• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Is metal more difficult to record and mix?

behappybevegan

Active Member
Joined
Jun 8, 2022
Messages
138
Likes
160
Hello everybody,

I'm listening to some early Bolt Thrower, 1988.
I like the music but imo the recording sounds bad. Really bad.
Not the first time I noticed this with metal.

Just curious is it the wall of sound produced by metal that makes it extra difficult to record and mix?
Or didn't they have enough money to record it better?
 

fpitas

Master Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Jul 7, 2022
Messages
9,885
Likes
14,191
Location
Northern Virginia, USA
Honestly I think many bands demand the rough-around-the-edges sound.
 

MajoloBama

Member
Joined
Dec 5, 2022
Messages
23
Likes
19
Depends, early Rainbow sound like crap too....some did it better.....Whitesnake sounded better.
 

617

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Mar 18, 2019
Messages
2,403
Likes
5,296
Location
Somerville, MA
I checked out Realm of Chaos. What production choices would have made this sound better? Honestly considering the music it sounds like it was rendered well. Kind of sounds live, slight scooped frequency response, strong bass. Drums have good impact.

I mean it sounds like a chaotic mish-mash but when your singer growls and the guitar's top end is rolled off that tends to be the case.
 

DVDdoug

Major Contributor
Joined
May 27, 2021
Messages
2,919
Likes
3,831
Is metal more difficult to record and mix?
I'm going to say no... Microphones are linear (if not overloaded) and analog-to-digital converters are linear, and so is mixing (ignoring effects/processing). You can accurately capture/record a metal band just as easily as an orchestra. Or, you could... Modern music is more "produced" than "recorded"...

It could be dynamic compression which is used to make it "constantly loud" or "constantly intense". IMO - Most modern music is over compressed, making it boring. And isn't metal supposed to be louder than everything else? (Loudness War)
 

Killingbeans

Major Contributor
Joined
Oct 23, 2018
Messages
4,089
Likes
7,547
Location
Bjerringbro, Denmark.
Just curious is it the wall of sound produced by metal that makes it extra difficult to record and mix?
Or didn't they have enough money to record it better?

I think it is/was a part of the image for certain subgenres. Often done on purpose.
 

VintageFlanker

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Sep 20, 2018
Messages
4,940
Likes
19,692
Location
Paris
Often done on purpose.
For old school Death and Black by fall 80's/early 90's, definitely on purpose.

As for Bolt Thrower, even their 90's productions suck anyway. IVth Crusade is somewhat OK, ...For Victory just acceptable, and Mercenary close to unlistenable.

early Rainbow sound like crap too....some did it better.....Whitesnake sounded better.
OP asked about Metal. :cool:
 

617

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Mar 18, 2019
Messages
2,403
Likes
5,296
Location
Somerville, MA
OP asked about Metal. :cool:
I love Rainbow but I also realize that means they probably aren't metal. What genre is Stargazer. It's like Queen with no humor.
 

kemmler3D

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Aug 25, 2022
Messages
3,012
Likes
5,614
Location
San Francisco
is it the wall of sound produced by metal that makes it extra difficult to record and mix?
From someone who has actually mixed stuff, (not really professionally, but I've done it and worked at it quite a bit) yes somewhat.

When it comes to recording, it's not going to be a lot harder or easier than other genres. As long as you have the right space and enough mics.

However, metal is characterized by dense compositions, extremely high harmonic content (distorted guitars wall to wall), and high tempo.

Slow, sparse songs (e.g. Jazz standards) are easier to mix in one sense because you have fewer signals clashing and fighting for bandwidth. On the other hand, you have to take a light touch with those types of recordings, as the style is not suitable for heavy compression, EQ, or other effects. You have to get Jazz tracks to sound rich and full, but also relatively dry, which can be tricky. You have less wiggle room to fix subpar recordings compared to Metal.

With Metal you can lean into the tools more, (more compression, EQ, and other effects to hide flaws) but you have a lot more energy across frequency ranges to manage and force to co-exist. For example, you may have low toms, bass drums, and detuned bass guitar all rumbling along very fast at the same time. This is a hell of a challenge to mix compared to a jazz trio playing at 1/3 the tempo and letting each other solo.

