My first serious recording: Thrashmetal band Stormthrash's first EP

Community Made With Ardour
#1

Hi everyone, i am both happy and proud to share this with you colleagues:

This is the first EP, all recorded, edited, mixed and mastered at my home studio.

http://soundcloud.com/estudioorion/sets/ep-stormthrash/

All songs were recorded and edited using Ardour 3 Beta 1-3
All songs were mixed, final edited and mastered using Harrison Consoles Mixbus 2
The intro on track 4 was included already done from a band member so it is the only thing not done with Ardour.
Main OS was first Ubuntu Studio, then switched to AVLinux 5.0.2 then lastly to AVLinux 5.0.3
High Loudness was implemented by band request and considering music style and similar bands recording’s loudness

Main Plugins used during Mix:

LinuxDSP Pro Dynamics
LinuxDSP Pro Gate
LinuxDSP MKII-Graph-EQ
Harrison Consoles Mini Plugin GVerb+

On Mixbuses and Master bus:

LinuxDSP MKII-Graph-EQ
LinuxDSP Multiband Compressor
LinuxDSP PEQ-2
LinuxDSP Stereo Reverb
Calf Vintage Delay
Calf Reverb
Calf Saturator
Invada Low Pass Filter
Invada Input Module
Invada Compressor
Invada Meter
Harrison Consoles Mini Plugin GVerb+
AM Pitchshifter (for low pitched voice)

I’m very new to audio recording, a little more than a year since i dedicated to this full time so i hope you like it and share your thoughts on this.

Thanks for listening.

#2

Great! It really sounds like old Sepultura or Slayer, but with better sound quality. Good job!

#3

Hi fernesto

I’m not even going to pretend to be a thrash expert but this sounds really good! Obviously a lot of time care and attention have gone into producing these songs and it shows. Great job and keep it up!

p.s. I appreciate you mentioning AV Linux and am glad to see it being used at this level of production.

#4

Thanks all, its very cool to know that you like the sound, i’ve been worried about things like the snare, and that on the drums i mainly used cheap mics which is what i can afford for now, i certainly hope to improve over time so im very interested in opinions, im definitely not a thrash expert either so it is sort of a new ground for me too.

@GMaq: AV Linux is a great OS im still learning a lot about using it, there are somethings that i haven’t been able to adapt to my workflow yet, like using my Dual Screen setup (horizontal setup, there is no out of the box easy way to set it up, aRandR is limited both horizontal and vertical so i cannot set it up properly until i install the propietary video drivers), i cannot set up the WBar properly somewhere nice, it is great always to mention all the software in use, all your effort helps us in one or another way. thanks for listening and for your effort on AVL.

Edit: didn’t know you could use compiz on AVL, its even better now! xD

#5

It sounds well balanced, but its missing a lot of mid frequencies. I normally scoop mids a little in the mixing process, but one has to be careful not to do it way too much (or the mix can sound hollow). Also, it sounds like the bass frequencies are overcompressed. I understand its a thrash recording, but overcompression and mid-scooping in general can make a fairly generic sounding recording.

Is this mastered? If you mastered it yourself, maybe send it to someone else to master the track? A fresh set of ears never hurts.

Overall, its a great first try at a serious recording. Now get back to work! :wink:

#6

I use KRK rokit RP 5 monitors with a KRK 10 inch subwoofer. They arn’t that expensive, and usually in stock at online music product vendors.

#7

@tbonedude: Hey thanks! i mastered myself mainly due to the band´s budget, i am aware that it is not a good practice to do it all with the same monitors (and same engineer and studio), so i used my bx5a monitors and a couple of headphones for mixing and mastering, i´ll be listening to it again and checking out those tips.

Any ideas on monitors in a similar price range of the BX5a´s that could help cover the BX5a´s flaws?

thanks again for your advice is great help for me.

#8

nice! cheap mic s on the drums are perfect :wink: and yes i had to think of “beneath the remains”.
tbonedude is right, the mid s are quite thin…
can you tell me details about your drums mixing? how many mics, stereo overheads? i like the hi hat sound , is it a condenser mic with zildjian hi hat? thanks for sharing this

#9

Nice work!

#10

I´ll just share the spanish-greatly-expanded version of this post made on my home studios blog.

#11

Heh you hit it!

Its a MXL 990 over an old Zildjian hi hat.

I used 8 channels, Nady DM80 for the kick, DM70s for Snare, Tom1, 2 and 3, a MXL 991 and a 551 (which are praticaly the same mics) for overheads on a XY mode, slightly distanced maybe 3 inches, and about 60-70 centimeters over the toms, then the last channel is the hi-hat.

Sadly the Drums were not properly tuned and used some tape and paper to fix what i thought at that time were unwanted resonance, now based on that experience i prefer spending a little money for new heads and 4 sixpacks of beer to get a drummer friend to tune the drums before recording heh…

Used Gate on Snare and Kick, edited the non used space in the toms, pretty tight compressors and smiley eqs on Toms and Kick.

Due to the bad tuning i fought a lot with the snare and guitars to get both heard in the mix, also some struggle with the kick.

I still like the overall result, however being my first serious recording i think i gained the most on experience and on feedback from this forum, now i have a total different aproach on recording drums, actually am working right now on a Demo for a … i don’t know… Death or Black Metal band, very hard to listen, don’t get used yet but i just recorded the drums this week and now i have a sound much more open.

For this new recording i used basicly the same set up, same mics, but used an opened SM58 for the snare, used the two OHs in a “recorderman” style and the 8th mic is now a 550 room mic, since is a demo i wont be doing much editing but regarding the mix, im letting it very open, gating basicly the Toms, but the snare and the kick the gate has a very low reduction, actually just 5dB, mainly due to the drummers technique wich is not consistent enough, but i like the sound for now.

Will of course share in this forum as soon as i finish the Demo, not expecting everyone to like it but i hope to get comments on the mixing and master so i can keep improving.

Thanks a lot for your comments!