, & Shania, not as much in Brian Adams, but then you listen to Peter Collins and see that he brought out the best in RUSH, Queensryche, Systematic, & didn't over infuse their projects with his own sonic signature. Ironically, the latter band Systematic are friends of mine and they had their debut record produced by Peter Collins and mixed by Andy Wallace, and Wallace didn't use any samples on the drums as per Tim & Adam's instruction, and as a result, Somewhere In Between sounds very much like their demo's did on the VS1680 from a couple of years earlier when they were selling self burnt cd's at local bay area shows.


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## Drew (Aug 15, 2018)

TedEH said:


> I almost ended up working on a friends blues album, but it never materialized. I should poke that guy again and see if he's still planning on doing that.


You should absolutely do that, or collaborate with the guy, or something. And shit, god knows I have too much going on in my life as it is, but if you ever want to do a cross-border collaboration with another guitarist, I'd be game if I can contribute something useful. 



axxessdenied said:


> Go listen to a bunch of stuff mixed by Andy Wallace. Mixed a bunch of different bands who had a pretty unique sounds. But, at the end of the day the mixes were all Andy Wallace mixes. Play them back to back you'll start to notice he uses the same drum samples and the guitars are usually mixed in a very similar fashion, etc.


...but, I think there's a difference between "mixing the guitars in a similar fashion," and straight-up replacing all the guitar tones by reamping DI tracks. And many of the bands Wallace worked with had unique, easily identifiable guitar sounds.


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## TedEH (Aug 15, 2018)

I think I've said it before, and this is not super on-topic maybe, but I really like the production of Billy Talent stuff. The instrument tones are solid, the mixing is solid, I can hear everything and everything has it's place. The songs themselves..... maybe I've grown out of them, but I still dig the production.


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## JohnIce (Aug 15, 2018)

Now that we're bringing producers into the mix (deeply sorry for the pun), I'm pretty militant about not confusing what it means to be a producer with what it means to be a mix engineer 

One thing that happened to me that reeeeally sucked, was when I was asked to mix a band that I really dug, kind of Anathema meets Pain of Salvation which is right up my alley. Fantastic songs and performance, but their recordings were awful. Some complete hack had engineered the drums in his "studio" (and overcharged them something fierce), and then they'd done the rest themselves, amp mics sounded terrible, the only decent sounds were the vocals and the bass DI. So I did what I could, put out the fires until it sounded "ok", but it was by far the worst mix I'd ever done. I didn't want to show it to anybody, but saying "I don't want mixing credit on this" seemed like a dick thing to say, so I didn't. The band however, knowing how shitty the source material was, thought I'd done it way above their expectations so they thought they'd thank me by flooding their social medias with "Produced by the best producer in the world, John!"  Being miscredited as the *producer* of that god-awful sounding record probably cost me a lot of potential clients. It was terrible.

So yeah, producing is not mixing. Knowing the difference could save lives.


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## AngstRiddenDreams (Aug 15, 2018)

Kurt Ballou/thread


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## Drew (Aug 16, 2018)

JohnIce said:


> Now that we're bringing producers into the mix (deeply sorry for the pun), I'm pretty militant about not confusing what it means to be a producer with what it means to be a mix engineer
> 
> One thing that happened to me that reeeeally sucked, was when I was asked to mix a band that I really dug, kind of Anathema meets Pain of Salvation which is right up my alley. Fantastic songs and performance, but their recordings were awful. Some complete hack had engineered the drums in his "studio" (and overcharged them something fierce), and then they'd done the rest themselves, amp mics sounded terrible, the only decent sounds were the vocals and the bass DI. So I did what I could, put out the fires until it sounded "ok", but it was by far the worst mix I'd ever done. I didn't want to show it to anybody, but saying "I don't want mixing credit on this" seemed like a dick thing to say, so I didn't. The band however, knowing how shitty the source material was, thought I'd done it way above their expectations so they thought they'd thank me by flooding their social medias with "Produced by the best producer in the world, John!"  Being miscredited as the *producer* of that god-awful sounding record probably cost me a lot of potential clients. It was terrible.
> 
> So yeah, producing is not mixing. Knowing the difference could save lives.



 

"With friends like these..."


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