Kristian Kohle: Producing Extreme Metal, Imperfect Guitar Tones, Custom Drum Sampling

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by Drum Forge. Drum Forge is a forward-thinking developer of audio tools and software for musicians and producers alike. Founded on the idea that great drum sounds should be obtainable for everyone, we focus on your originality, drum forge, it's your sound. And now your host, Eyal Levi.

Speaker 2 (00:00:22):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. I am Eyal Levi and I'm going to apologize in advance for my recording quality. I am in a hotel, my podcasting microphone is broken, and I figured that we should do this podcast anyways because my guests and I have been trying to get together for maybe a month and a half now, and it just kept on getting pushback and kept on getting pushback and I really wanted to talk to 'em because we don't get to talk to people who work in this genre too much. And it's the genre I come from. I really wanted to do it and like I said, just kept getting pushed back and this time worked for the two of us. So here we are. We figured that you guys would prefer to have a podcast than no podcast. So I'd like to welcome Mr. Kristian Kohle to the podcast. Hello, sir. Hello.

Speaker 3 (00:01:18):

I'm very glad to be here. Thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (00:01:20):

Yeah, thank you for being here. If you don't know who he is, he is a German Swedish musician, composer, music producer. He's known for working with a number of great bands like Aborted Crematory, power Wolf, Eskimo Cowboy, and he's a primary writer and instrumentalist in the solo project. Another perfect day when she tracks everything except for drums for himself, but is nominated for best metal production at the Danish Metal Awards in 2009 for his work on the burnings record reawakening and just in general knows how to make some nasty sounding productions. So welcome sir.

Speaker 3 (00:02:07):

Thank you very much for those kind words and I'm very glad to be here. And honestly, before you got in touch with me, I wasn't aware of this format and this podcast, but of course since then I've been checking out quite a few episodes. Don't want to be too charming, but it's awesome and it's really cool to see, especially that in these days where everything is compressed into, I dunno, 30 seconds Instagram videos that you guys leave some space for details and that's just great. So I kept on listening. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 (00:02:48):

Well, thank you. And I got to say, man, that I think that there's some wisdom to what you're saying and that everything being compressed into bite-sized segments these days, I think that that was kind of the thinking for years and years on how you have to do things to keep up with modern people's attention spans.

Speaker 3 (00:03:14):

But

Speaker 2 (00:03:14):

I think that modern people are getting sick of being spoonfed superficial garbage and they're thirsty or starving for real content and real information. And so we figured that we were going to give them a real show with where you try to get as deep as possible with the people you're talking to. And in reality, my longest episodes on this have been the most popular ones. Really? Yeah. So I think that things are starting to change because I don't know, most people I know, and I know that people I know aren't a good sample for the whole population, but most people I know are starting to get sick and tired of everything in three minutes or whatever. So let me ask you a question. Why did you guys started in music production?

Speaker 3 (00:04:18):

Oh my God, I think that's the most typical or boring story kind of because I was just one of the typical guys playing guy, playing in a band. I'm a guitar player and started doing demos at other studios and figure out I loved studio work. I loved capturing the moment and getting into details. That's what I liked. And that was what I prepared compared to the energy of a life show. And then I bought my first four track and then I bought my first aid ad and an analog console, and then I bought the next one. And then people showed up saying from the next rehearsal room saying like, Hey, we have 300 bucks. Can you toch Marks? Can you record us? And I went like, cool, that means I can finally buy a pairing air compressor. And that's how it went forward. And after a few years I had that moment when I realized, hey, I have become much more of a producer than a musician myself, which was kind of scary back then.

Speaker 2 (00:05:29):

Was this a good moment or I don't know. Oh fuck.

Speaker 3 (00:05:33):

It was kind of mixed because I really didn't expect it. But since then I have always been someone who preferred working creatively with people. I'm not a tech nerd. I mean I have all the gear I need and stuff, but I dunno, I care more about, I don't know, making arrangements for a chorus to make it sound awesome than to discuss about the difference of Mike Priest or something, which I can do as well. So I was always trying to stay a musician and to actually understand the band musically. And then that usually leads to understanding them sonically, if you know what I

Speaker 2 (00:06:17):

Mean. You were telling me that even with some of the most brutal bands that you work with, you try to take an actual producer approach rather than just engineer. And it's important for people who aren't familiar with Extreme Metal to know that in general, extreme metal bands don't look for producers in general. They just look for someone who can record them properly because it's such an intense style of music. They generally have everything worked out in advance exactly the way they want it. They just go to the studio, but you actually produce these

Speaker 3 (00:06:58):

Bands. I mean, I do that as well. It's always a matter of what people want me to do, of course. But yeah, I can't really understand why deaf metal shouldn't be produced. So of course it's much more complicated because Def Metal is one of the few sub genres of metal where people usually don't write heavy pop songs, which is totally fine by the way. So you have a complicated structure. You can't just listen to a song and say, okay, let's copy the chorus twice. And it's very complicated. So you really have to get into the material. And I think there's just no tradition of this because it was, I don't know, too complicated for producers and bands are not used to do it, but that's what I'm trying to do. And for example, I'm doing that with a boarder right now. They have started writing their new album. I don't know when this will come out, but they're sending me demos and I get back to them with detailed suggestions

Speaker 2 (00:08:08):

Just from a different perspective. Like, this rift goes too long, this rift goes too short, this is great. What kind of stuff?

