Tenaba - Molten Husk

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Tenaba
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Tenaba - Molten Husk

Post by Tenaba »

Hey everyone, I finally controlled my laziness and finished a track after half a year of inactivity. I took the old demo I uploaded earlier called "Ragequit", and turned it into a full song.

Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY2mOlZeI1I
Bandcamp link: https://tenaba.bandcamp.com/track/molten-husk

Software I used:
Ardour
Guitarix
Calf Plugins
Zynaddsubfx
Drumgizmo

This track gave me a lot of trouble during both recording and mixing. For instance, I had to perform a lot of retakes to fix timing and attack issues. I wanted the mix to be sufficiently loud, while still keeping the notes clear. While it could better, I think this is as good as I can get it for now without pulling my hair out. So any tips for future mixes are welcome! Hope you enjoy it.

I make music as Tenaba! Bandcamp

Basslint
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Re: Tenaba - Molten Husk

Post by Basslint »

Since you asked for tips but I am not good enough to give them, perhaps I can give some feedback as a listener.

The track does not sound bad and the mix of genres (I think I can hear prog metal, alternative metal and industrial metal in there) is very audacious. The preset at 0:25 is too bright, it sounds like it belongs to a completely different genre like smooth jazz or synthpop. I like the dancehall synth after that part, after it I would have gone for a dubstep-style drop :lol: The part at 1.43 is a bit messy. Your guitar playing is very good, however!
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Re: Tenaba - Molten Husk

Post by Rainmak3r »

Glad you could overcome your laziness, which is something I can definitely relate to :lol:
Sounds are nice and instruments well played. I only have a few suggestions related to the guitars:
  • It looks like you just recorded a single track for rhythm guitars: what's usually done, in metal, is to record it at least twice in two separate tracks (some go with 4 or even 8 ), and put one on the far left, and the other on the far right. The slight difference between the two takes gives much more "air" to guitars, making them sound much better and more powerful in a mix too. It's important to actually play the two takes separately and not copy paste, as otherwise you end up with them conflating in the middle and losing the effect. If you actually did that, the two takes may be way too similar (or copy pasted?), as in my headphones I only heard one sitting in the middle, where it has to "fight" with bass and drums for some space.
  • I'd also add a tiny bit of reverb to rhythm guitars too, just to make them fit a bit better in the same "room" as bass and drums.
  • The solo is well played, but maybe a bit too dry: you could try adding a bit of stereo echo or delay to make it more "spacey".
Of course it all comes down to taste, so if that's the kind of sound you wanted to get then feel free to ignore me! This is just how I usually approach my guitar parts, and so may very well not be the best approach for all metal genres.
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Re: Tenaba - Molten Husk

Post by Tenaba »

Basslint wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 8:50 am Since you asked for tips but I am not good enough to give them, perhaps I can give some feedback as a listener.

The track does not sound bad and the mix of genres (I think I can hear prog metal, alternative metal and industrial metal in there) is very audacious. The preset at 0:25 is too bright, it sounds like it belongs to a completely different genre like smooth jazz or synthpop. I like the dancehall synth after that part, after it I would have gone for a dubstep-style drop :lol: The part at 1.43 is a bit messy. Your guitar playing is very good, however!
Thank you for the feedback! Right, it was pretty difficult trying to figure out how to balance some of the synths. 1:43 in particular has a lot of echo to it.
Rainmak3r wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 12:49 pm Glad you could overcome your laziness, which is something I can definitely relate to :lol:
Sounds are nice and instruments well played. I only have a few suggestions related to the guitars:
  • It looks like you just recorded a single track for rhythm guitars: what's usually done, in metal, is to record it at least twice in two separate tracks (some go with 4 or even 8 ), and put one on the far left, and the other on the far right. The slight difference between the two takes gives much more "air" to guitars, making them sound much better and more powerful in a mix too. It's important to actually play the two takes separately and not copy paste, as otherwise you end up with them conflating in the middle and losing the effect. If you actually did that, the two takes may be way too similar (or copy pasted?), as in my headphones I only heard one sitting in the middle, where it has to "fight" with bass and drums for some space.
  • I'd also add a tiny bit of reverb to rhythm guitars too, just to make them fit a bit better in the same "room" as bass and drums.
  • The solo is well played, but maybe a bit too dry: you could try adding a bit of stereo echo or delay to make it more "spacey".
Of course it all comes down to taste, so if that's the kind of sound you wanted to get then feel free to ignore me! This is just how I usually approach my guitar parts, and so may very well not be the best approach for all metal genres.
Oh jeez, I just noticed the panning error. I recorded 2 guitars and hard-panned them left and right. Halfway through when I reloaded the project, the connections were lost, so I had to manually reconnect all of them. It seems I panned the L and R guitar channels to both input channels of my guitar bus, making it mono again. And somehow, I didn't notice the entire time. That's pretty embarrassing, but it's fixed now in the bandcamp version.
I think it might be safer to just use Ardour's panning features on each individual track, rather than using the channels of the bus they route to. Wish I was able to have a good enough ear to catch that earlier though.

