Alinea's first single "Brass Knuckles"

V8

Finally...we got our first single out! Recorded in our guitarist's lounge on my humble roland quad capture, sequenced and edited by our drummer, and then the DI's were mixed and mastered by Louis Henn (Burning Tone Records, Megalodon).

I'm impressed with how it came out. Didn't cost much in the way of $, but a fair amount of time went into the tracking, editing, mixing and mastering - the final mix was version 7...Louis was rather patient with us ?

If you like it heavy, have a listen...(P.s. for best audio quality watch in 1080p w/headphones)

=

If you want to listen while checking out the lyrics, it's also on on bandcamp :

Crit's, questions and comments welcome!

studmissile

Wow, sounds great. Very impressive Meron. You guys can be proud of that.

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studmissile wrote: Wow, sounds great. Very impressive Meron. You guys can be proud of that.

Thanks for the kind words and having a listen Stud!

While the genre isn't my first choice (for listening), it's a really fun tune to play. And I do like that fact that we didn't track in a studio or mic anything up (except vocals). I believe Louis is using Line 6 POD Farm mostly for the guitar/bass tones, I'll get to sit with him sometime and check out exactly what he's doing (otherwise I won't have a clue how to get these tones live ???)

Jazzman105

Wow man. I'm speechless.
I'm not nearly a fan of this genre, but that was an experience ?. It is toight and very well executed. I enjoyed it!

Meron, a detailed account of the production process will be great... for all of us to get insight into what the approach is behind putting a track together professionally. Down the line perhaps.. no pressure ?

studmissile

Yeah, I'm curious as to how this was mixed? On what? "the final mix was version 7" is that software?

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Jazzman105 wrote: Meron, a detailed account of the production process will be great... for all of us to get insight into what the approach is behind putting a track together professionally. Down the line perhaps.. no pressure ?

Thanks for having a listen JazzMan! Haha, I agree - it's an experience. Our vocalist doesn't cease to impress me, he's ridiculously talented.

I was hoping someone would ask for a bit more behind the scenes details, is half the reason I shared it here - inspire someone into getting there dreams out there. Happy to do it, I'm a lot busy this weekend, but will get some more info up during the week.

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studmissile wrote: Yeah, I'm curious as to how this was mixed? On what? "the final mix was version 7" is that software?

I'm not 100% sure what DAW Louis is using. The drums are sequenced on Cubase (I think), we're tracking on Reaper - somehow they all talk nicely to each other.

Ahhh, "version 7" is the 7th mix that Louis did for us. It's a looonnggg story, he was very patient! I''ll get more into it during the week when I'll try and detail the process a little better.

Squonk

Brilliant!

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Squonk wrote: Brilliant!

Thanks Squonk!

V8

Thanks to everyone for having a listen and to Jazzman105 & Stud for asking for some BTS details.

I'll be learning more as we go along with the process, we're intending to have 10 tracks for album launch gig 18th Nov, so I'll *hopefully* be able to sit with Louis and get more details sometime on Oct/Nov.

Brass Knuckles (+5 more tracks) was already written when I joined the guys last year. The main composers are guitars and drums in the band - for some reason djent/prog metal seems to be driven by guitar?

Basically, someone brings a riff or a drum pattern and we jam it for a little bit and if it works we continue throwing bits in. Sometimes someone will say "hey let's do something reggae/dub/funky" and that's the breakdown. We do not agonize much over song structure...as long as there's fast bits, mosh bits and a break from that in a tune, we're good.

So Brass Knuckles was written & finalized before we sat down for recordng. Which is great, as there's no room for structure changes...BUT we still get to change things slightly. I revised the reggae bass line on the day of recording, I was playing it straight, but on the day I pulled out my favourite groove pattern and it worked. The leads were also added, we were not jamming it like that, but we really liked what Jules did, so we kept it.

1. Because the structure was the same as the jams, drums could be written using one of our jams as a guide track for programming. Yes, the drums are midi sequenced (loads of work) and then rendered for tracking guitars/bass/vocals. The BPM might creep up a bit if the drummer feels it's necessary. He sends the rendered track plus a BPM guide to our guitarist/tracking engineer. The BPM guide is a map of bars to BPM & time signature. Not all our stuff is 4/4, so it's necessary to import the midi track into the DAW.

2. Once we've got the drum track, guitars go first for tracking.

Everything is tracked as a DI. We plug straight into the DAW (no preamp/DI box). Guitars do use a bit of effects for tracking purposes.

Firstly rhythm guitars are double tracked (2 each = 4 tracks of rhythm guitars.) Because there are NO places to hide when tracking this kinda "precision" metal, the guitars have to be really exacting - so I prefer that they work out exactly how they are playing the riffs before we track bass.

We had a lot of back n forth with mixing engineer on Brass Knuckles - trying to define a sound. The 8 string tuning gets muddy quickly so it took about 3 weeks and 4 tracking attempts to get it tight and distinct. This included tracking each riff coil-tapped (single coil) for clarity and then humbucker (for the grunt). Also had to get guitars setup and even borrowed another 8 string to help out (Thanks Chad!!!). That all made a HUGE difference - especially adding a single coil sound into the mix.

3. Once guitars got their sound right, I went in and tracked bass. Two tracks of bass, not with the intention of using both tracks - really just to give the engineer options.

4. With that mix, vocals went in and did four tracks of vocals (all used in the final mix). He's ridiculously good, singing his own chorus, doing choir style backings etc.... Never ceases to impress me how he approaches vocal performance.

5. That mix was then cleaned up - this is where things get real tight. Each distinct guitar/bass note is edited...much like a having a human noise suppressor. We have to chop the note leaving around 20-30ms before and after the note (as far as I remember). At 2:18-2:34 you can hear that fairly clearly, but anywhere there is a distinct end/start to a note and it isn't sustained, there's been some editing on all guitar & bass tracks.

