MODERN METAL sounds GENERIC! (and how to fix it)

modern metal productions sound generic generic boring overproduced clinical that's what a lot of people say you know back in the good old days everything was organic and much better so today i want to find out if that's true i want to find out what is the difference between back then and today and what's good about it what's bad about it let's have a look at modern metal productions and i want to give you some advice i want to give you some tips how to make your mix stand out how to not sound generic how to find your own sound and because we are on youtube you know things need to be really catchy and idiot-proof of course so uh let's call this video the five reasons why metal sounds generic here we go many people have a very strong opinion about whether metal used to sound better than today or not so i want to listen to the arguments on both sides of the aisle so let's start here on this side we got the more conservative guy let's say the glenn fricker type of guy hello glenn um who strongly believes that metal used to sound a lot better more natural more organic and that productions back in the days were capable of capturing the true performance of the musician a lot better than today where everything sounds overproduced and clinical and like machines playing so i can understand that you know so back back to the origin back to the original performance of the musician back to productions where every band really sounds different on the other side we got the modern metal guy very different type of guy he will tell glenn fricker hey i don't need your grandpa type of metal productions anymore i don't need that i've gone beyond that it may sound natural it may sound organic but i don't care this is like going to the theater but what i want to do is a star wars movie you know that's next level beyond the reality larger than life i don't care if it's organic this is art i want to capture emotions and if it feels right to me you know i don't care if it's natural or not and you know what i can understand both of them i can understand both of them fair enough and i have to say i'm somewhere in the middle and i gotta say it really depends on which project you're working on it depends on the style depends on the band and depends on what people want there are several reasons for sounding generic or like people expected maybe because your client the band wants it maybe because their fans expect it or maybe because it makes sense commercially you know you never know and sometimes it makes sense to sound very very different from the rest most of the time sounding different and unique pays out especially in these days everybody sounds a lot more alike than 20 or 30 years ago but let's talk about the main difference between productions back in the days let's say before the digital revolution in audio and modern productions i think nobody will doubt that modern production sound technically a lot better bigger louder more precise you know back in the days we only had whatever 8 16 24 tracks we didn't have the automation we have today we were very very limited technically to what we have today so a lot of the things we do today were not possible back then not even with a lot of money so yes technically modern productions are way superior they are way superior now we are not talking about some kind of industrial product here we're talking about music we're talking about art so that means perfection doesn't always make things better art is supposed to trigger emotions and perfection is not what we all what we might want but not necessarily what we want so the main difference the main difference between the old school guy and the modern metal guy is how he defines perfection or where he sees that point where too much perfection makes things worse ruins the the original character and the original performance how much perfection do we need to sound great when do we start destroying the character or the emotion in our art when we make it technically better that is the main difference nothing else okay but let's get started let's talk about the five reasons why metal sounds generic these days number one the first reason and you may be surprised is not editing or it's not samples or or pitch correction or something like that the first reason is the internet and how we listen to music these days and that is very different compared to let's say 20 25 years ago when i started so we all need references when we're mixing we mostly listen to our favorite band or to a production that yeah that we all love and we want to get close to that and that really makes sense it is important to have a reference especially if you're working on something for a long time so you don't get lost i still do that i guess i need a lot less referencing than some of you guys out there but it's very important to know where you are so sometimes you got to switch to something else to yeah to to know where you are and to stay kind of objective but you know these days we can listen to any production that was released last friday we immediately hear everything today it is much faster to write a song produce it and release it that can be done in one week so we are always up to date with what's happening around the globe and that's very different to back in the day so back in the days we were listening to a cd mostly we just had one cd one reference and we were listening to it and that was a production maybe one year old or something and everybody had a different city and what happened was that everything sounded very different these days people are listening to spotify playlists and the irony is that the availability of more and more and more music doesn't make things more different but it actually averages everything out it's like a magnet of mainstream so everything gets closer and closer and closer the more you listen to the stuff that's being released and today you can listen to a lot of stuff and the spotify or youtube or apple algorithms will force you to listen to more and more of the same stuff so more and more people will listen to the same stuff reference the same stuff and that's why things go into the same direction the algorithm forces us all to sound more generic and we don't even notice it doesn't mean it doesn't sound great you know but it all sounds more and more the same but what can you do about it so here's the first tip there are two two ways to escape this first one is stop referencing as i told you a few minutes ago you should use some reference because you don't want to get lost so for example if you mix for for eight hours and then you switch back to some of the biggest sounding productions out there and suddenly you sound way bigger you know with a lot more low end probably there's something wrong you know so for the main leveling and for the main spectral picture so the frequency range of your mix it is important to reference so you should do that as soon as you have a rough mix ready you should reference and see that you're not entirely wrong but from there on stop referencing you know don't go back don't question your