Right about the rhythm guitars, I should try that out. Or just try out quad-tracking as you mentioned. Good point on the solo effects as well. Thanks!

I make music as Tenaba! Bandcamp

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Re: Tenaba - Molten Husk

Post by Rainmak3r »

Tenaba wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 1:28 pm That's pretty embarrassing, but it's fixed now in the bandcamp version.
No need to feel embarassed! :mrgreen: I've noticed that sometimes Ardour also "forgets" how some tracks are panned, and puts them centered instead (it's rare but it happens). For guitars I've now grown accustomed to "anomalies" and so can tell right away if they're not panned as they should, but in other cases I tend to fall in the same trap too.
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Re: Tenaba - Molten Husk

Post by jeanette_c »

Hi @Tenaba , this is a great track! I love your bass sound in particular. And I pull off my hat to you for having achieved that production. I rarely worked with real guitars, let alone bass and know from that experience that it takes time and much more efforrt than samples and synths. :) Btw. I like the bell-organ like synth, though it would still cut it at lower volume and so perhaps allow you to get the mix louder.
Your snare and kick also sound absolutely spot on! The kick has that extra click and the snare's gated/compressed reverb is just right. Though the snare is rather too low in the mix, perhaps.
Adding to Rainmak3r's advice, I'd say:
* you can send guitars and other elements to reverbs or delays of choice, so you can highpass filter them a lot to get out of the way.
* I have a feeling your bass might do with some heavier EQ, attenutating some low mids to get ot of the way of the guitars.
* High cutting is always an idea. I don't know how much you used that on the guitars. Put highpass filters on almost anything except bass and experiment, while the full mix is playing. Solo the highcut tracks can sound almost weak, but in the mix other instruments make up for that.
* EQ'ing in general is a good tool to clean up and make way. So you might selectively attenuate frequencies in many tracks to make room for the peak in one particular instrument. I.e. find the most defining peak for your snare and lower that in the guitars. Also scooping out some mud between 300-600 Hz is often a good idea. Many melodic and rhythm instruments will cover that area, even bass reaches up into those frequencies.
* In case you just have one guitar and want to make a little more out of that: try a hilbert filter (there is one in the SWH plugins). One output could do. It should even still be mono compatible.
* If a particiluarly dynamic element can't be tamed enough by one compressor with good settings, try cascading, i.e. put another compressor in series. It's different from one compressor with lower threshold or higher compression ratio (perhaps not applicable here).
* If your snare drum doesn't cut it, layer it with shaped white noise. You can even filter that to taste and used it only as a tail enhancer. This is easy enough, if you work with MIDI/samples. Any synth should do for that.
* If you're really hard pressed, you can do more at the mastering stage. Automate the volume of the section a bit, try more compression, some more EQ'ing. Opinions differ on that. Some say the mix itself should cut it. OTOH you find post mix or master-bus EQ'ing in a lot - if not all - modern productions. As well as compression/limiting.

In case my advice seems too simple or kindergarden level, I apologise, it can be difficult if you're not completely aware of someone's knowledge. - Anyway, thanks again for sharing this track. I'm very glad that you built ragequit into a "finished piece"!