Speaker 3 (00:08:17):

Anything I could say, this riff is too short. I could say this is too much of the same chord progressions, or I wouldn't use a blast here, do something else. Or these are the strong moments of the songs, concentrate on them, and we just started doing this, but they're actually digging my comments and it's totally up to them to decide if they go for it or not. But it gives them another perspective. And if you want to do it properly, because the music is more complicated than other styles of music, you have to start early If you just start tracking without having heard anything. This is not, you can do something, but this is the proper way that people send you demos, you get in touch with them and you try to instruct them and then you're familiar with the songs and they know you.

(00:09:09):

But this actually mostly only works after having worked together with deaf metal bands. So you need to do one album the old school way and make suggestions there. So they trust you and start trusting you. And then suddenly after, or usually after one or two albums, you reach a point where they go like, Hey, yeah, we trust this guy. And for example, with Ben Knighted, another extreme death metal band I worked with, we have done quite a few albums and we have some kind of blind understanding. And the singer, he just told me recently, he said, A lot of your suggestions sound weird to me, but I know you long enough that I'll try them anyway. And most of the time they work, sometimes they don't work, of course. So if you have that relationship with a band that's a perfect base to make better albums.

Speaker 2 (00:10:02):

So when you work with a band for the first time, what steps do you take to gain their trust so that you can make suggestions in the first place?

Speaker 3 (00:10:11):

I mean, I'm highly concentrated all the time, so I'm really trying to, even when I worked the first time with the border, I haven't seen those guys before. They just showed up here for their termination redux EP like two years ago or something. And we hadn't met before. They showed up in the morning, we started recording. But from the first moment on, I'm trying to understand who are the guys, how do they work, what do they want? And as soon as possible, I slowly and start try to make suggestions. And then you have to see how they react because you have to read people because some people are just not open for this, which is fine. And the more you do, the relationship kind of grows.

Speaker 2 (00:11:01):

How do you deal with it when you really think that a band needs to is really doing something stupid for the song, but they just don't want to take your suggestion, but you haven't established yourself with them yet. You're not at the same point as you are with Aborted. Say they're a new band for you, you just know that this part is fucking stupid

Speaker 3 (00:11:28):

And you've got to change it in the end. It's their problem. And I'm always saying it's the band that decides in the end, so I'm not forcing anyone to do something. But usually with most, and there are some people who are just not open for this, they worked on something for half a year and talked about every fucking snare drum and every hit on every chord. And then I show up and listen to it twice and say like, Hey, why should we go for a double base part here? Because it goes like, and they go like, oh my, they're just not too much for them.

(00:12:01):

And that's how it is. If they're not, I mean I'm trying hard, but if they haven't reached a point, it makes no sense to force them. It's their album in the end. But most of the time, within the first two or three days, I can figure out how far I can go and then I go to that point. And sometimes it's also different people in the band. It's like the drummers might be very open and then the guitar player is totally blocked or something. Yeah. But usually it's just you gain trust, you slowly gain trust and then yeah, it's

Speaker 2 (00:12:41):

Getting better and better. Do most of your first time clients already know your previous work?

Speaker 3 (00:12:49):

Yes. Yes. All of them. All of them.

Speaker 2 (00:12:51):

So does that help with

Speaker 3 (00:12:52):

The trust? Of course. Of course. I mean, that's very different compared to the beginning where I had to convince people to come here and they didn't actually know why. Or if sometimes a record company or a management or something sends people here, I always want to make sure they know why they show up, why they show up. I want them to listen to my stuff to tell me what they want, want to, even if we're not working creatively, you need some kind of vision, some kind of, yeah, vision is a good word for a production. Otherwise vision

Speaker 2 (00:13:32):

Is a great word. We actually just put out a course called speed mixing and defining your vision. We say that defining your vision is the most important thing you could do in a mix out of the first things, there's a million things you can do, million directions you could take, but the first thing you should always do is define what your vision is.

Speaker 3 (00:13:58):

Yes,

Speaker 2 (00:13:59):

I agree. I mean that determines everything.

Speaker 3 (00:14:02):

There is also something I would call instinct, which sometimes helps if you have gained a certain maturity or experience because you are not always sure of what you're doing, and I'm not always sure of what I'm doing. So sometimes you have to rely on that instinct. But I totally agree, that's what I'm trying to do all the time, is to come up with ideas either musically or sonically, present that to the band, see if it matches or not. And then sometimes you have people with an own vision and then you have to, that's cool. But you also have people who just come here and say, I like your work. Can you make us sound awesome? And then I ask them, what do you want? They said, just make it sound great.

Speaker 2 (00:14:51):

Just make it awesome. Well, one thing I should also add is that rarely in my life does the initial vision and the final product match. So I feel like you define a vision so that you start going down a good path, but then once you're on the path, you need to let your instinct guide you.

Speaker 3 (00:15:13):

Exactly, yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:15:15):

Because if you stick too much to the original plan, you might be turning down really good ideas. So I feel like you start with the vision, but then you let instinct take over. And if you've worked hard and you have good tastes and good instincts, they'll get you to where you need to get. And oftentimes the final result is something else is the vision plus a bunch of other things that you couldn't have understood before you started the project.

