As I sit here and listen to the new Cryptopsy album, the production bothers me. No, I'm not saying I want all my albums to sound like old Darkthrone or a Krieg ep, I just don't like this huge, open sounding production recent death metal albums have. Examples:

Cryptopsy - "Once Was Not"
Hate Eternal - "I, Monarch"
Napalm Death - "The Code is Red..."
Immolation - "Harnessing Ruin"
Exhumed - "Anatomy is Destiny"

Maybe I'm alone in this but when it comes to production my favorite is probabaly Athiest - "Unquestionable Presence". I loved the production on "Slaughtercult" and Psycroptic's "Scepter of the Ancients" and the albums above have such a different mood and feeling to them when it coems to production. It's hard to put into words, but if you listen you know what I mean. I was just wondering if anyone else feels this?

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My problem is not so much with the production of modern day death metal bands, but with the actual material that they are putting out.
I realize that there can never be another late 80's/early 90's death metal scene, but even knowing that, I am extremely disappointed with the crap that continues to pass for "good" death metal.
I am sure that I am in the minority on this one, but I am also sure that I'm not alone when I say that the originality and (more importantly) the sincerity have long since left the death metal scene.

I am also sad to see the huge influence that "satanism" continues to have on the scene. I realize that the very nature of the music draws that type of mindset, but I no longer have any tolerance for it and am very limited in what I can listen to because of it.

Scepter has great production agreed. but at the same time, Harnessing Ruin is good as well. the distortion isn't huge and in your face, in fact it sounds like the distortion is quite low, like they have the pre set at only 5 or 6. it's a more clear sound but still heavy enough.

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I totally agree. Just about every albums I listen to on a regular basis is 10+ years old. And basicly every new album I hear, I'm disappointed by. Sure there are exceptions (Martyr, Spaqwn of Possession) but I know exactly what you mean.

I'm not even saying I want them to go back and play just how it was in the early 90s, I'm just saying the stuff that comes out now compared to the old days, doesnt hold a candel.

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I hate that crystal-clear sounding production more than anything. Disgorge - Consume The Forsaken is a prime example.

I can accept all types of production except when its extremely lo-fidelity (E.G. older Mayhem, etc). When its low to the point that all you can hear is a dull thud for drums, static for guitars, and crappy Norweigan vocals (haha jk) its really rather painful. Crystal clear production doesn't bother me, as long as the actual music is good I think the riffs hit a lot harder under clear production.. if you get me... A great production sound is like Origin's or Skinless's, where you can clearly hear all instruments well.

Just my $0.02

I like to everything too, but I like what would be more considered a "tight" sounding production, very live soudning as opposed to an "open" studio sound, if that makes sense.

Nihilist, I hate you.

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i love a good clear production. it's easier to enjoy the music that way instead of having to endure CD's that seem to be recorded in Billy's garage.

the original Onset of Putrefaction or the latest Posthumous Blasphemer CD are prime examples of how death metal cds should sound production-wise.

Consume The Forsaken? Crystal clear? Sarcasm? Too many question marks?

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I like crystal clear production mostly. My favourite produced albums -

December Wolves - Blasterpiece Theatre
Today is the Day - Sadness Will Prevail
Incantation - Decimate Christendom
Anata - Under a Stone With No Inscription

etc.

I love the production on that album - so... "crunchy".

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that necrophagist cd,epitaph is good, no triggers,all natural drum sound and superior equipment, you can hear bass etc. alot of death metal has that really contained compressed distortion sound that can make any album monotous regardless of production. that said, i think production suits style, low-fi fits well with some hardcore stuff,really striped down blackmetal and crust and noise/avante garde. i enjoy the sound of feedback,toneless drums and the sounds of dying amps but only when certain bands do it, usually stuff that has more chords and less noty,scaled out riffs,ther are exceptions tho.

I don`t really like only clear or only blury production, it all depends on the music really. Sometimed bad production can really fuck it all up, but sometimes it can be for the best too.

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Do you even know what that means? No, you dont. Shut up.

rapture, low fidelity is what lo-fi means, what qualifies as low fidelity is a combinations of things. obsolete recording technology and shit gear, 4 tracks,boombox recordings, live studio recordings that suck etc. you can protools a dirty,shit mix made to seem lo-fi

As I see it, if a band can afford to have their quiality good then they should do it, the thing I have a problem with is the advertising...Like Amon Amarth for example it was such a huge anticipation for those of us who enjoy them...

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i agree with dead but not everything thats coming out these days sounds so reverb-y. the production on epitaph is a great example of how great production can be these days, and how great an asset it can be to a bands sound.

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the latest Cephalic is pretty clear sounding and its awesome.