Best wishes, Jeanette
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Re: Tenaba - Molten Husk

Post by Tenaba »

Rainmak3r wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 1:36 pm No need to feel embarassed! :mrgreen: I've noticed that sometimes Ardour also "forgets" how some tracks are panned, and puts them centered instead (it's rare but it happens). For guitars I've now grown accustomed to "anomalies" and so can tell right away if they're not panned as they should, but in other cases I tend to fall in the same trap too.
Nah, I can assure you I'll be embarassed about this for a while :lol: ! Thank you though. Hopefully after a few more mixes, I become more accustomed to the anomalies as you mentioned.
jeanette_c wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 7:33 pm Hi @Tenaba , this is a great track! I love your bass sound in particular. And I pull off my hat to you for having achieved that production. I rarely worked with real guitars, let alone bass and know from that experience that it takes time and much more efforrt than samples and synths. :) Btw. I like the bell-organ like synth, though it would still cut it at lower volume and so perhaps allow you to get the mix louder.
Your snare and kick also sound absolutely spot on! The kick has that extra click and the snare's gated/compressed reverb is just right. Though the snare is rather too low in the mix, perhaps.
Adding to Rainmak3r's advice, I'd say:
* you can send guitars and other elements to reverbs or delays of choice, so you can highpass filter them a lot to get out of the way.
* I have a feeling your bass might do with some heavier EQ, attenutating some low mids to get ot of the way of the guitars.
* High cutting is always an idea. I don't know how much you used that on the guitars. Put highpass filters on almost anything except bass and experiment, while the full mix is playing. Solo the highcut tracks can sound almost weak, but in the mix other instruments make up for that.
* EQ'ing in general is a good tool to clean up and make way. So you might selectively attenuate frequencies in many tracks to make room for the peak in one particular instrument. I.e. find the most defining peak for your snare and lower that in the guitars. Also scooping out some mud between 300-600 Hz is often a good idea. Many melodic and rhythm instruments will cover that area, even bass reaches up into those frequencies.
* In case you just have one guitar and want to make a little more out of that: try a hilbert filter (there is one in the SWH plugins). One output could do. It should even still be mono compatible.
* If a particiluarly dynamic element can't be tamed enough by one compressor with good settings, try cascading, i.e. put another compressor in series. It's different from one compressor with lower threshold or higher compression ratio (perhaps not applicable here).
* If your snare drum doesn't cut it, layer it with shaped white noise. You can even filter that to taste and used it only as a tail enhancer. This is easy enough, if you work with MIDI/samples. Any synth should do for that.
* If you're really hard pressed, you can do more at the mastering stage. Automate the volume of the section a bit, try more compression, some more EQ'ing. Opinions differ on that. Some say the mix itself should cut it. OTOH you find post mix or master-bus EQ'ing in a lot - if not all - modern productions. As well as compression/limiting.

In case my advice seems too simple or kindergarden level, I apologise, it can be difficult if you're not completely aware of someone's knowledge. - Anyway, thanks again for sharing this track. I'm very glad that you built ragequit into a "finished piece"!

Best wishes, Jeanette
No need to apologise, even simple points sometimes go forgotten/ignored (like the panning I missed earlier in the thread lol).

Good points on EQ, I'll have to keep them in mind. I do high-pass instruments, quite aggressively too. But that leads to me either leaving in mud from 300-600 as you mentioned, or even boosting some lower-mids to make up for it. Like you said, it sounds weak when solo'd, it's hard to try and ignore the solo sound, and convince myself that it's fine in a mix.

I also have to work on mastering too. Usually I don't trust myself to make improvements, so I just use a compressor and limiter for the master bus. I tried to make all my EQ and volume automation changes to the mix elements themselves.

Glad you liked the drum samples. They're free for commercial use, from The Metal Kickdrum. They already processed for metal mixes. I only had to put in a bit of EQ to adjust it to the rest of the mix.

And thanks very much for the in depth advice!

I make music as Tenaba! Bandcamp

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Re: Tenaba - Molten Husk

Post by GMaq »

Wow, this is excellent!!

Absolutely love the combo of the clanging bass and guitar grunt, super clean production and EVERYTHING sounds good, very impressed with the drums too!

Great job!
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Re: Tenaba - Molten Husk

Post by Tenaba »

GMaq wrote: Tue Oct 19, 2021 2:17 am Wow, this is excellent!!

Absolutely love the combo of the clanging bass and guitar grunt, super clean production and EVERYTHING sounds good, very impressed with the drums too!

Great job!
Thanks! The parallel-processed / clangy bass tone is pretty fun to work with, so I think I'll use it again for future metal songs. Glad you liked it.

I make music as Tenaba! Bandcamp

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Re: Tenaba - Molten Husk

Post by folderol »

Just found time to listen to this. It's a very good performance and well done overall, but not really what I'm into, so I can't in fairness say more than that.
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Re: Tenaba - Molten Husk

Post by oscillator »

Great song, @Tenaba, glad to hear you recording again! And I remember "Ragequit"! :)

I really like the attitude of the song, and the solo. Nice work!

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