decisions too much don't go back and find out oh wow the guitar sound a little more a little something and then you change stuff and change stuff that is the trap you don't want to go into you know don't keep on referencing until the end because you will just make compromises and you're not following your initial feelings instincts and ideas anymore that's one thing but there's another solution find some other references find the stuff that sounds different and that doesn't sound generic what about that not bad right there are millions of productions out there referencing with non-mainstream sounding non-generic sounding material helps right so don't reference too much because this will blur your instinct and don't use you know the itunes number one hit single to reference otherwise you will probably sound like everybody else number two and this is presets and presets believe me have become a problem because you know the whole production audio production world has been digital digitalized since the 80s it started with the syns and with the effect units and then we have the first digital recording mediums and digital consoles and later digital processing and now we're doing pretty much everything in the box and even the two bams are disappearing so everything is in the box everything is digital that means everything can be saved into a preset and when i talk about presets i'm not only talking about the presets of your favorite plugins i'm also talking about irs i'm talking about drum samples i'm talking about anything that somebody else can prepare for you you know it's like fast food or pre-cooked how do you call that convenient food or something you know that somebody has prepared for you so you don't have to do the work don't get me wrong i'm guilty here i'm selling i'm selling irs to you and my irs i think are some of the most mixed ready on the market of course i want you to buy them and make me rich and famous and they are useful they are useful but people rely more and more on presets irs drum samples camper profiles and they don't even learn anymore how to dial in their own tone and that is so important buy my irs or buy somebody else's irs and use them just to find out what's what you like and what you don't like but then go back to the source and try to find your tone you know you and you know there's no excuse not to do this when i started back in the days it was a question of money you know not everybody could afford three tube amps and a cab and the microphone and a room where you can record this and you know that was that used to be really expensive these days whatever just buy amplitube or something like that you know any decent guitar simulation plug-in and get started and it gives you all the tools you need don't get me wrong that's not the fastest way to do things but if you find your own tones if you experiment and start at the stores you will get a lot closer to sounding like you so for example i love [Music] creating irs that's such a creative process so i sit down and i will create a lot of different irs microphone combinations and i'm trying a lot of things and capturing a lot of irs and then i will revisit those irs the next day and you know see what i like how they turned out and that's really interesting that's such a creative process that is so cool that's what i want you to do so try to find your own guitar tones by using the software if you're working with drums don't rely on just using drum samples you know of course they work but you will sound like everybody else i hear productions all the time where everybody's using the same drum samples or superior drummer or get good drums and the same neural plug-ins and the same irs but you know that's why it becomes generic because you're all using the same you know there's nothing wrong about it it sounds good but start cooking your own that's how you stand out you know in the history of music production it hasn't been production number 500 787 that became the big hit because because it sounded like everything else it's mostly the productions that sound different that have have their own style so if you want to stay stand out if you want to make a career in this business you know i'm old i don't have to but you you know do something else don't try hunting the sound that everybody else has but try to define the future go back to the basics and cook your own number three it's still not editing it's still not editing and this one is the way how we write songs bands used to write songs in the rehearsal room more or less maybe the guitar player had prepared some riffs but then you meet with your drummer you start jamming and then you know things just go somewhere from there on and that means things will just sound very musical and very organic there will be a constantly changing you know tempo a very complex tempo map and that is a very big difference because today this exact same guitar player who is just as talented as back in the days will sit here in front of cubase or any other daw will type in some kind of tempo and will write a song at 235 bpm and you know why should he change i always always recommend people to listen to the first live of agony record you remember that record you can clearly hear this is played without a click it's just a band that has rehearsed the thousand a million times you know and they can they can really play their stuff so this tempo is going like this and that's what makes it so interesting and makes it sound so organic if you stay in one temple you will sound a lot more like dance music or like a disco head and not like a metal band playing so here's what i recommend especially for for groovy metal music write some riffs go into the rehearsal room and rehearse those songs until you feel you are able to play them properly until they feel great then you record them can be the most shitty recording ever it doesn't matter plus record those songs listen to them analyze them you know you can you can tap tempo you can find out what you're actually doing and then you got to determine you know which of those tempo changes are good and which are bad some of them may just be sloppy you know skip them and stay at 235 or something but then you might realize oh wow the chorus is just a little bit faster and that's cool that gives the chorus some drive and then you realize oh the breakdown is actually 10 bpm slower that's also cool so record that stuff analyze it and find out you know which part of the natural performance should be kept and which one shouldn't same for transitions if there are tempo changes if you want to do them like this or if you want to build some kind of ramp you know that makes especially like groovy groovy metal so much more organic try this next time you write a record number four and this is still not about editing because i feel like editing like editing things to the grid is totally fine i really like it if things are tight of course things can be over edited you can go too far especially if people copy like single snare hits or single guitar chugachas or stuff like that of course you can go too far but editing the