Speaker 3 (00:15:43):

I agree. But still, I think with most of my stuff, if me and the band, if we agree that this is the way to go and everybody goes like, yeah, great idea, let's try that. Of course you have to adapt. It's going to change over the production. But most of the time if everybody thinks like, yeah, that's a great idea, my experience is it mostly works. And I dunno, this makes the production kind of inspiring and also prevents you from repeating yourself too much. If you just come up, for example. That's what I did with Ben United, because we have been doing, I think we've been doing two album, we just did the latest album called Necro Breed, and I did two albums before, and I still say they sound like cool modern, brutal metal productions, and I really liked them. But then we

Speaker 2 (00:16:46):

With really cool videos,

Speaker 3 (00:16:48):

But then we reached a point where I said, we can do the same thing again. It might be 3% better, but I don't think I can do it like 30% better. So it's going to be boring. We and I have a few ideas, could we perhaps change it and then see how they react? And then if you come up with something new, a new idea from the get go, especially if you have worked with people several times, it keeps your work interesting. And also with this, the new benighted production, it totally worked. I was surprised that even the reviews, people really understood what we were trying to do. And that's just awesome if that works.

Speaker 2 (00:17:33):

So what's the 30% that was different?

Speaker 3 (00:17:36):

No, I mean I wasn't able to make it 30% better. Just say we do the same thing again, but this time I don't know, I will dial in even better guitar tone and I just felt like what we had to say back then, that kind of sound, that's kind of done. It sounds great and now I can change. You did it. I can change some details, but it's boring. So I came up, I told them first I thought vision for Benighted for example, was like I, they have very disturbing parts, so they like to surprise people. So you hear something go like, what the fuck? That's what they do. And I said, we should concentrate on doing as much as possible doing things as fucking disturbingly as possible. And on the other hand, they have some really catchy parts and I said, let's try especially on the vocals to get as many, I dunno, sing along choruses on that album surrounded by those disturbing parts.

(00:18:36):

Let's see how that works. And let's go sonically, let's go for a more old school nineties H hm two guitar sound that may sound thinner, which it does, by the way, thinner and not as good actually as the latest albums before, but which I dunno, has a character, a new character that might make things more interesting. And that's what I suggested. And they went like, Hey, cool idea, let's go for it. And that's what we did and that worked. And that was cool to see that people actually understood this when they were listening to the album. And it actually sounds, especially guitars, the guitar sound is actually on a pure Hi-Fi thinking is a lot worse than the albums before, but it has a character that just supports the energy we were trying to get. And that's what I,

Speaker 2 (00:19:35):

So technically speaking, what did you do on the first time around guitar wise? What was in the rig? I think we

Speaker 3 (00:19:42):

Always used an old two channel rectifier and I mean it was always different mics and stuff and details there, but we used a rectifier and that was always like the Ben United sound did two tracks and then we did another pair of rhythm tracks with a more shitty sound that is just mixed in some kind of twoish thingy there just for the in there. But that was like 20%. So I said, can we turn that around? But don't make a traditional hm two tone because that's too shitty for us and we need all the details. So let's just find something. I don't know, I wasn't sure if that would work. Let's find something that has that grindy, those grindy mids, those hm two mids, but it's still, I dunno, defined enough and heavy enough, not just on the palms, like a far D mess. So I came up with some pedals and they came up with some pedals and we combined there with shit loads of S that I have here and camped some stuff and tried again. And I think it was some kind of custom made French pedal that I had never seen before. I think it was a base.

Speaker 2 (00:21:04):

So when you say Hm two-ish, you don't actually mean an HM two. You kind of went for something that was the same kind of feel, but

Speaker 3 (00:21:15):

I always dreamt of something that has that grindy, midrange, that bus all kind of thing. But I mean I never, I dunno, the HM two all knobs crank kind of thing never worked for me as a main guitar. It was always too shitty for me. I dunno, perhaps I'm just not capable of doing it or too stupid whatever. And it shouldn't sound like dismember or in tune, but it should have that character but more defined. And that was the idea to find something. I still should order that pedal in France.

Speaker 2 (00:21:51):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:21:51):

It sounds like it. Do you remember what it was called? No, not really, but I can ask the Ben United guys. And then we tried and we just said like, okay, if it doesn't work, then we go back to our rectifier setup and just make it a modern guitar tone. That's easy more or less, but at least for us it worked and has a more grind, chorus, dirty feel to it without sounding like lo-fi or

Speaker 2 (00:22:22):

Anything. So that was risky actually to go for a guitar sound that maybe technically is shittier than the one you made before. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:22:34):

But if you had asked me, if had asked me or someone had presented that idea to me two albums before, I wouldn't have done it because both Pin United, they were growing getting more popular and I was also getting better and better and we both felt like, hey, we don't have to prove anyone that we can do it the right way. So we've done that, so let's do something else. But I didn't have that maturity before to just say, Hey, it might sound a bit fucked up, but it has the right character and let's just do it. And yeah, that's what I'm trying to do to do more and more.

Speaker 2 (00:23:12):

So this kind of freedom to experiment and bring out unique tones. This is more of a recent thing across all your productions or is this what you naturally start doing once you've made a few records with people? It was kind

Speaker 3 (00:23:26):

Of growing, but it's like, I think I would say after you have done a few records that people and that have sold well and stuff, then you just gain a certain, what is it? Self-confidence that you say I can do something else now. And people won't just listen to it and say like, Hey, what's that shit? But they will say like, oh, they might have meant something. And then, yeah, what do you call it? That bravery that just growed. And especially these days, things compared to the old days are so much the same. So I think it's about time to really think about doing things differently.

