The Doom Room: ILF Edition

[Ancient Astronaught]

Bastard Samurai rules my world.

[dazedbyday]

Well now I need to go back and re listen to snakes. I only really listened to it once or twice when it first came out and nothing really grabbed me on it. Although I do have to say I kinda like the little weird stuff as what really grabbed me the first time was Khanrad's Wall and Turk as a combo. That twelve string (I think) he used on khanrad just stood out to me. Death was also HOF first album I really listened to. Also I agree on the production values. I just think Death struck the best balance between keeping the rawer feeling that I think fits with HOF and the clean of making the music clear. I think some of the fog on the earlier albums is a little too much. I don't like listening to some black metal because they went too lo-fi and it takes away from the music (while others will say it lends to the music because of the genre but )

Also TJ. Really great work on the doom train shell.

Yes, yes you do. Snakes is one of those albums that because it strays from the HoF norm is easy to write off, but IMO if you really listen to the album there's alot of good stuff in there. I do agree that Death struck a good medium, but I slightly prefer the foggy raw tone of BBW (hehehehe) as it sets a really good mood and atmosphere. Yet like on thieves its just too much IMO. I also concur about black metal, but after recording and mixing like 7 or 8 black metal bands that wanted that crazy lo-fi sound, I've grown a certain appreciation for recording in hi-fi and converting it to lo-fi. It's not quite as easy as you would think.

Hahaha, I'm listening now before I head out for work. I don't see what I had a problem with before except maybe because I had death in such heavy rotation at the time and when this came out it sounded so different and nothing caught me that I was just like "eh" and didn't go back to it. I liked the new album that came out but I haven't been listening to much HOF recently.

And I understand about what you are saying for production. As I have learned and worked more in a studio I have grown to appreciate a lot that I hadn't before, mainly because of the technique that goes into it. Like a lot of modern pop throws in a bunch of shit that is really neat recording wise that they do to keep the song interesting and keep people's attention (since the song by itself is actually rather boring and tedious.) Like on a katy perry album, the guy who mixed it would basically mix the verse up the middle and then have the vocals doubled or quadrupled for the chorus and then split so that it makes it seem like the vocals explode in the chorus. Also the crazy uses of stereo delays, sometimes on a single word in a line, to accentuate certain points or create an off beat texture. Still don't like the music but it is neat how it is put together.

How did you convert to lo-fi? And did you try and emulate that shitty cassette tape sound?

[Ancient Astronaught]

Hahaha, I'm listening now before I head out for work. I don't see what I had a problem with before except maybe because I had death in such heavy rotation at the time and when this came out it sounded so different and nothing caught me that I was just like "eh" and didn't go back to it. I liked the new album that came out but I haven't been listening to much HOF recently.

And I understand about what you are saying for production. As I have learned and worked more in a studio I have grown to appreciate a lot that I hadn't before, mainly because of the technique that goes into it. Like a lot of modern pop throws in a bunch of shit that is really neat recording wise that they do to keep the song interesting and keep people's attention (since the song by itself is actually rather boring and tedious.) Like on a katy perry album, the guy who mixed it would basically mix the verse up the middle and then have the vocals doubled or quadrupled for the chorus and then split so that it makes it seem like the vocals explode in the chorus. Also the crazy uses of stereo delays, sometimes on a single word in a line, to accentuate certain points or create an off beat texture. Still don't like the music but it is neat how it is put together.

How did you convert to lo-fi? And did you try and emulate that shitty cassette tape sound?

Yeah dude, mixing pop is some weird shit. All they real;ly want you to hear is drums and vocals and everything else gets buried in the mix. I've learned alot with our newest album since alot of the songs take a pop format and have pop style mixing applied to them. I personally can't stand it but I have to look at it from an objective point of view. What is so weird is that our drummer whose doing all the mixing wants a pop releease but is completely anti compression and hates loudness which is what "makes" pop mixing and mastering...

Well I've done a couple different methods depending on the budget and the customers goal. For those who want the true KVLT sound what I usually do is record everything at red book (44/16) quality and do my mixing ITB, then instead of doing the usual sum buses and sending them all to the master bus I send them to two premaster sum buses both with the same mix, bus 1 only has slight compression (typical mix master track comp somewhere in the 1.2-1.4 ratio range), bus 2 has massive comp (usually 8.0 or above) and sent into 100% wet distortion with alot of fizz. I then take both buses and send them to the master bus and mix them to get that gnarly dirty sound, and having the two buses makes it easier if I'm sitting there with them (the customer) and they can just say dirtier or cleaner and i can adjust easily. Once I've got that ready to go I bounce the master bus to an old school tascam 4 track at around -.1db, then I open a mastering session and bounce the tape back to digital this time at -1db and then apply digital mastering usually involving minimal compression but a decent amount of tape exciter and hall reverb followed by a fast limiter / volume maximizer and use that to adjust the final perceived volume.