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yeah anomalies sounds good, but ive got a few complaints with it.its a bit sterile and theres no low end

and dude, necrophagists drums are triggered

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i just heard this polish band called lost soul, great band, great production, really really harsh sounding, guitars sound deep, drums are super tight, altho they are triggered

Lord worm said necrophagist dont trigger, and the bassdrum dont have the click sound to it. i know the snare isnt, maybe the bassdrum. i could be wrong

Fuck most gay modern DM albums, 95% of them sound so similar you cant tell one band from another. Whatever happened to organic production and each band having its own identity? When did it become alright to sound like every other Suffocation Clone or Cannibal Corpse Clone, really being Suffocation clone 2220314412 doesnt make you special. Triggered drums aren't that bad in themselves, but really clacky and high in the mix is homoerotic to the max.
Modern producers have no fucking balls nowadays bunch of pussies trying to get you this buttseckz esque production that is really sterile, FUCK THAT. BUT pro tools can be good if used right and not by some jewish pussy producer.

Thats my rant for the week

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exactamundo, it must be a jewish zionist conspiracy thing, with all these bad mixes and digital kabbalistic triggered bassdrums and hassidic thin guitar sound going on, ladies and gentlemen the ZOG machine rears its ugly head, thanks to myrmidons power of insight we are are now spared the hebrewness of proffessional recording. hhhmmmmm organic production, what does that mean????..........do we orally recite the album, how does one organically produce an album, do they make 4 tracks out of soybean??, hemp reel to reel??? i definately wouldnt want pesticides in my albums, or any animal products or if it does it cant be kosher

im pretty damn sure necrophagist triggers, that snare isnt too natural sounding

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It depends. I mean I love to have a clear production but sometimes it looses a mood if it is too clear. Lord Gore is a good example.

Lord Gore's last album "The Autophagous Orgy" was distorted and raw and wicked. However their new album they recorded with a POD and everything sounds so perfect that it does'nt fit their style.

Sometimes a not too raw production is a good thing (Lord Gore, Exhumed, Engorged, Machetazo, Coffins) . However for some bands a crystal clear production is the best thing (Ghoul, Impaled, ect)

It really depends on what band it is.

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all i have to say is: 90'z D3A4H T0N3 PWN3Z

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Necrophaist ATLEAST triggers the bassdrums. Any drummers with double bass that fast has to or else it will get muddy and sound terrible. I'd guess they protooled the snare ala "Dechristianize".

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In my opinion one the best Death Metal (melodic in this case) production I've heard this year was from The Black Dahlia Murder. Everything sounds just so wonderfully clear and all and really enjoyable to hear.

Miasma is just an amazingly enjoyable CD to listen to.

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I don't like really shitty production, I cant listen to carcass - reek of putrefication, it's literally just noise.
Perfect production doesn't bother me though.

Also, what are 'triggered drums'?

Triggered drums are disgusting and annoying.

Nice one, care to elaborate?

says he with the avatar of krisiun

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can someone explain what triggered drums are?

triggers are another form of getting the sound of drums onto tape or into your ears. instead of microphones placed in front of all the drums, little electronic bits are placed on the drums and pedals that send a signal everytime you strike the drum to a midi control box, where the signal is turned into a drum tone (you could trigger your bass drum to sound like a fart if you wanted, as long as its midi) and then mixed or recorded. its used because micing bass drums usually sounds terrbile live, just floppy and loose and powerless.. and its used in the studio for a stronger and punchier sound

albums without any triggers

malevolent creation - eternal
suffocation - despise the sun

albums with triggers
decrepit birth - and time begins or whatever that albums called
behemoth zos kia cultus


you can also just trigger your bass drums and nothing else, like roddy, or you can even trigger symbols. whys it viewed as cheating? because if you barely move your feet it still counts as a full force drum hit so you can sound like the fastest and most powerful drummer in the world with little actual power behind it

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there was a huge trigger argument in the drum forum, i was the main antagonist in that one, ive since mellowed out about triggered drums. i still will never use them nomatter what kind of band situation im in

Best production in my opinion is Nevermore's This Godless Endeavor. Name one thing that's wrong with it.

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No free concert ticktes.

excellent example, I agree.

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I think iyou ever get your double bass up to 230 BPM you might. AT that speed double bass sounds like a blurr.

Though I do agree, I hate triggers, but for teh sake of clarity on bass drums, they ahve a use, otehr than that, they suck.

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it lacks any kind of warmth. technically its clean as water itself, and bright too, but it has no warmness

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I disagree for the most part about "live drums sounding like shit", I have heard double bass live many times, and if the drummer doesn't suck ass then it should sound good. Triggered drums give it that "clicking" sound though.