Speaker 2 (00:24:16):

So can you talk a little bit about working on the Power Wolf record? Blessed and Possessed? Oh my god,

Speaker 3 (00:24:23):

I didn't mix that one though. It was Fredman who mixed it and I recorded, I think I recorded the drums and I recorded the guitars. But for example, power Wolf is a band I never worked creatively with. It was just like those guys are so, everything is so much done and they call it themselves, their cliche format of things that are allowed and not allowed. It's very narrow. So I could tell 'em like, Hey, you could play, we changed a few nodes or something. But that was for example, not a band where I could say, Hey, couldn't we throw that part out and put another part in? But I also felt like there's no need for it because they have this band that has really found their formula and it's not going to change. It's like ac, CDC. So that was more like the typical engineer technical work. So

Speaker 2 (00:25:29):

The band is what the band is and

Speaker 3 (00:25:32):

That's what they want and that's how I also feel that's how it's supposed to be. And if you ask them, they would tell you, this is power wolf and there's a certain amount of different drum breaks that work and there's a certain amount of guitar, that's what we want. It's not an entirely serious band. They're kind of funny or how do you call that kind of ironic. And they just want to be like, I dunno, a heavy metal super over the top cliche band and steel panther is not going to change. You know what I mean? How it is.

Speaker 2 (00:26:12):

So when you work with that kind of band where everything is predefined, do you have to shut off a part of your brain that wants to make suggestions or do you just naturally fall into the role of the engineer

Speaker 3 (00:26:34):

And

Speaker 2 (00:26:34):

It's not an issue?

Speaker 3 (00:26:35):

I think I naturally fall there, but it's actually less exciting or it's not boring. But for me it's more exciting if I can work creatively. But on the other hand, sometimes you can't just come up with a groundbreaking vision all the time and you can't work in 120% all the time. So it's cool to do these things as well or to just do a mastering for someone which is rather totally technically more or less. And then go back to something where you really have to get into the songs and into the mood of the band. Do you ever feel

Speaker 2 (00:27:18):

Like you get

Speaker 3 (00:27:19):

Creatively burned out? Of course, yes. On the other hand, I just said it's kind of mixed. I'm also writing with bands. Sometimes I'm also writing songs or not for the death metal bands though, but writing songs or co-writing songs and stuff and you need both. Sometimes it's just cool to edit drums for three days and if you have that kind of mixture it works because the next week you'll have something where you have to work more creatively, but sometimes it feels cool to just move things from left to and don't think too much.

Speaker 2 (00:28:03):

I kind of used to enjoy editing sometimes because I could listen to podcasts or listen to speakers. I really enjoyed while doing it at the same time. I

Speaker 3 (00:28:16):

Haven't done that though, but yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:28:18):

But yeah, it was just like an opportunity almost for my brain to take a vacation, which is good because like you said, you can't always be delivering groundbreaking ideas. It's impossible.

Speaker 3 (00:28:33):

And the problem is in the metal world and with the budgets, we don't have a producer guy and then you have one or more engineers who do all the technical work and the producer just shows up sometimes with a fresh mind and fresh ideas and tells you, Hey, I want this more green or blue or whatever. You have to do both, which is two jobs actually. So it's cool to have those moments where you just record or just edit and then you have the other moments where it gets more important to actually understand the whole concept of the album, understand the whole concept of the song. So switching between rather technical work and more creative work is actually a good thing, I guess. So how many days a week do you work? I work five days a week. I try to work five days a week and I used to work all the time and I've been doing this for

Speaker 2 (00:29:28):

So

Speaker 3 (00:29:28):

You try to work

Speaker 2 (00:29:30):

Less days a week, so you try to work five down from six or seven, not five up from three or four,

Speaker 3 (00:29:37):

Exactly. No, I've been doing this for I think 15 years now. And of course starting very, very small with local projects. And I mean that's what you have to do in the beginning. You have to work your ass off and work all the time to make a business like this grow and to make it successful. But I've come to a point where it was very important for me to be able to, I don't know, step back and get a different perspective. And you can't do that if you work all the time. If a production needs it and it happens, it happens quite often that I work on a Saturday or Sunday or that I work in the evening or at night that happens of course if it's needed. But usually I just tell people, Hey, I work from Monday to Friday and I'm not working on the weekend. That's what I'm trying to do. And that helps me after 15 years especially. That helps me to stay creative. But then of course if the project needs it, I'm there. And

Speaker 2 (00:30:43):

So you won't turn down the work, but for your own sanity, you're trying to keep it more structured during the week?

Speaker 3 (00:30:51):

Yes. But also perhaps, I'm sure you know that as well, that if you keep on working and working and working, you get lost and you repeat yourself and it's like absolutely it's not good and you start making mistakes or you ask yourself, what am I actually doing here? And so the two main things for me that are important is to have days off where I don't listen to music where I play with my kids and do other stuff. And that's one thing that is important. And the other thing that is important to me is that I don't do the same shit all the time. That I don't do death metal records all the time that I do power metal albums and death metal albums and metal core albums and everything. And even record local bands or interesting small bands that do something else. Totally just to stay fresh because otherwise

Speaker 2 (00:31:44):

How do you attract clients that are not extreme metal? And the reason I ask this is because my background coming from metal, I know that it's hard to get into other genres once you're known for metal because once metal bands know you get so many of them that it's hard to fit in other styles. And then getting started in other styles is equally as difficult. How do you go about finding clients in other styles,

Speaker 3 (00:32:18):

Other

Speaker 2 (00:32:18):

Genres?