[dazedbyday]

Yeah dude, mixing pop is some weird shit. All they real;ly want you to hear is drums and vocals and everything else gets buried in the mix. I've learned alot with our newest album since alot of the songs take a pop format and have pop style mixing applied to them. I personally can't stand it but I have to look at it from an objective point of view. What is so weird is that our drummer whose doing all the mixing wants a pop releease but is completely anti compression and hates loudness which is what "makes" pop mixing and mastering...

Well I've done a couple different methods depending on the budget and the customers goal. For those who want the true KVLT sound what I usually do is record everything at red book (44/16) quality and do my mixing ITB, then instead of doing the usual sum buses and sending them all to the master bus I send them to two premaster sum buses both with the same mix, bus 1 only has slight compression (typical mix master track comp somewhere in the 1.2-1.4 ratio range), bus 2 has massive comp (usually 8.0 or above) and sent into 100% wet distortion with alot of fizz. I then take both buses and send them to the master bus and mix them to get that gnarly dirty sound, and having the two buses makes it easier if I'm sitting there with them (the customer) and they can just say dirtier or cleaner and i can adjust easily. Once I've got that ready to go I bounce the master bus to an old school tascam 4 track at around -.1db, then I open a mastering session and bounce the tape back to digital this time at -1db and then apply digital mastering usually involving minimal compression but a decent amount of tape exciter and hall reverb followed by a fast limiter / volume maximizer and use that to adjust the final perceived volume.

Hahaha, so modern pop but no super compression. He might be the leader of a new pop movement. Help to bring us away from sausage waveforms and no dynamics. All hail the new drop electric.

And so you actually used the real cassette. Makes sense and probably the easiest way to get the cassette sound. Duh. I was just curious if you had one of the analog tape machines plugins and ran that. Some of the new ones are getting pretty good. I was thinking of maybe getting one to play around with it and see if will be any good.

My band is just finishing up a new song that we want to get a demo recording of in our practice space. We also have two songs that we have been playing at shows that we don't have recordings of either. I want to get them up on bandcamp because the songs we have up now don't have our new drummer and these new songs are a much better representation of where we are going.

[ryan summit]

i forgot to give you props tj
that head looks so sick(twss)
you were born for this
the first time i heard the word
twitter or tweet
was at the top of the lift at copper mtn,co
wer were all strapped in
and were waitin for this one dude
messin with his iphone
when he said he was tweetin
the firsst thing i thought
was men dont say words like that out loud
ive come to accept its part of our culture now
but i still dont feel ok about it
i really think its the name
did you see mike tysons latest tweet
makes me a little uncomfy

[Ancient Astronaught]

Hahaha, so modern pop but no super compression. He might be the leader of a new pop movement. Help to bring us away from sausage waveforms and no dynamics. All hail the new drop electric.

And so you actually used the real cassette. Makes sense and probably the easiest way to get the cassette sound. Duh. I was just curious if you had one of the analog tape machines plugins and ran that. Some of the new ones are getting pretty good. I was thinking of maybe getting one to play around with it and see if will be any good.

My band is just finishing up a new song that we want to get a demo recording of in our practice space. We also have two songs that we have been playing at shows that we don't have recordings of either. I want to get them up on bandcamp because the songs we have up now don't have our new drummer and these new songs are a much better representation of where we are going.

hahahah exactly!!! The only problem is all though it could start a new movement, it just plain doesn't sound as good IMO.

Yup!!! It's the easiest way to get the true tape sound, and since they want the lofi sound using a cheap old tape 4 track works perfectly as that is what alot of the old albums were recorded on. I've tried the tape plug-ins but they haven't got the random noise algorithms down to a point where I like it. After a while you can hear the the loops the alg creates.

3 songs ready to record? Sounds like its time to book your own time in front of the desk instead of behind it!

[dazedbyday]

Hahaha, so modern pop but no super compression. He might be the leader of a new pop movement. Help to bring us away from sausage waveforms and no dynamics. All hail the new drop electric.

And so you actually used the real cassette. Makes sense and probably the easiest way to get the cassette sound. Duh. I was just curious if you had one of the analog tape machines plugins and ran that. Some of the new ones are getting pretty good. I was thinking of maybe getting one to play around with it and see if will be any good.

My band is just finishing up a new song that we want to get a demo recording of in our practice space. We also have two songs that we have been playing at shows that we don't have recordings of either. I want to get them up on bandcamp because the songs we have up now don't have our new drummer and these new songs are a much better representation of where we are going.

hahahah exactly!!! The only problem is all though it could start a new movement, it just plain doesn't sound as good IMO.

