Compression-free heavy metal

[Humphrey Bear]

I have for a long time wanted to record a set of instrumental heavy metal tracks live direct to two-track and without any compression, once I get a band started.

I asked someone on another message board wether it is possible to record hard rock or heavy metal without any compression and I was given the following information:

"EQ must be used, but it is possible to use compression and limiting sparingly or not at all under the following circumstances:

1.) The musicians must be VERY good. The drummer must have perfect timing, and must hit the exact same part of the drum every time. He or you must also know how to properly tune the drums for the desired sound. The bassist must also play perfectly, with no timing errors or sloppy fingering.

2.) The equipment must be good. Good EQ's and tape machines are absolutely necessary to achieve the maximum dynamic range and lowest noise floor possible.

3.) The engineer must be highly skilled with EQ. Doing a rock recording without compression requires the engineer to play a lot of games with EQ.

4.) Good mastering is critical. All your efforts are for nothing if the mastering is not good.

Also, the Ampex MR-70 is a great machine, but for what you are doing I would recommend an MM1200 or and ATR-124 and then mixdown to an Ampex ATR-102. The MR-70 is colored and it tends to have more distortions than the MM and ATR series.

People will tell you it's impossible to record rock without compression, it's not true. It is possible if you are extremely skilled with EQ. You are going to be using EQ in a way you never thought possible."


And someone else gave me the following info:

"With recording - there are NO rules. There have been a number of great sounding rock recordings done to 2-track analog without any compression or even any eq. Having great mics & mic-pres and a great sounding room will go along way to help making your recording sound good. From there the placement & level of the amps in the room, the recording levels set, and most critically microphone choice & placement, will determine whether you are to be happy with the results or not. Experimentation with placement of the elements in the room will be probably necessary - you'll probably want to spend some time tracking various set ups to see how you like the results. You'll find that you probably will have to leave a little extra overhead in your recording levels without any compression - but again - a lot of great sounding rock recordings have been made using no compression or eq to tape."

Keep in mind that I am not talking about simple rock music here, what I want to do is 80s style speed metal without any compression or limiting what so ever and I want do it 100% live direct to 2-track. Can it be done?

[stewie]

1.) The musicians must be VERY good. The drummer must have perfect timing, and must hit the exact same part of the drum every time. He or you must also know how to properly tune the drums for the desired sound. The bassist must also play perfectly, with no timing errors or sloppy fingering.

What does this have to do with the recording? You might have trouble finding "perfect" bassists and drummers, so I'd probably just ignore this ridiculous point.

If there are mistakes during recording and they annoy the band when they hear the playback, they can be punched-in and re-record the parts that the goofed up. But that's got zero to do with EQ, compression or speed metal.

[154]

the thing about metal is it often sounds terrible live without 'tricks'. have you ever heard a death metal band in their practice space without the drums mic'd/triggered up? it's basically a loud, amorphous blob of lowend with a tiny snare popping up occasionally. it seems like metal bands like everything to sound huge; huge guitars, huge drums, loud cymbals, etc. subtractive EQ and compression are inevitable when there's so much 'competing' sound and expectations are often unrealistic.

you can definitely strive to use less 'tricks' than most metal engineers and that's a worthwhile goal. i think making a metal record with accoustic drums is a triumph itself these days..

p.s. the advice in blue is sorta rediculous..

[Humphrey Bear]

By the by, let's say I decide on a live multi-track approach instead of direct to two-track. How many tracks would I need considering the project will be instrumental? Would an 8-track 2-inch machine do the job? For example if one microphone is used for each of the guitars (2 - guitar, 1 - bass) that would leave 5 mics for the drum kit. Would that be enough?

[Justin Foley]

Humphrey of the Big Font -

There's a good thread in the REP forum about recording fast metal -
Here. I found it.

Can you do live 2 track? Sure. I think the advice you got in green was pretty sound. Obviously, a tight band playing well in a favorable space, using well placed, appropriate microphones routed through a clean signal path will help. This requires a different level (and type of skill) than someone who runs triggers/amp modulators into pro-tools, quantizes the whole thing and DAWs the hell out of it.

The band I'm in will be recording in the spring, and we'll be doing it on a 1" 8 track. Fortunately for us, it's a bass/guitar/vox/drum machine combo, so the drums are much easier (although you could do a submix of of your drums and come up with a similar setup). We're going to try 2 approaches.

Approach 1 - Live Instruments:
1 - Guit
2 - Bass
3 - Drums R
4 - Drums L
5 - Ambient Mic R
6 - Ambient Mic L
7&8 - Vocal overdubs

Approach 2 - Overdubs
1 & 2 - Stereo Guitar
3 & 4 - Stereo Bass
5 & 6 - Stereo Drums
7 & 8 - Stereo Vox

In approach 2, each sets of channels would be a submix of the close mic (or direct drum machine) and the stereo ambient image of each instrument (checking for phase problems, naturally). We're planning on avoiding EQ and, with the exception of the vocals, will only be using the compression provided by each instrument's respective amplifier.