Speaker 3 (00:32:19):

I don't deal with any bigger bands of other styles. It's all metal, but doing metal only. I mean, if you have Power Wolf and aborted an Eskimo call playing the same venue on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, then it will be a completely different audience. So working the metal scene is so diverse, it is different to work to do a modern metal core thing compared to a death metal record. So that's one thing that is important that you're not only doing one thing because you're known for it. But what I do is if there's any local bands that I like, then I sometimes work with them. Or sometimes you have, for example, now there's a project of a singer that recorded here with his metal band and he's doing another project, it's just two people, a drummer and him singing and he's playing five, I dunno even what it is, distorted hammons and roads and vintage synthesizers through a wall of guitar s. And I just said, I have to do this. That

Speaker 2 (00:33:29):

Sounds like a cool idea. I

Speaker 3 (00:33:30):

Just thought, I don't even know what you, I really didn't understand it. I was like, they are singing through stomp boxes and shit. And I was standing at that show and I didn't get it, it was just like, what are you guys doing? But it's fucking awesome and I want to work with you and I don't even know how to record that yet, but we'll figure it out. And I'm sure if I do that we are working on some songs right now and composing wise, and then if I finally record this, I'm sure I will get some new inspiration, some new ideas even for perhaps a death metal production. And that is important to not burn out.

Speaker 2 (00:34:13):

I think that that's great. So I realize that this is someone who, you already worked with other projects, but when you want to work with bands that are outside your normal type of band, do you approach them difficult?

Speaker 3 (00:34:28):

Yeah, because I usually, I agree if you do metal and then you try to get in touch with, I dunno, an indie rock band or something, you always have that. I think of you as the metal guy. Exactly. Yeah. So usually it really works. I dunno if some of the guys has played in a band that has worked with me before. That's the typical way because yeah, metal is just like a stigma for better or for worse it is, right? But even in metal, there's sometimes bands that don't want to work with me because I'm too modern or too extreme or too whatever. But in the end it works. That's the most important thing. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:35:19):

That's pretty funny. I'm laughing. I know exactly what you're talking about. I've got some questions here from the audience I'd like to ask you. Here's one from Diego Fernandez, which is do you often quad track your rhythm guitars? And do you find that it's worthwhile for extreme metal to quad guitars?

Speaker 3 (00:35:42):

It's hard to say actually because it's so much more work. And I'm doing albums where I just have two guitars. God, it really is so much more work. And then if people record the guitars here, it's a lot of money. Or if they don't do it at home and it's amped later. And the cool thing about Quadra guitars is that you have a pair, an extra pair you can play with. So you do a main guitar sound and then you can say, okay, what's missing? And then you can experiment and add something. On the other hand, for example, if I do hardcore productions, the advantage of only having two tracks, one left, one is that you still have the impression of there's two guys playing and you can spot them even if it's just one guy doubling it, but it feels like you don't have that wall of sound, that Hollywood kind of thing. That's what I call it, where everything is everywhere, but you can still, it feels more live. So I'm doing both and I'm saying it, if things get very, very technical, I usually just do two tracks because it's tighter. And if things are more raw sounding like hardcore and punk stuff, I also do two tracks and otherwise I try to do four just because it's comfortable for me. But it's shit loads of work.

Speaker 2 (00:37:11):

It really is shit loads of work. And then it depends

Speaker 3 (00:37:15):

On the guitar player, excuse me.

Speaker 2 (00:37:16):

Well yeah, if the guitar player is not great then it's almost not worth even trying. Exactly.

Speaker 3 (00:37:22):

So if people ask me, I very often tell 'em like, ah, let's just start working. Let's see. And then usually after the first song I can make a decision if that's going to work or not.

Speaker 2 (00:37:34):

Yeah, I mean let's be honest, lots of guitar players aren't good enough for you to realistically quadrat them. Yeah. And

Speaker 3 (00:37:45):

Then it's a question if you really want to spend five days editing guitars or not,

Speaker 2 (00:37:51):

I prefer not to. So Anthony de Giacomo was wondering what kind of amps were used on the aborted records. Were the guitars double or quad tracked? It seems like this topic is coming up a lot.

Speaker 3 (00:38:04):

Yes. I think it was rectifier again for the main tracks. And then I think I used diesel standing right beside me, what is it called? Demal dem for the other tracks from what I remember. But I'm pretty bad at actually remembering this. And I think that's what I did on the Termination Redox EP where they tracked the guitars themselves. I was just recording drums and vocals here. And then the Retro Gore album, we recorded everything here and then we wanted it to sound like pretty close to the EP and we liked it. I think we went back to the camper profiles I had done for the ep so we could have more or less the same sound. And for the next record, I'm pretty sure we're going to do something else. Dunno what it is.

Speaker 2 (00:39:04):

Do you love the Keer?

