Recording Death Metal Vocals?

Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2004 10:57 am

Does anyone have any ideas or methods regarding death metal vocals? I'm talking about the guttural growling and screaming that bands like Cannibal Corpse have. Any effects that are commonly used? Or mic choices and EQing suggestions?

Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2004 12:29 pm

i'm in a melodic metalcore band and thus far for my screaming stuff i like the sound of a 57 which is cool cause you can let your singer handle it like he would on stage and still get a decent sound (i know most singers hate the distance thing most enginers will make u do). i like to do two takes w/ it and blend them as needed or punch one take in and out to thicken it when i want. if you wanna hear how it sound you can d/l our song 'be/low' from here:
song

hope it helps!

Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2004 4:29 pm

I'd either go with a U67 (for Creator, Cancer style) or an SM7b (Can Corspe, Decide style), which will probably get you a better proximity effect (and it happens to run you about only $300). As far as EQ, roll off up to 60 hertz, and make sure you are good in the 300-500 hertz range for 'beef'. A common trick for death metal is to send the vocal to a harmonizer and pitch shift it down an octave and bring that back under the lead vocal. Bands like Obituary used to do a lot of recording to tape vari-speed fast so when it was played back at normal speed, it was pitched down. "Cause of Death" really stuck out to me in terms of production on a Death Metal record.

Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2004 4:42 pm

I've been wanting to try out an sm7 for screaming stuff, but i didn't know about the pitch shifting trick. sounds kinda like cheating (i always wonder how they got so low) but i think i might try it for my cookie moster stuff. good stuff!

Posted: Thu Feb 26, 2004 7:48 pm

I have ran a good dynamic (57,58,beyer) through a guitar effects processor and finding just the right settings can give some evil sounds or if you have good post production capabilities the send and return detune mentioned above is a good trick as well as throwing a SansAmp plug on it followed by a Mooger Fooger or some other kind other kind or Analog delay can give some really cool sounds as well. Depends what kind of metal vocals they are and the music behind them

Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2004 5:32 pm

One trick a teacher at Full Sail who is known for his work with Death Metal told us a good trick was taking a duplicate of the vocals and put it through a multiband compressor, leaving the highs and mids alone, but compressing the low end at 10:1, then use the makeup gain to make the artist sound as if they're much larger than life.

It sounds similar to the Autotune trick above, I'd assume.

You could also dup the track and roll off the high and midrange before the compression if you don't have a multiband compressor plug in avaible.

Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2004 6:43 pm

One thing I've done to get a really grungy voice (wasn't a death metal record, but I think it could work well) was to double the track, then low-pass then distort the duplicate track. The signal in the low-passed has to be low frequency only so that the distortion will turn it into random flapping.

Then I mix the two tracks together. That's clarity with some really weird growling-esque noises.

Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2004 8:05 pm

Quote:

Originally posted by JensenBohren:
One trick a teacher at Full Sail who is known for his work with Death Metal told us a good trick was taking a duplicate of the vocals and put it through a multiband compressor, leaving the highs and mids alone, but compressing the low end at 10:1, then use the makeup gain to make the artist sound as if they're much larger than life.

It sounds similar to the Autotune trick above, I'd assume.

You could also dup the track and roll off the high and midrange before the compression if you don't have a multiband compressor plug in avaible.

that wouldn't be James Creer by any chance?

Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2004 11:42 pm

It would indeed!

One of my favorite teachers there. I just couldn't remember his last name. Wink

Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2004 12:25 am

James Creer is one of the biggest Pro Tools Guru's out there. ROCK ON MY FRIEND!!!! I too had him as a teacher at fullsail, I thought he was the shit

Posted: Sun Feb 29, 2004 12:07 pm

yeah, James taught me a lot. DEFINATLY one of the most knowledgable teachers at the school.

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