Modern Production

MetalGuy71 wrote:

Lari wrote:

What's even worse is trying to artificially make your band sound poor, ie. St.Anger.

I still can't believe the band listened to the final masters and said "Yup, sounds good. We're done here".

For some reason, Lars gets off by sabotaging his own band's albums. Starting with turning the bass guitar down to nearly nonexistent, to the horrible "garage drums" on St Anger and signing off on the brickwalling for Death Magnetic. James is the cowardly lion that lets him have his way!

Temple of Blood wrote:

Well, that's not the same because guitar players still have to play the part and a programmed part doesn't need to be played at all.

Samples to me are not bad at all, just overused perhaps.  Same with re-amping.  But it's fine, really IMHO.

Yeah, they still have to play the part. Recording clean then dialing in an amp tone is re-amping. That's what I am talking about.

But the kind of drums I am talking about happen all the time and I bet people don't even notice. So many albums don't have actual drummers playing on them, but they totally sound like they do. Even more than that record on a midi-kit (with the drummer playing), edit the notes to be in time with the click, then apply the live-drum samples later.

Fear Factory are another band that are notorious for utilizing fake drums. At one time, they had Gene Hoglan playing for them and they actually fired him to just use a drum machine!

Shawn Of Fire wrote:

SO many albums (I'm talking Rock/Metal albums) have been made in the last 10 years using computer-programmed drums that utilize live drum sounds via samples. It's the same as guitarists recording direct with a clean signal, then dialing in an amp tone from a box or piece of software during mix. It happens all day, every day.

I can't remember which album it was, but Devin Townsend said that every snare hit on this album is the one from Metallica's "Sad But True." Haha.

Troublezone wrote:

Fear Factory are another band that are notorious for utilizing fake drums. At one time, they had Gene Hoglan playing for them and they actually fired him to just use a drum machine!

I'm sure they were broken and couldn't afford him, then tried to justify it as a creative decision.

I can deal with the "clean, sterile" production ( I am not saying I like it, but I can listen to it) but I can't stand the brick walling or the audible "clicking" which I think is from compression. I make a lot of mix cd's and they all have a them or genre and it's funny when something from the early '80's is so soft and then something from the mid 2000's is just blaring and static sounding.

Temple of Blood wrote:

Troublezone wrote:

Fear Factory are another band that are notorious for utilizing fake drums. At one time, they had Gene Hoglan playing for them and they actually fired him to just use a drum machine!

I'm sure they were broken and couldn't afford him, then tried to justify it as a creative decision.

I don't think they (Burt & Dino) didn't have the money... I think they just simply wanted to split the money 2 ways. The bass player probably gets peanuts.

Temple of Blood wrote:

MetalGuy71 wrote:

You know this for fact or are you saying you can tell by listening? And what's your definition of fake drums? Sampled effects? Electric drum beats? Inverted coffee cans? I'm not trying to bust balls or anything here. I'm genuinely curious how one can tell when it's not obvious.

Yeah, it's a fact.  Both artists have said they used drum machines on a few albums.

Do you think you would have known just by listening to them though? Is it that obvious?

MetalGuy71 wrote:

Do you think you would have known just by listening to them though? Is it that obvious?

Crimson Glory sounds suspicious.  "The Eye" was obvious. Especially obvious that it is not at all Snowy Shaw's style of drumming. His style is very distinct.

Here is a pretty good link that shows dynamic range of many albums. To search by artist click on the drop down box in the upper right corner. 

http://dr.loudness-war.info/

I do love the production on Iron Savior's albums.

the sentinel wrote:

I can deal with the "clean, sterile" production ( I am not saying I like it, but I can listen to it) but I can't stand the brick walling or the audible "clicking" which I think is from compression. I make a lot of mix cd's and they all have a them or genre and it's funny when something from the early '80's is so soft and then something from the mid 2000's is just blaring and static sounding.

Exactly, most CDs now are blaring and loud to the point of hurting your ears even when played at low volume. The early disc from the 80s can be played at high volume and still sound great

This one goes deep into modern pop music production.

It partially applies to heavy metal as well. Metal listenership in general is too fragmented and there's maybe not enough money in it to make this apply to most bands, and usually great bands emerge to create something new. But then that first band is quickly followed by a horde of bands pushed by labels using these pop music methods. It was glam metal first, then grunge (and post-grunge), then nu-metal, then metalcore.

I've got a couple of black metal albums that I'm pretty sure were made completely with a computer and it genuinely doesn't bother me, I like them

The problem for me is when everyone is using the same techniques to achieve the same sound but that happened in the 80's too (that godawful pop metal/AOR drum sound! )