Speaker 3 (00:39:07):

Yeah, the camper was because I was always, I'm still using amps. I've never been using any amp sims for high gang guitars. Other people do and that's fine and they have great results with it. I was never satisfied and I preferred, I have a lot of amps, I have a room, I have caps and I know how to do it so I set them up. But I think that one of the first guys pre-ordering the camper because it was so unbelievable and I mean everybody knows the camper amp and it is great and there might be a difference, but it's not worth talking about. You can do great records with a camper. And the thing is though, that the more presets and templates you have for anything, but also for guitar recording, the more you have a tendency to repeat, just to say it's easy to say, I know, I don't know, this angle profile works, so let's just go for it. Instead of like you used to set up something new, even perhaps use the same amp and find a sound yourself. So that's the problem sometimes. That's why if we are recording guitars

Speaker 2 (00:40:17):

Here Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.

Speaker 3 (00:40:19):

I don't, I know I have great sounds in my camera, I'm just using my own stuff there and it's full with my own presets from a lot of records that I've done. But I always pull out three or four s and start again and try to find something because everything's going to sound the same otherwise.

Speaker 2 (00:40:41):

Makes sense. Yeah. So here's a question from Charles Elliot. How do you get that huge bass sound and what's your preferred signal chain for bass

Speaker 3 (00:40:53):

Different each time? I'm not using amps or real amps or cabs for bass and except for if there's a bass player showing up with a rig he likes, but that happens not often. Bass players usually come here and say like, Hey, I don't even have a bass. Make it their guitar. Guitar players talk to you about their cables and about every fucking detail. And then bass players are different, but I usually also do, I have different tracks running like that typical setup where you have a clean track for the low end and compress it and try to get an underst distorted low end. And then there's different pedals, but very typical stuff like the standing right here, what is it called? Micro tubes, P seven K from dark glass or the different,

Speaker 2 (00:41:55):

I was actually just about to ask you if you like the dark glass

Speaker 3 (00:41:58):

Pedals. I like it. And then there's a cool pedal from Tech 21 that pec pedal, don't remember what

Speaker 2 (00:42:04):

Is, yeah, sand.

Speaker 3 (00:42:05):

Not this normal Sand Z, but the pec thing they do VT VT base. That's cool. Then there's a few different, I like amply tube as well. There's a cool plugin called base grinder, but it's always different and very important is you need to track with a cool base. If you have the right base you can use any of those pedals and you're going to get a great grindy def metal tone with it. But if you have a bass, especially with old strings, that is just, I dunno if you distort, it just sounds farty and fuzzy and shitty, you can take the best pedals in the world. So it's very, very important to choose the right bass for guitars is not that important. The difference between, there's a difference of course, but if you just take an ESP guitar with an EMG and then Justin Les Paul with passive pickups, there's differences, but it's not night and day. And with bass guitars, if you have a shitty di signal, it's not going to work. It's not going to sound great.

Speaker 2 (00:43:08):

People don't seem to understand with bass, it comes down to even strings. If your strings are a little too old, it drastically changes the tone. Bass is super sensitive and it's also super important to get right. It's one of those elements that lots of newcomers tend to overlook, but it's also the place where their mixes tend to suffer the most.

Speaker 3 (00:43:33):

Exactly, exactly. To get a decent, stable, low end, but then also have a great sounding base and make it audible in the mix. That's the most difficult part to get right. But I think it's the same thing with clean guitars for some reason. I dunno why, but if you record highly distorted guitars, it's like, I mean I do care about which pickups you use and which guitar you use and stuff, but in the end, if you have something decent, I always prefer the guitar player to use the guitar he feels comfortable with and it's not going to be a night and day difference on clean guitars and on bass perhaps because they're also distorted. It is all the details matter and it's like even Bay Strings matter, use steel strings, absolutely use steel strings and don't use any nickel, what they call nickel plated or something, use fresh strings and all that stuff. That is really, really, really important. And that is also the most problematic part when I mix stuff that is not recorded here that I try to make sure I tell people, if you have three bases, record them all with fresh drinks, send them to me before you start recording. I will tell you which one to choose because it's frustrating because you can use 55 plugins and it's not going to work.

Speaker 2 (00:45:01):

I've actually done shootouts of different bass strings just to prove that it makes a huge difference.

Speaker 3 (00:45:11):

Steel

Speaker 2 (00:45:12):

And it does, it really does.

Speaker 3 (00:45:14):

Daddario pro steel, those are cool. I think Pro steel, oh those are my favorite. And there's some pro steel all the way, some Warwick strings that will are way cheaper. The red Warwick strings, they also sound very good, but they will die after two songs more or less. But

Speaker 2 (00:45:30):

They're also cool. So Will steals. In my experience, two songs is a lot in my experience, the pro steals go after one, but that's why you need an endorsement. So you can get cheap as hell because God, they're expensive,

Speaker 3 (00:45:48):

But it also depends on the player and the sweat and

Speaker 2 (00:45:52):

Yes,

Speaker 3 (00:45:53):

That too, but changing bass strings, dear people. Yeah, makes sense. Yeah, if you want to have that

Speaker 2 (00:46:00):

Dangle sound. Yeah. So here's the question from John Ganzer, which is the low end, just hammers on the aborted albums. What do you find most challenging to overcome with this style of death metal besides low end?

