Never Recorded This style please help

[Gertok]

Hi, I have a band coming to record hardcore screamo. So If anyone here did it before pleasse share some secrets of what is important in the mix... I am trying to listen to something like that right now.

Web Site: MySpace.com - The Plague Is Eternal - DA STREEETS!!, Utah - Death Metal / Metal / Grindcore - www.myspace.com/theplagueiseternal

[loudlove69]

Well watch the levels like a hawk, most hardcore screamo bands want a lot of distortion, you know in a digital world that sucks.

Depends on how many tracks they want to do, are you charging them good $$ - or did you state an amount of tracks you would do for them. Only asking is because you can layer tracks with less distortion and still make them sound huge and loud. At least it works for me.

Are they bringing all their own equip, or can you sub in some midi stuff for them? Like drum kicks in midi or wave files can help a lot too.

Like I said watch the levels, I know a few hardcore guys and they are in my eyes NOT real laid back dudes, so they have a lot of wanting OVER THE TOP preformances even in the studio concept. Good luck to you..

[Gertok]

I am doing for free. 8-)

[loudlove69]

- you sound like me then - how many tracks can you provide them?

If you can talk to them about layers and to cut back on over the top great - but hell your guys could be smart intelligent hardcore dudes and willing to listen to your advice.

Around here I get more of a look like - "we know what we want" attitude, what they dont understand is you can give them that exactly that, but in a different method than they are used to.

Again good luck to you friend, may you BLOW them away with your mad ninja skills!!!!

[Gertok]

I don't care about amount of tracks I will record... I can only record 8 at a time. And what kind of makes me said that their drummer has 5 toms.... SO I am short on by 1 input. Any suggestion on what to sacrifice? I was thinking either micing with dynamic in the middle or hanging another overhead on top of two floor toms

[loudlove69]

Well the dynamic in the middle would more than likey give you the best results - in a overhead situation it will work but you will get more room noise I think.

But like they told me - always over and over - experiment!! - after it was like I kept hearing that in my head as I slept - EXPERIMENT!!! arrghh!!!

But I think you have the best idea with the dynamic though.

[Gertok]

So you recommend less gain on guitar but more tracks? I was planing on doing at least 4 2 per guitarist.

[loudlove69]

Yes - please take this with a grain of salt ok? - I know you might be friends with these guys - but after listening to what they had on the my space page the live recordings for the guitar, sounded better than the other recordings - but still the distortions is HUGE.

I understand where they are coming from being a guitar player myself - but if you do 4 tracks per each guitarist as i assume you said right - take the distortion down and try to **** it up a little with more mid-range and less treble. This has worked for me, but do some scratches and see how they like them. Every time I recorded guitars with MEGA distortion they sounded more thin and less appealing.

I think if you do what you are saying they will sound bigger with less distortion. But sound really good too..

[Gertok]

I've never seen these guys before. So 8-) No I am not a friend of them. What mic is usually used for this style of music? My ribbon mic should arrive today. I meant 2 per guitarist. Unfortunately I don't know about their technique, they just might sound crappy with low distortion

[loudlove69]

Well the ribbon will work fine and of course the industry standard - SM57 - can be used for really any guitar work.

You have a point about sounding crappy anyways - I had a guy that just has to play with compression and delay and chorus - I told him strip it down to bare bones we can add later - but NOPE that would not happen.

So now I am having to EQ like mad just to get a some what good sound.

ok so only 2 tracks for each one huh? - well you can work with that - now I see you are using logic rigt - you have plugins correct -I am sure apple covers those - I use Pro Tools LE - and I have a Mac laptop and do rough recordings on Garage Band and it sound really good too.

So if you can later add compression and EQ you can get the guitarssounding pretty good I bet.