The music is heavy and dense. We plan on spending most of our time making sure the mic placement is right and that we like the ratios going into the submixes. Obviously, the sound of the room is an important factor in the either of the approaches we're working on.

Just some thoughts.

= Justin[/url]

[skatingbasser]

I can sort of see where the blue comments are coming from.

If we're talkin real heavy metal there is probably a ton of double bass and the song is pretty long. The drummer is going to have to be pretty damn experenced to make each hit the same volume when there is that many hits. They also have to have endurance.

If they don't, there will be points in the song where you lose the kick drum. That's why it's compressed.

So, if you want the "standard sound" of heavy metal without using the tricks (good luck); then yes, you will need a good drummer.

[scott]

This is such garbage, the way people have come to think...

Go listen to the song "Fight Fire With Fire" off Metallica's album Ride The Lightning. There's a part where the guitar rings out and fades a bit, and you can actually hear what the kick drum is doing, namely some fast (for that era) double bass drumming. Most of the time you can't really pick it out super great because the guitar is dominating it.

Ride The Lightning and Master Of Puppets sound GREAT, classic, wonderful, etc. St Anger, where you can pick out every note, sounds like ass.

This idea that crept into metal back in the 90's, the idea that triggers are okay, or that every note has to be machine-perfect, this idea is shit. It sucks that so many people bought into it.

Would an 8-track 2-inch machine do the job?

Yes, Humphrey, this is the only machine you should even consider using. Anything other than an 8-track 2" machine will not sound good enough. Seriously.

[Humphrey Bear]

Yes, Humphrey, this is the only machine you should even consider using. Anything other than an 8-track 2" machine will not sound good enough. Seriously.

Any more sarcasm and I might use two 2" 8-track machines synchronized together just out of spite.

http://www.atrservice.com/atr108c

"4 Inch 16 Track" tracking / production Recorder
-Two machines can be synced together for the ultimate in analog tracking"

[skatingbasser]

This is such garbage, the way people have come to think...

Go listen to the song "Fight Fire With Fire" off Metallica's album Ride The Lightning. There's a part where the guitar rings out and fades a bit, and you can actually hear what the kick drum is doing, namely some fast (for that era) double bass drumming. Most of the time you can't really pick it out super great because the guitar is dominating it.

Ride The Lightning and Master Of Puppets sound GREAT, classic, wonderful, etc. St Anger, where you can pick out every note, sounds like ass.

This idea that crept into metal back in the 90's, the idea that triggers are okay, or that every note has to be machine-perfect, this idea is shit. It sucks that so many people bought into it.

Valid point. When recording drummers with as much experience as Lars Ulrich in professional studio environments, with major release studio budgets, compression is far from a neccesity.

For crappy suburban highschool/college metal I'll throw the compression on every fucking time.

[interloper]

This is such garbage, the way people have come to think...

Go listen to the song "Fight Fire With Fire" off Metallica's album Ride The Lightning. There's a part where the guitar rings out and fades a bit, and you can actually hear what the kick drum is doing, namely some fast (for that era) double bass drumming. Most of the time you can't really pick it out super great because the guitar is dominating it.

Ride The Lightning and Master Of Puppets sound GREAT, classic, wonderful, etc. St Anger, where you can pick out every note, sounds like ass.

This idea that crept into metal back in the 90's, the idea that triggers are okay, or that every note has to be machine-perfect, this idea is shit. It sucks that so many people bought into it.

Perfect. We practitioners be it musician or engineer, all tend to be way too analytical in general, and it totally carries over into what is made in the end. I don't listen to recordings of bands to be impressed by the recording. I really, really like certain specific engineers, but I still can't get through records they've recorded by bands that do nothing for me. Anyway, part of the beauty of a record like say, Reign in Blood, is the fact that it sounds like it's going to combust at any second. It's far from picture perfect, and that's exactly why it gives one phyisical pain. Nowadays, they're so refined by comparison, that a vast majority of the effect is gone for me. The right imperfections are really condusive to good music. I'll never understand why more people don't seem to grasp that.

[Bernardo]

1.) The musicians must be VERY good. The drummer must have perfect timing, and must hit the exact same part of the drum every time. He or you must also know how to properly tune the drums for the desired sound. The bassist must also play perfectly, with no timing errors or sloppy fingering.

What does this have to do with the recording? You might have trouble finding "perfect" bassists and drummers, so I'd probably just ignore this ridiculous point.

Too bad, cause those "perfect" bassists and drummers are the ones who will require zero compression to come through as "in your face" for the whole time. Is anyone keeping in mind he's talking about ZERO compression?