I’ve spoken about many different themes and gaps between heavy metal (and other styles) and top 40 music, in terms of performance, composition, culture, etc. I have saved a bombshell for last however, as I have not yet discussed anything to do with the production of the music, in terms of recording techniques, mixing processes, and in general, how the music is created to sound the way it does, and why metal is a much more true and honest form of music as opposed to top 40. In this post I would like to cover many different aspects of producing a good metal album, but focus mainly on guitar tone/sounds, and how much time can be put into creating this sound, as opposed to having a top 40 vocalist ’speak’ into a microphone, and add a few effects to them to make them sound like some sort of perfect, in key robot.
Musical production is something that in the early days of heavy metal, wasn’t very good. This was mainly because most metal bands didn’t have very much money, and therefore, couldn’t afford to make albums that sonically sounded great, with a nice big, thick, in your face type of sound. Early black metal albums are typical of this type of sound, with the drums being described as sounding like banging on cardboard boxes, and the guitars being described as sounding like an attack of killer wasps…BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ! Black Metal is often made fun of due to it’s poor production quality, in that the drums sound very fake, the guitars sound too fizzy, the bass seems non-existent and the vocals have a scratchy quality to them.
Whether you enjoy listening to music that is produced like this or not, it is an honest and accurate interpretation of the artists at the time. Many top 40 artists are made to sound in-human, fake, digital, and produced in ways which they couldn’t re-create live without all of the sampling and effects that they used on the album. I refuse to believe that Britney Spears’ voice actually sounds the way it does on the album, as it is drenched in stereo chorus (studio effect) and had the pitch corrector layered over it, to make her sound TOO good or TOO perfect. Also, most of the time, the main theme of the song, is a synthesised drum beat, that has been layered in effects, to create the characteristic ‘doof’ sound, that is loved by people who go to dance clubs, for it’s evident and strong beat.
Top 40 music is recorded, to make the artists (and whatever other musicians happen to be on the album) sound better than they actually are, whereas metal is recorded to try to be an accurate representation of what the band sounds like when they play live, because capturing drum sounds and guitar tone in a studio, to sound like a re-creation of what they sound live, is an extremely difficult thing to do, simply because of the frequencies of the instruments when they are played very loudly, the acoustics of a drum-kit when being played in a room, how microphones react to certain sounds and how different drum sounds bleed into other mics that is undesireable, and so on.’ This post will now outline what it takes to getting a desireable guitar tone in the studio, in order to make music listeners aware of the gap that exists between top 40 album production, and heavy metal album production, in the hope that people will appreciate metal albums for what they are, a lot more after reading this post. As I stated before…PRODUCING METAL IS ABOUT TRYING TO CAPTURE WHAT THE BAND SOUNDS LIKE IN A LIVE ENVIRONMENT, AS OPPOSED TO TOP 40 TRYING TO MAKE THE ARTIST SOUND MUCH BETTER THAN WHAT THEY ACTUALLY ARE.
Firstly, there are two ways in which guitar tone can be created. The first is through micing up an amplifier and cabinet, and recording a signal in that way. The second is through digital modeling direct into a mixing program. Here is a link to some home-made recordings that were done using digital modeling processors for all of the instruments (guitar, bass and drums). Digital modeling is almost ‘cheating’ in a way, because it’s a lot easier to get a sound free of undesireable frequencies, but it doesn’t have the same true sound that a valve amplifier will have, and the tone won’t “bark out of the speakers in the same way that it will from a tube amplifier” - Colin Davis, Imperial Mastering.
Some studio effects used in top 40 music are used in heavy metal music, to make a guitar tone sound more like what is being heard in the room, than what is coming out of the microphone, due to the fact that it is impossible for a microphone to capture a true cabinet sound, as a lot of what we hear is sound that is bouncing off walls in the room the cabinet is in, rather than just a direct sound coming out of the speakers. One of the main effects used is known as ‘compression‘ which involves using the effect to even out a guitar signal, to make it sound a lot more consistent, and in some cases, adjust the attack of the ‘track’ to make it sit in a mix more appropriately.
Often, equalisers are used, to alter the tone of a guitar slightly, by scooping some of the lower-mids of the tone, as these frequencies are often undesireable and add a boomy sound to the tone, that doesn’t sit well in a mix, and is often created by the sound bouncing off the walls of the room and back into the microphone, creating a phasing issue. Phasing will make the guitar tone sound hollow or have a “seashell like quality to it”, which means the sound won’t be as direct and upfront as we would like. Also, sometimes equalisers are used to boost mid and upper mid frequencies to make the guitars stand out more in a mix, as it is these frequencies that help the guitar cut through the sounds of other instruments sounds and make them stand out.
I could talk a lot more about this topic, but I would begin to stray from the point I am trying to get across, and that is what I raised earlier…recording metal is about trying to re-create the natural/live sound, whereas top 40 artists are made to sound much better than they actually are. These things done to guitar amps and guitar tone, are merely trying to capture the true sound, and not trying to make it sound better than it actually is.
I believe this gap I am addressing, takes away a lot of the human quality of music, and makes top 40 music seem distant and unfamiliar to listeners, as the entire genre/style is heavily marketed to come across as this big, glamorous fiasco. Many listeners of top 40 don’t even realise that such lengths are gone to in studios to make their favourite artists sound the way they do, and a lot of the time, when they perform live, they sound just as ‘fake’ because they are usually lip syncing and performing to samples and previously recorded tracks, where metal bands will be performing their music by themselves, as themselves, every single performance. More people should appreciate metal bands for having this attitude.
For more information about recording, visit here.
2 Comments
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
Leave a comment
For the most part I agree with what you’re saying, but I think in our posts we’ve fallen into the trap of using the label ‘top 40′ (and I’m guilty of this too), but none of us has really noted any exceptions in the mainstream. It’s as if all mainstream artists are sell-outs who don’t write or sing their own songs. Personally, I think this is the case in the majority, but I have to acknowledge that there ARE mainstream artists who are dedicated musicians who were lucky enough and talented enough to get their break. Who they are…..right now I can’t think of any because I’m tired of typing blogs, but I’m sure they’re out there!!!
They definitely are out there. I just got sick of always typing ‘for the most part’ and other things like that.
It’s just that the whole top 40 industry has this aura about the people making all the money, being the people behind the scenes who deserve it, but the artists themselves are just well known celebrities and all that jazz.
It is no question that I hate the entire aura about the top 40, but I can still appreciate any good artist who has made it on their own – whether being in the top 40 or not.
Like you, I can’t think of any right now, but they are definitely out there, and I appreciate and respect them even more having made it in an industry that is so hard to get through.