короче, работа кипит!
GENERAL BRIEF
We’d like to achieve a cavernous, heavily reverberated sound with a nod to the following albums:
https://selfmadegod.bandcamp.com/album/we-proclaim-your-death-o-lord
https://graveupheaval.bandcamp.com/album/--4
https://profoundlorerecords.bandcamp.com/album/blight-upon-martyred-sentience
BUT with the more dynamic / heavy / huge / whatever guitars
such as:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyNNHHRzY7I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wtXpyEK344
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LtrSmggbLU
The guitar wall should be prominent, with the sunken vocals and drums. The goal is to achieve an atmosphere similar to the first group of albums, but to be more heavy, since the strongly reverberated bands loose a lot of the dynamics. We’d like to find some sweet spot with the cavernous atmosphere and still retaining a huge doom guitar sound.
Alrighty, we still have some work to get the reverb suitable, but this is the best solution I could come up with, The CAVE MIX has a small reverb on master bus and added separate reverbs on drums and vocals to try to maintain the guitar and bass not sounding like ass.
With the reverb the fast parts sounds shit, but kinda in a nice trve way.
Blue = Stas
I am not sure whether we mentioned it (I think so), but track II is supposed to be the opening one and I is the closer (MŮRA mentally challenged and drug-hazed logic, right? hehe). This is important for work on splitting the III “noise track”. AND we have names of songs:
II - Chambers of Decay
I - Pest Procession
GUITARS
General:
more up front (Stas)
balance volume of both guitars on the same level (Stas)
L/R channelling: I would have one track of both guitars in both channels, and then divide second guitar tracks into different channels in places where they play differently - ?????? (Stas) - I’d keep that to Anders (Hans)
You mean Jan in L + R and Lukas in L + R ? - yep, I thought that one layer of both could be in L+R and the second one will be split between the channels - meaning Jan in lets say R and Lukas in L or vice versa. However I have no idea whether in practice it works well this way. As Jan wrote, you know better
Solos: bury deeper (but not too deep) in mix + add effects (Stas) - Agreed (Hans)
Reverb: let’s find an amount to create some kind of ambience, but still not kill the attack of the guitars (Hans)
Check notes above - How about giving a try to have one layer of both guitars as in “cave” mix and second layer of both as in “dry”? Could that work?
Also, Lukas’s guitar seems to be rather quiet and some parts/riffage/accents are kind of lost. And I don’t think it’s cause of heavy reverberation but in fact simply volume reasons. Anyhow, I HOPE LUKAS WILL HAVE MORE COMMENTS ON THAT!!! after resurrection
Delay: on all solos and higher pitched guitar sounds
Listen to new mix and let me know if this is still the plan? everything sounds pretty wet already imo
Song 02, 0:49 -> my guitar sounds a bit out of tune here, do we have a better take? (Hans)
VOX
General:
more reverb (Stas)
bury deeper in mix (Stas)
Agreed (Hans)
I will sit down with Anders for a separate vox mixing session, it’s probably easiest way how to take care of this shit (Lord Satan Infernal)
DRUMS
General:
OK, I defo prefer the “dry” mix of drums sound. The amount of reverb in “cave” version doesn’t really work very well for drums except for the toms… especially it fucks up the snare and kick - even more so in fast parts, as it is a bit of a mess which I don’t want there. The “dry” version soundwise appears pretty good to my ear, and honestly I wouldn’t really do much else with it, except for toms sound, which I would like to ask you to make as reverby as in the “cave” mix - works monster cool with channeling, and generally those toms sound HELLISH! Thus “CAVE” for toms, “DRY” for the rest of the kit, and I guess just pretty much keep it as it is now. I emphasise that here I am referring to the general drums sound only, AND will have more comments/requests regarding stuff like volume/balance and some specific parts adjustments further.
Since I would like to keep the “dry” version sound, my further comments are based on that one.
Balance volumes of each element the same way in both songs (Stas)
Should be better now - It appears so, however I still want rather louder ride and also a bit louder hi-hat but not much. UPDATE: I kind of realized that for all those volume related issues I need to hear the tracks on proper monitors, as after playing them through less bassy headphones, the cymbals are heard way more
Toms slightly more up front + (try to) add a little reverb/echo (Stas) Don’t be shy for the reverb, I would go for the de mysterii / excoriate’s pestilent winds sound. The toms should sound like kettles of hell, (see comment above)
Ride cymbal a little more up front (Stas) (see comment above)
Snare sound - ????? (Stas) Reverb that shit! (Hans)
Snare still needs some work with the matching, but its better - Yeah, I am not sure whether the “dry” has those layered snare sounds - I assume it does, right? Nevertheless, sounds decent to me the way it is there, and I wouldn’t fuck with it much anymore. Sounds quite low and dark on both tracks. The kick sounds badass on “dry” too.
L/R channels - ????? (Stas) - Great job with “cave” toms channelling!
Specific:
Chambers of Decay (II):
isn’t volume of smth floating a little at some moments? ex: at 0:51, 2:16...
volume of ride has to go up even more in fast part between 4:38 - 5:00 and 5:24 - 5:46
crashes (esp. the right one from the stool perspective) volume needs to go up between 4:49 - 5:00 and 5:33 - 5:46
Pest Procession (I):
part between 1:30 and 2:22 - ride bell needs to be sliiightly louder (however if ride volume will generally go up, as mentioned in comment above, this might not be needed)
short cymbal roll between 2:23 and 2:26 - volume of both crashes up, please (just for the roll, not the actual hit which follows, hehe)
ditto 4:00 - 4:03
small part between 6:06 - 6:10 - I fucked up the dynamics here a little and hi-hat sounds kinda ghostly, thus wouldn’t mind if the hi-hat volume would go up even more here. not sure whether this will work or not, though
fast part at the end - 6:36 - till the end basically - volume of hi-hat and both crashes needs to be significantly up
in this fast part - is it possible that snare sound layering messed up some hits? maybe it’s just my headphones but before the very ending the blast beat sounds sloppier than in the very first “clean” pre-mix from July, where it is more straight. theoretically it also might seem so because the crashes are too quiet here and need a good boost (see previous comment). I used snare hand to hit the crash (left one from the stool perspective) meaning that when I hit it, the snare hit is missing… and if that crash hit can’t be heard properly, it might seem that there are some notes missing = sloppiness impression. so yeah, I am a bit confused and need to figure this one out!
Noise track (III)
Cymbal track more up front + add effects - ???? (Stas)