Speaker 3 (00:46:16):

Good question, to be honest. I mean clarity, of course clarity is one thing, but that has more to do with the recording process. So clarity is more like how things are played, how the palm utes are played and all that stuff. So if you have a good guitar player that's going to work and that aborted guys are great guitar players, or you have to sit here beside the guitar player and watch their fingers and whip them hard and remind them to move their hand to the right spot for the palm mutes and stuff, that's how you get the clarity, not by choosing the right camper profile or choosing the right amp. So that's

Speaker 2 (00:47:01):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:47:01):

Difficult here. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:47:03):

This style of metal relies heavily on the playing and the best sounding bands on recordings also sound great live in this genre.

Speaker 3 (00:47:13):

And also it's like I'm really trying, I don't know if people hear that, but I'm really trying to keep the drums as natural as possible. And that means, first of all, I'm only using the samples that I'm recording at the same session with the same drummer. I mean there's always an exception, but I'm not using any sample libraries or stuff, so I want to get the drum right in the room and get the micing right in the room so everything is transparent and all in the end. And you need to either have a great drummer who plays perfectly anyway or you need to tell someone how to do things. And that helps a lot because you can get clarity by just triggering the shit out of everything. It's going to sound very clear, but very boring as well. And so that is important, but it's the recording process. Choose the right symbols, choose the right mark, choose

Speaker 2 (00:48:15):

So you don't sample replace very often. Am I understanding that correctly?

Speaker 3 (00:48:20):

I'm using samples, I'm using I think samples on all of the extreme albums that I do, but I'm just using the samples that I'm recording in this session. So before we start recording, I'll let the drummer give me, I dunno, 100 samples of the snare and different velocities, left hand, right hand, dri shots, all that stuff. I'm recording that with a lot of mics and what I usually do is later then I use the original track as much as I can do, but then I have a preset in a sample player where I have the unprocessed samples, different velocities of the direct snare of the overheads of different room mics, just like having one of those VST instruments. And then I have five faders of the original snare and others, and that blends of course perfectly. So you can say this part doesn't need anything on the other part, I just want the original snare plus a lot of room sample only and you can play with it. It's a lot of work to cut all those samples and to put them in there. That takes a lot of time, but that's how you, I dunno, keep more of the original performance yet making things sound punchy and modern. Do you do this yourself or do you have an assistant help

Speaker 2 (00:49:37):

You?

Speaker 3 (00:49:38):

No, I have two other people working here, but I dunno, I still do this myself because then I know what I'm doing. I'd love to skip the process there, but I dunno, I handpick all the samples myself, unfortunately.

Speaker 2 (00:49:57):

You know what, it is very interesting that you do it this way because one thing that we always show people how to do is with samples is how to create fake rooms or how to create a room just like a snare room for instance. And you're doing the exact same thing, you're just doing it based off of the samples that you recorded right then and there.

Speaker 3 (00:50:21):

Right? I end up working the same way other people who just have their original snare and then they open up some whatever Steven slate or some kind of sample player and then they try to combine those two and very often end up just using the fake snare. But if you do it that way, it's more work because you spend some hours on preparing all those samples. But the really cool thing is that it blends so well. So you can do a lot of automation there and you are able to control the original room that you have, but if you just crank the room mics, you're going to have way too much symbol wash and shit there on a death metal record. So you perhaps just want to use the room samples of the snare. And so once you've gone through all that extra work, I think there's nothing else that beats it because you always, I mean making a different snare that's recorded somewhere else in a different room with different mics, tune differently, interact with your original snare. It can work of course, but it's always very often kind of alien sounding. So my experience is that people just end up with 90% of the fake snare and nothing of the original snare and machine gun like drums.

Speaker 2 (00:51:47):

Makes sense. Okay, here's a question from Lia, which is, he actually has a few questions.

Speaker 3 (00:51:55):

Okay.

Speaker 2 (00:51:55):

I'll start with the first one. For tremolo picked riffs, one the double bass drum and the bass guitar follow along. How do you control the low end? I'm asking this both from a mixing standpoint as well as a production standpoint. Do you ask the bass player to play it halftime relative to the guitarist? What do you do? First of all, what is a tremolo picked riff? Like a fast rift or something or Yeah, it's the fast rifts where they're going as fast as possible with the right hand.

Speaker 3 (00:52:26):

Okay. So I mean I'm a big fan of playing as slowly as possible on the base if you don't need the grind. So if you don't really need to hear the bass on that part, like grinding, then it's way easier to mix to just go for a d, dang, dang, dang dang. Instead of, because the low end needs some time to develop and if the base is not very prominent, the mix you, I'm sure you know that situation where you just mix, you think like, oh, that part of the low end is perfect and then comes the fast part and you just think the low end is gone. What happened? Did I just mute the bass? Then you realize that, oh fuck no, he's playing too fast and there's no low end anymore.

Speaker 2 (00:53:09):

So

Speaker 3 (00:53:10):

I'm trying to make the bass player play as

Speaker 2 (00:53:12):

Slowly as possible. Makes sense. Here's question number two from him. Do you ever use reverb on the rhythm guitars? And if so, could you let us know why you use it?

Speaker 3 (00:53:23):

I'm not using reverb on rhythm guitars on let's say like normal parts or something. It's an effect somewhere if you have, I think I did that on the OBO record as well. If you have parts that are supposed to be very, I dunno, deep and atmospheric and stuff, then you want reverb everywhere. But that's more of an effect. I wouldn't for this kind of metal, I wouldn't recommend using reverb on rhythm guitars.