6. Then the results are sent to Louis are individual stems (with some notes of where the delay's/fx should be) and he does the mixes. He's doing a LOT of work, because he's only getting DI's for guitars & bass and has to define the sound using his plugin's and techniques. AKAIK, he's using mostly Line 6 plugins (Pod Farm) for this, with some other bits - I'll know more in Oct/Nov.

7. Once he's got a mix, we get a rendered version back and make some notes and re-iterate the process until everyone is happy. Because this is our first track, we took some time to define a sound. Without reference tracks this can get rather confusing - do not underestimate the power of a reference track (I was using Tesseract and the Doom3 OST as mine).

8. Once we were happy with mix No. 7...Release track on bandcamp, youtube, deezer, iTunes and promote on facebook/etc.

Hmm. Sounds all rather simple. Not. :roflmao:

modulator

OK, just went to the link and listened. Very good, too much for me, but very good. Keep up the good work.

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modulator wrote: OK, just went to the link and listened. Very good, too much for me, but very good. Keep up the good work.

Thanks for having a listen Modulator!

Yeah, it is anything but easy on the ears - took me a long while to get used to it, the pitch of the guitars is a octave below what i was used to. I don't listen to music in the genre either - but I'm still learning a lot a year into it. It's a rewarding exercise for building skills on bass, recording and band promotion.

There's not much of a market for it outside of the small niche group of listeners though, but we'll see where this takes us.

daveo1977

Really awesome, Meron! In 2015 I attended Krank'd Up in Jhb, for the most part to see two local bands - Ohgod! and Hokum. One of the headline acts, Monuments, really made an impression. At that time, they were touring "The Amanuensis", an album worth checking out. At the same festival there was another local band, Red Helen. I was real chuffed when I got their album, "Trading Past for Pathways" on Apple Music. This style of music is also new to me, and quite exciting. It must have taken hours and hours of rehearsal to get it all spot on.

studmissile

Thanks for details Meron, interesting.

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daveo1977 wrote: Really awesome, Meron! In 2015 I attended Krank'd Up in Jhb, for the most part to see two local bands - Ohgod! and Hokum. One of the headline acts, Monuments, really made an impression. At that time, they were touring "The Amanuensis", an album worth checking out. At the same festival there was another local band, Red Helen. I was real chuffed when I got their album, "Trading Past for Pathways" on Apple Music. This style of music is also new to me, and quite exciting. It must have taken hours and hours of rehearsal to get it all spot on.

Thanks for having a listen Dave!

We've listed the track on pretty much all the usual places, Bandcamp, iTunes, Google Play, Deezer, Youtube - first time that I've had something I've been a part of released "commercially"...though the expectation is that we hope to cover the costs of listing on these services but not achieve much more :?

Ohgod! Will be opening up for us for the album launch...rather intimidating, those fellows are such monster players and have a reaaallllyy polished act now. It'll also be the first time I've seen them live :-[ So quite amped for that!

Yeah, a fair amount of time in the rehearsal room, overall the guys have been together for around 2 and 1/2 years and I've been around for the last year or so. We don't jam much so rehearsals are not constant - but for a gig, we'll start about 2mths before with a weekly 3hr session and ramp it up to 2/week, 2-3 weeks before the gig.

I'm not really used to a band that doesn't jam consistently, but OTTH it's refreshing that we have specific goals and everyone is quite professional about pitching up and working on what we need to.

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studmissile wrote: Thanks for details Meron, interesting.

Thanks for reading the thesis Stud 8)

I'm finding the recording process differs genre to genre? This prog metal/djenty process definitely is guitar driven. Though our final mixes are constantly pushing the vocals forward.

Jazzman105

Meron Rigas wrote:
Firstly rhythm guitars are double tracked (2 each = 4 tracks of rhythm guitars.) Because there are NO places to hide when tracking this kinda "precision" metal, the guitars have to be really exacting - so I prefer that they work out exactly how they are playing the riffs before we track bass.

Really covering all bases. Belt and braces ?

Meron Rigas wrote:
5. That mix was then cleaned up - this is where things get real tight. Each distinct guitar/bass note is edited...much like a having a human noise suppressor. We have to chop the note leaving around 20-30ms before and after the note (as far as I remember). At 2:18-2:34 you can hear that fairly clearly, but anywhere there is a distinct end/start to a note and it isn't sustained, there's been some editing on all guitar & bass tracks.

Wow man... that is a tedious process. It all feels like overkill. The good result justifies the effort in the end.

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Jazzman105 wrote:
Meron Rigas wrote:
5. That mix was then cleaned up - this is where things get real tight. Each distinct guitar/bass note is edited...much like a having a human noise suppressor. We have to chop the note leaving around 20-30ms before and after the note (as far as I remember). At 2:18-2:34 you can hear that fairly clearly, but anywhere there is a distinct end/start to a note and it isn't sustained, there's been some editing on all guitar & bass tracks.

Wow man... that is a tedious process. It all feels like overkill. The good result justifies the effort in the end.

Super tedious!

All that editing does change the feel of the riffs, any hint of groove or swing (there is a teeeenny tiny amount in the original recording) is removed by doing this - even if you didn't quantize, it sounds quantized.

Which I'm not wild about...I reckon think all that editing makes things sound robotic/sequenced. But it's what works in this genre. Does makes mixing a bunch easier - it really does help define the notes & rhythm of those lowww tuned guitars.

I far prefer our live sound, but I havn't heard one of our recordings that can do justice to how the guitar's lowww E string sounds. I hate to think how much $ we'd spend trying to track & mix this tune in a studio, 2-3 days probably...each day would cost more than we'd be spending on the entire album ?