Metal and tonally similar genres like alt-rock are considered (by some, who know what they're doing) good styles for auditioning speakers, because they have a lot of harmonic content, i.e. you are forcing the speaker to play many frequencies across the whole spectrum. The "wall of sound", if you will. This same quality makes tracks like that more challenging to mix than a sparse genre like jazz or minimal techno, for example.

and so is mixing (ignoring effects/processing). You can accurately capture/record a metal band just as easily as an orchestra. Or, you could... Modern music is more "produced" than "recorded"...

A lot of mixing isn't linear, (ignoring effects and processing in mixing is like ignoring salt and pepper in cooking) and you still need to make decisions on what gets heard and what doesn't. I think your point about Metal being more produced than recorded is probably correct. Nothing except the drums really make sense unamplified and unprocessed in that genre... even at a live show, and I think the drums get some processing as well in almost all cases. Meaning linearity is completely forgotten before the mixing even really starts. :) Or, to put it another way, capturing the performance is not really where I think the action is, in a metal mix.

With Jazz or Classical, capturing the performance in free air can be 80% of the mixing job, and you can't afford to mess it up. With Metal, half of the band can be synthetic and the other half can have 5 FX boxes before the recording, and nobody would bat an eye.
 
Last edited:

tomtoo

Major Contributor
Joined
Nov 20, 2019
Messages
3,607
Likes
4,514
Location
Germany
From my point of view, yes.

There is so much going on in metal, that its hard to get it right. A littel like real good mashed potatos. You like it homogene, but if its to homogene its potato soup.

;)

 
Last edited:

kemmler3D

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Aug 25, 2022
Messages
3,012
Likes
5,614
Location
San Francisco

restorer-john

Grand Contributor
Joined
Mar 1, 2018
Messages
12,579
Likes
38,280
Location
Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia
For you metal fans, how do the recordings compare to the live bands?
 

DJBonoBobo

Major Contributor
Joined
Jan 21, 2020
Messages
1,360
Likes
2,851
Location
any germ
If you are interested in examples of what @kemmler3D described, personally i found some of Devin Townsend´s mixing videos not only interesting, but also quite entertaining. An interesting insight in his trademark wall of sound mixing techniques and his creative process.

One example:
 

DJBonoBobo

Major Contributor
Joined
Jan 21, 2020
Messages
1,360
Likes
2,851
Location
any germ
For you metal fans, how do the recordings compare to the live bands?
If you are at a live concert, it almost always sounds like shit. If you want good sound you have to listen to a recording.
 

oleg87

Senior Member
Joined
Sep 26, 2022
Messages
302
Likes
540
Location
California
For you metal fans, how do the recordings compare to the live bands?
It's the rare metal show that doesn't just sound like an ear-splitting wall of noise (depending on the venue and how particular the musicians are about live mixing).
But the tactility of the sound pressure certainly adds to the experience.
 

MaxwellsEq

Major Contributor
Joined
Aug 18, 2020
Messages
1,628
Likes
2,426
It's relatively easy to record each of the instruments in a Heavy Metal band really well, with wide bandwidth and a lot of dynamic range. It's then equally easy to create an excellent mix with lots of dynamic range with almost silent sections and huge crescendos.

BUT, it would not sound like Heavy Metal. It might sound glorious, but Heavy Metal needs relatively little dynamic range.

If you want demonstrate how amazing your system sounds, Heavy Metal may not be making it work very hard. There may not even need to be noise levels better than 50dB down!

Here are Rainbow's "A light in the black", Mike Oldfield's "Amarok" and Gustav Holst' "Neptune". Neptune is very quiet, Amarok is quite (artificially?) dynamic. A light in the black has relatively low dynamic range.
 

Attachments

  • A light in the black.jpg
    A light in the black.jpg
    3.8 KB · Views: 41
  • Amarok.jpg
    Amarok.jpg
    5.8 KB · Views: 41
  • Neptune.jpg
    Neptune.jpg
    4.9 KB · Views: 41
Top Bottom