Speaker 2 (00:53:49):

She's asking to make a mess out of the mix. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (00:53:52):

On the other hand, I mean there might be some people doing this with great results, I don't know, but I don't do it because like you said, it's going to end up with sounding very messy. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:54:03):

Yeah, exactly. So here's question number three from him. Do you process the snare into blaby differently than the snare in a slower part of the song? Same question goes for kick drum also. Are they laid out on separate tracks and processed differently?

Speaker 3 (00:54:18):

No, in general, I'm very, very simple. I'm not using a lot of buses and different effects change and stuff. I'm trying to keep things as simple as possible using as little plugins as possible that makes things usually easier. And you don't end up with a million plugins where you don't even remember why you chose the first ones. And for blast beads and normal parts, if I use, I'm not doing any different, I usually make the snare by hand automation louder on the blast beads just, I dunno, four DB or something. Even try to make it come up as soon as you get too much bleed from other instruments, you've gone too far. And then I'm trying to find on the samples I'm using, I'm trying to find the right velocity range for the samples. So typically if a kick or a snare is on 127 medieval velocity, it's going to be, I dunno, the snare on a blast, be's going to be on 90 or something or 80 on a blast beat or it's going to be on 110 or something on a double base part.

Speaker 2 (00:55:40):

So there is a difference. And that also depends on which samples you're using because they all have different sweet spots I guess at different veloc.

Speaker 3 (00:55:49):

Exactly, and that's i's what I'm doing. That's why I'm doing it myself. So if I do those different velocities for the drums, cutting the samples, the first thing I do is I insert the sample player and I try it on a normal part where you just have the full power hits and then you try it on the blast beat and on a double bass part and stuff like that. And then you try to see if you found the right samples or not. And if not, I go back cutting out different samples or going to a different velocity. So it's very important to make that work from the beginning. And once all that work is done, when you're mixing, you log, all right, double bay is going to be 110 and pla b's going to be 75 and go for it and then it's not. Yeah, that

Speaker 2 (00:56:38):

Is easy. Alright, final question from Ish, and this is also going to be the final question. This one's about guitar tone.

Speaker 3 (00:56:45):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (00:56:46):

DNI says, I would like to know your thoughts on layering guitar tracks to make a composite single guitar tone. Is this something that's done for this genre? Could you share some of the things that you look for when layering guitars? What are the check boxes you tick off in your mind when you have reached a tone you like, thanks man. Well I guess we already know that you do like to layer tones. You were talking about layering the hm two-ish kind of sound to the rectifier or something with the erect and stuff. So maybe you could just elaborate a little bit more on that.

Speaker 3 (00:57:16):

What I'm trying to do actually is I'm trying to get the final sound from my first pair of guitars. I'm trying to get the best sound possible.

Speaker 2 (00:57:27):

That's

Speaker 3 (00:57:27):

What I'm trying to do. And that sometimes works that you have the feeling that it's all there, but then usually during the process of recording the guitars, that's a cool thing by the way, about also actually recording the bands that you can split the decisions. I don't have to make all decisions on one day. So when I'm recording guitars with the first sound, then I try to figure out what's missing, if there's something missing. And then you might end up with saying like, okay, we need more low end or we need more grind, or we need whatever. And then I'm usually trying to find a sound that is just perhaps 20, 30, 40% of the final sound in the end, but a sound that is going to bring in whatever's missing, that's what I'm doing. And then it helps to actually know that I've got this amp who usually has a lot of whatever and that's going to work with it. It's always like guesswork and sometimes it works directly. Sometimes you have to try harder, but that's what I'm doing, trying to get a main tone and then adding what's missing.

Speaker 2 (00:58:46):

So like you said, you're trying to get it as finished as possible before you even get started.

Speaker 3 (00:58:51):

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And I'm always trying to not do too much to guitar. So the question before, I'm not having separate buses for blasts and normal parts or something or slow parts and I'm trying not to, I'm usually just having, I dunno, one or two plugins on the guitars and just queuing a littler later in the mix. But I'm really, really trying to get the final tone, like 90% of the final tone by just recording and mixing the tracks that I have. Because especially on guitars, I believe as soon as you do more than a few DBS of EQ and if you mangle them hard, you can do that with a bass drum no problem. Or with a snare drum. But with guitars it's going to sound like, I dunno, a dull guitar with 15 B of highs raped in so to, so I'm always trying to get, it is very easy to ruin

Speaker 2 (00:59:50):

Guitars

Speaker 3 (00:59:51):

With too much EQ and it's easy to overlook because you get the right frequency response and it feels like it feels right. It sounds like whatever you're looking for, but it's easy to miss the point that you're actually destroying something else. And so I believe that getting great metal tones is you don't need shitloads of plugins and processing for it actually, if you choose the right tools.

Speaker 2 (01:00:19):

I totally agree with you. Well, Kristian, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It's been a

Speaker 3 (01:00:25):

Thank you very much for having me, man.

Speaker 2 (01:00:27):

Yeah, it's been a pleasure talking to you and I'm glad that we finally got to do this after going back and forth for so long.

Speaker 3 (01:00:35):

Me too. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:00:37):

Yeah. Well great evening and I hope we can do this again soon sometime,

Speaker 3 (01:00:42):

Hopefully. And thanks everyone for listening and greetings from Germany. Bye-bye. The

Speaker 1 (01:00:48):

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