timing of a performance is something that i do all the time and that i really enjoy and i strongly believe that if you play a tight performance uh to 100 people 90 will prefer that one to the the natural one but this is only true as long as you are playing to a click huh and that's a big difference that's a huge difference so as soon as we are playing to a click we are playing to the pulse of a computer a perfect pulse and your drummer will always try to play as close as possible to the to the click by the way for metal which is a very rhythmical and and precise uh and tight sounding music i don't believe in hey on this part i'm slightly driving the the beat and on this one i'm slowing down and here but i don't believe that stuff that might be true for some kind of halftime closed hi-hat uh groove in the verse or something but for typical matariffs you know if you play to a click you really want to be on the click and that's what every drummer is trying to do so that means if we play to that pulse if the initial idea of the drummer was to play exactly on that pulse on that computer pulse you know that's where the hits should be okay so if you use a click in my opinion it's fine to edit the timing of the performance so if you don't want that just don't play it to a click what about that just don't play it to a click because then you have a completely natural performance and there's no need for editing i have done that with some punk and some hardcore bench that can be cool most of the time i'm using a click because the perfect combination the perfect combination is what i told you before trying to find a complex tempo map that that is very close to the natural performance or that takes the good parts of the natural performance into that computer pulse so it's changing all the time that is the best compromise if you ask me and here's number five you know what there is no number five it just sounds way cooler if you have five reasons why you know i don't have a fifth reason but four reasons are enough right i want to inspire you to just change something in your workflow so let's revisit those four reasons and let's see what you can change next time you produce a record or a song or you know some music first of all don't waste your time listening to the hippest metal productions uh that were released last friday it's good to have some sort of reference so you don't produce into nowhere and you don't get lost but stop as soon as you feel like the overall sound is okay because too much referencing will will make you lose your inspiration will make you lose your instinct don't do that if you have to reference use something that sounds not generic that sounds original and and get inspired by that production instead please don't use presets all the time because preset means it has been preset by somebody else not by you so try to come up with something yourself you don't have to use any exotic gear for that but you know try miking a real cab or a software cabinet try some other microphones try some combinations try some unusual stuff the cool thing today is it doesn't cost you a lot of money because you have the software and you can save the presets and just come up with some weird and crazy ideas and one day you will find something that's not only unique but also great sounding so get inspired by the tools you already have instead of relying on on all these samples and irs and presets that you have get inspired if you are in a band go back to the rehearsal room and work on the songs also there especially on the tempo map there are other details that can be done a lot better in the studio but working on the main tempo on the main groove that is something you should you know you should feel so go back start working with your drummer again i know it can be painful record those sessions analyze them and find out if your production can benefit from that organic way you know of working on music don't become a slave to the tempo we tend to just have one tempo and write a whole song write a song without a click and then try to to find the right click for each riff that you come up and you will see there will be a lot more character a lot more individual whatever in your music so don't just turn on cubase add a click and record a whole song that's what everybody else is doing you know this is more interesting and you might ask why isn't he talking about autotune you know pitch correction and about sample replacement and programming drums all that stuff because those are just tools you can sound like 1983 you can sound like 2022. it's both cool you know you can sound very natural and organic or very very very technical and clinical and and very produced or something it's both nice the important part is don't sound like everybody else and you can use all the tools you can program the drums i don't care you can use real tube amps you can use amp sims you can use irs that's all fine those are just tools the question is how do you use them do you use them in the same way the same tools in the same way like everybody else then it's probably gonna sound boring great but boring but if you do things differently i'm pretty sure your productions will stand out and they will trigger emotions positive negative emotions doesn't matter people will love it and hate it because it will be different alright i hope this was more or less inspiring to you and i'm i'm looking forward to reading all your comments below because i want to hear what you think about this and in case you're wondering where i am where is he uh i haven't been kidnapped or anything um this is a new control room we're building here the third control room at calla color studios which will be mainly used for editing and for recording and also for youtube for making videos you know for a video like this i don't need an entire studio so you will be seeing me here a lot more doing cool stuff it's not finished yet i'm still experimenting and i'm testing some equipment like these eve audio monitors that so far seem to be pretty damn impressive um and some other stuff but as soon as the room is is is done it's finished i will make a little rundown a little walk through if there's anything you want to know uh just write a comment i also want to invite you to join my email list and to join my discord server or whatever you call it so if you join my email list there's a link below um you will you will also in the final confirmation mail you will get a link to my discord channel it's a closed group 2500 people or something where you can meet me and talk to other people cool people about all your production and guitar tones and bass tones and drums and beer and you know the cool stuff the cool stuff that's all for today i love you all boys and girls i see you in hell bye-bye [Music] you

Channel: Kohlekeller Studio

Views: 14,804

Keywords: djent, metal producer, recording studio, producing metal, mixing metal, sample replacement, kristian kohle, recording metal, metal sound, guitar tone, kohle audio kult

Id: wviI22rnZd4

Length: 23min 29sec (1409 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 16 2021