13-08-2014, 02:16 AM
Hey HB, thanks for thoughtful remarks. I'll respond to each in kind and maybe we can narrow things down a little bit. And maybe help some other metal neophytes along the way?
1. Yeah, they're harsh. I referenced quite a few tracks and couldn't really find a benchmark because it all sounds pretty harsh to me, but in different ways I suppose. I was on the fence about cutting the high mids because it sounded better to me... but I talked myself out of it?
2. My gut tells me I should really just bring everything else down. I like a fuller bass for sure, but lord... at speeds like this my monitoring can barely keep up.
3. I laughed when I read this. EVERY FIBER OF MY BEING aches when I pan anything hard left/right, even though I know it's the standard for this genre. My stereo imaging at my desk is awful so I'll give this a try and cross reference as much as I can. They're panned 70% in opposition which is already a lot further than I'd usually take a guitar... is the narrow imaging possibly because I have the sides channel highpassed?
4. I don't usually worry too much about DR values, but I use the TT meter (daw version) while mastering... I have an LA2A emulation going on the master, so I could ease off of that if the dynamics get too screwy. No matter what I do it'll sound better than Death Magnetic
Somewhere I read that metalheads are actually screaming about the super crushed masters louder than anyone else right now, because without quiet, there can be no loud. I think we can get it sounding like metal without crushing it all to hell.
Most of the tracks are already compressed and the backing vocal tracks are obviously processed already as well... so I'll give this one another look. Thanks again!
1. Yeah, they're harsh. I referenced quite a few tracks and couldn't really find a benchmark because it all sounds pretty harsh to me, but in different ways I suppose. I was on the fence about cutting the high mids because it sounded better to me... but I talked myself out of it?
2. My gut tells me I should really just bring everything else down. I like a fuller bass for sure, but lord... at speeds like this my monitoring can barely keep up.
3. I laughed when I read this. EVERY FIBER OF MY BEING aches when I pan anything hard left/right, even though I know it's the standard for this genre. My stereo imaging at my desk is awful so I'll give this a try and cross reference as much as I can. They're panned 70% in opposition which is already a lot further than I'd usually take a guitar... is the narrow imaging possibly because I have the sides channel highpassed?
4. I don't usually worry too much about DR values, but I use the TT meter (daw version) while mastering... I have an LA2A emulation going on the master, so I could ease off of that if the dynamics get too screwy. No matter what I do it'll sound better than Death Magnetic
Somewhere I read that metalheads are actually screaming about the super crushed masters louder than anyone else right now, because without quiet, there can be no loud. I think we can get it sounding like metal without crushing it all to hell.
Most of the tracks are already compressed and the backing vocal tracks are obviously processed already as well... so I'll give this one another look. Thanks again!
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!