Yup!!! It's the easiest way to get the true tape sound, and since they want the lofi sound using a cheap old tape 4 track works perfectly as that is what alot of the old albums were recorded on. I've tried the tape plug-ins but they haven't got the random noise algorithms down to a point where I like it. After a while you can hear the the loops the alg creates.

3 songs ready to record? Sounds like its time to book your own time in front of the desk instead of behind it!

True. Sometimes the easiest way to get the real sound is to use the real thing. Especially if it is something as cheap as that tascam.

We are kinda reluctant to spend too much money on recording at this point since we don't actually have a following who would buy our stuff to help offset the cost of booking time in the studio. I think our plan for the foreseeable future is to aim for shows with touring or local "bigger" name bands that have a bit of a following so that we can get in front of people beside our extended group of friends or the random stranger in the bar. We have gotten good reception when we have played so hopefully it will work out. We just can't justify playing a bunch of shows since we need to rent a van to move our shit since we all live in the city and don't own a car. And hauling a half stack on the subway is not really going to work. Although I am working in a studio now and maybe I can get some free time in here once I earn some good graces. It is a really nice studio too with a lot of nice old gear and miss.

[LOCOPELAND]

A little late to the convo, but I gotta get on the HoF love train. They're probably my favorite band of all time. They've triumphed over Clutch, Primus, countless others that I grew up on. Death is this Communion is probably my favorite record ever. When I heard Fury Whip for the first time, I got goosebumps all ovahhh. And they just crush live. Had the pleasure of seeing them play a hometown show in Oakland a couple years ago and my god. So good.

[Harry_Manback]

In. It's all good.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fq1gb50iobU[/youtube]

[Ancient Astronaught]

True. Sometimes the easiest way to get the real sound is to use the real thing. Especially if it is something as cheap as that tascam.

We are kinda reluctant to spend too much money on recording at this point since we don't actually have a following who would buy our stuff to help offset the cost of booking time in the studio. I think our plan for the foreseeable future is to aim for shows with touring or local "bigger" name bands that have a bit of a following so that we can get in front of people beside our extended group of friends or the random stranger in the bar. We have gotten good reception when we have played so hopefully it will work out. We just can't justify playing a bunch of shows since we need to rent a van to move our shit since we all live in the city and don't own a car. And hauling a half stack on the subway is not really going to work. Although I am working in a studio now and maybe I can get some free time in here once I earn some good graces. It is a really nice studio too with a lot of nice old gear and miss.

Yup exactly!!! One group wanted it even more lofi so I used a really shitty old tape deck with rca in / out and dirty heads, then recorded onto a tape that had been overdubbed on a rack ton of times. Worked like a charm, I've always been one of those use what you have lying around don't go out and buy something expensive for one project kinda guys.

Ahhhh I gotcha. Seems like you guys have your head on straight! Hopefully by working in the studio you can earn some freebie time to get in there. Just check the schedule for late night openings that never seem to get filled and ask for those. It might end up being 2am on tuesday nights, but a free room is a free room.

[LOCOPELAND]

^^^^YESSSSS

Love that fucking song

[conky]

Talking about Death... I hated them when I was younger. Couldn't get into them at all. That all changed though when i got a mix tape from a frienbd that had a bunch of Sepultura, Suicidal Tendencies, Machine Head, a bunch of thrash shit and the song "Symbolic" by Death. It all clicked when I heard that song and I had to go back and listen to everything else they did. Chuck died shortly after and I never got to see them live.

[Ancient Astronaught]

I always felt the drums were too loud in AOSD

[t-rey]

Also don't know if you guys saw but Relapse just posted on their facebook a link for High on Fire's Death is this Communion on vinyl. http://bit.ly/12iP97K

I've been wanting to find a copy of Death is this Communion and Blessed Black Wings, so this is good timing.

Oh and since we're on it....

My fav death song with one of my fav drummers (Gene Hoglan)....

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zguCFjHyVeM[/youtube]

Hoglan is a machine. It was cool seeing him play with Dethklok.

[ryan summit]

the first time i heard sleep
i wasnt sure what i was listening to
i was like what decade is this from
never thought music in general had a chance
but when i was listenin to holy mountain first time
that feeling right there
thats what music was missin after punkrock
and that early 90s vibe shit the bed
i thought id never hear good new music again
i guess it happened for alot of people
cause theres so much beards and denim everywhere
much better than the tv punk 2000s
that shit made me feel ill
fact that theres a heavy show every weekend in upstate ny
beutiful thing
not sayin sleep is responsible
maybe they are maybe not
you guys would know better than me
i was pretty much locked in a room alone
while all this happened outside
nile was another one
i remember that first album coming out
and just like what the fuck
please let there be a stereo in hell
ill play that shit for eternity
but havent listened to death for long tine