Death metal has deteriorated as the 21st century has come though. Not the production, but originality. Bands just recycle the same type of instrument style and sounds of cannibal corpse and suffocation. I have no problem with "crystal clear" stereoed-out production, and if you mess with it, it can make the music sound really cool, but I loooove rawly produced albums. I.E.: Darkthrone albums, Brodequin "Methods of Execution", Disrupt, "Scum" by napalm death, Celtic Frost. It has a certain brutality element to it. I used to hate it because sometimes its all quiet when its rawly produced, but then I just decided to turn it up to very high volumes, and it kicks ass.

Makes sense to me, that's what I like.

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big open production is lousy

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This is the common misperception with triggers. People have to understand that triggering your kickdrum doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be all "clicky", that's the choice of the drummer. If the drummer chooses to have that particular sound on the brain part, then yeah, it'll be very annoying. If the drummer chooses a different setting, or tones down the high-end on their sample, it'll sound just like a normal kick-drum. The main difference is time...ie: you plug in the trigger, plug it into the brain, into a DI and Bingo...there's your kick-drum mix. My drummer uses triggers on his kicks even for rehearsal, and I wouldn't have it any other way. But he uses them ONLY on his kicks. If he was going to use them for everything, I'd suggest he go and buy a Yamaha V-drum kit.

Cheers.

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ahaha LORD GORE!!!!!!!

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I can name a few good post-production and bad production works. Like, Internal Suffering's "Chaotic Matrix."...sometimes the drums are overpowering and you can barely hear the guitars.. or a good one like..Death's "Sound of Perseverance"...the guitars here don't sound that greatly distorted, but you can hear everything..
I think Deicide's "Insineratehymn"..is also a decent sounding cd as well..

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chaotic matrixs production REALLY grew on me though, that album just sounds like unorganized noise but damn is that brutal

youre one of two people ive met whos ever even heard of that album

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I've got one of their other albums... Forced Chronozonic something or other. Pretty good stuff.

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chronozoic force domination...that albums more generic though. better produced

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That's it. I should probably get Chaotic Matrix soon.

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yteah its TOTALLY different

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I liked the production on Gateways to Annihilation

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I'm the same way with my albums. Most of them are the older ones from the 80' to about '98. The new stuff can't touch the old stuff. The old stuff was the real deal. The genre wasn't infested by corporations and money hungry promoters. They didn't even want to be part of it because there was no money to be made. Now the newer stuff is becoming more mainstream and the managers are crawling all over the place now.


BTW: I like entombed's sound on wolverine blues and clandestine. The guitars sound like buzzsaws. It's so Raw!

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Something somewhat relevant: http://www.loudnessrace.com/articles/introduction.htm

In general I agree with the article (not on every point though). Sometimes I hear albums with great music that sounds fantastic live, but the album totally lacks dynamics and sometimes even just hurts my brain listening to it. Example would be Napalm Death's "Order of The Leech", everything on the mastering is fucking cranked and for such music you really need to have some dynamic space. Could be why those old Morbid Angel and Atheist albums have a really warm sound that's rarer to find today...?

There is another debate of the difference between analog and digital.

Many bands still prefer the sound of analog for their production compared to digital. The only problem is that the supply for analog reels has ceased production.

Analog gives a warmer sound (that's what I heard)

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this isnt really a digital vs analog debate,but im glad people mentioned it. digital can be made to sound analog, and reel to reel recording can sound good without the distorting bleed obviously. an old band of mine is releasing a recording that was protooled on a mac made to sound like it was from a 4 track that recently got hit by a truck. i feel like 10-15 years ago you could have this debate on which was superior. when digital recording technology was too expensive and wasnt there yet. nowadays you can have everything in a laptop and as tho you cant bleed tracks like with a 4 track or reel to reel, it can be a mobile hi-fi protools setup. you can fit a very high standard of recording gear into a suitcase nowadays.

a friend of mine has an old 70's reel to reel recording console, i dont even know what it is, its good, can produce really raw stuff as well as clean, fits my tastes for recording moreso than a protools or cubase, but its alot of shit to move, you dont have the comfort to edit it on a display, the tape is super expensive, it will require repair and parts that are obscure,hard to find. so im more on the digital side of the fence cause i believe it emcompasses analog, you can take a 4track recording and load it into a program and edit it,overdub it,EQ it to a certain extent, whatever.

digital can simluate analog, but it doesnt always sound real

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true, doesnt quite match it

part of the problem is that tape (analog) is its own compression filter, so it doesnt sound 100% like what was just played into it. digital doesnt compress unless you tell it to

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