Case Study:

As stated before, For my FMP I will be making a Metal EP, in the styles of symphonic, thrash, hardcore and ambient metal. I will be using reference tracks from each of the genres, to give me a brief reminder of what each of these styles should sound like.

I will also be researching these styles, however, first the age old question needs to be addressed - what is heavy metal?

 

Heavy Metal, nowadays is often used as an umbrella term to define multiple styles of extreme music, which is mostly rock orientated. When the term was first created in the seventies, it referred to a specific style of rock music, which consisted of a much heavier and darker sound than the rock and roll music that came before it in the sixties (Walser, R. (2018)). Like rock music, bands that perform metal music consist of often one or two guitarists, who will usually play leads and rhythm parts, such as the riff or main foundation of a song, and a solo or melody (Guitar Gear Finder. (2020)), or they may play harmonies, which are when guitarists both play the same parts, however one guitarist usually plays higher up the fretboard, an interval, such as a fifth or fourth, higher than the other guitarist who will play their parts in root position (Russell, S. (2021)). The bands would also consist of a bass player, who would control the low end of the song, adding fatness and low end to the guitarists performance (Quora. (n.d.)), and a drummer, who provided a driving rhythm with a drum setup (marshall.com. (n.d.)). Vocals would be done either by a separate vocalist who's job would solely be to sing, or by one of the guitarists, or bass player. Like rock bands, metal bands sometimes included a keys player, to play keyed instruments, such as piano or hammond organ, as seen by done by John Lord in the band Deep Purple, one of the pioneering metal bands.

 

However, there were many sonic differences to metal bands, that differed from their rock and roll predecessors. Metal bands were very influenced by the Punk Rock scene, which was responsible for their angry and chaotic sound, but other musical influences, such as classical, as seen in many works by Deep Purple, blues, As seen in Rock Rolla by Judas Priest, Psychedelic, as seen in the works of Black Sabbath and early Deep Purple, and jazz, were also prominent in these highly experimental bands (Pearlin, J. (2014)), which gave these bands a different and more authentic sound than their rock ancestors, which often consisted of dissonant riffs, and strange scales, such as the Locrian and Phrygian modes, previously seen in Jazz, and the Minor Pentatonic and Blues scale, which was often seen in Blues music. These bands also used a different sound, timbre wise than the rock and roll bands the came before them, timbre defines the characteristics of a sound, for example the timbre of an A note on a Guitar, will be different than an A note on a Cello, because it will have a different timbre (www.merriam-webster.com. (n.d.)).

 

Timbre-wise metal consisted of a thicker and heavier and more distorted guitar tone, which gave them a fuller and fatter and thus heavier sound. Tube amps such as those made by Marshall, as well as myriad different fuzz and distortion pedals, such as the Ibanez TS tubescreamer, were and still are used heavily amongst metal bands to this day (Ash Music, S. (2019)). m. Moreover, the punk influence gave these bands an angrier and grittier sounding sound, for example with vocalists using screaming, and shouting and belting their lyrics, adding drama and and emotion to the music. Drummers also used faster and more intricate beats, to provide a heavy and fast drive to the music, with drum techniques, such as the skank beat which consists of the drummer hitting the snare on every beat, and the bass drum on the off beat, which is the space exactly in between the two beats, after each snare hit, at least, and a high hat or ride on every eighth note, being borrowed from punk, which replaced the classic rock beat that consisted of a snare hit on the up beat and a kick on the down beat, and a ride or high hat on every beat, that was played in rock music.

 

The genre was also notable of borrowing double bass drumming, which was first seen in jazz music by Louie Bellson back in 1939, and using it heavily to provide a fast and relentless driving force to the music, and making it a standard in the early seventies/late sixties. Double bass drumming essentially consisted of the drummer in question playing two bass drums with both feet, achieving a steady and relentless onslaught of driving bass drum hits, which can be used to make songs seem faster or to add a relentless and chaotic rhythm to the song. In later years, a double bass drum pedal was created, which allowed the player to use both feet to control two mallets that would hit a single bass drum, eliminating the need for a second bass drum, until it was brought back by Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo, dubbed the godfather of double bass, who claimed that two bass drums, while costly and spatially impractical, give the player a better tone, due to each individual bass drum being able to resonate freely after each hit and also remove the issue of kick back, which essentially occurs when loads of force is put on one drum head, leading to a forceful recoil. 

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Lyrics and imagery in metal drastically differed from its rock predecessors. Whilst rock often had promiscuous or rebellious lyrics, metal borrowed the rebellious aspect, provided by both rock and punk music, and often used it to extreme levels on stage and in lyrics, with bands like Judas Priest singing often about biking and racing cars/motorcycles and committing deviant acts, as seen in their piece Breaking the Law https://youtu.be/L397TWLwrUU. Likewise, metal also used darker and more fantasy related lyrics, which were meant to invoke fear in the listener and spark rebellion against religion, as was seen in Iron Maiden's Number of The Beast album, where the band used satanic themes and imagery, leading to the disapproval and ill-judgement of the older generations, who were more religious, and openly Christian.

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The promiscuous and drug-infused lyrics of rock and roll however, where also borrowed by metal, with bands like Motörhead, who were heavily punk influenced, singing about gambling addiction in their song The Ace of Spades,

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and in later years, the emerging Glam Metal scene, which borrowed elements of pop rock and glam rock, focused solely on promiscuous lyrics as seen in Girls Girls Girls by Mötley Crüe,

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while other bands sung more rebellious lyrics, as seen in I Wanna Rock by Twisted Sister, https://youtu.be/SRwrg0db_zY. Like rock, punk and classical music, many metal lyrics were very emotional and influenced by anger, sadness, anguish or lust.

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   The first bands that were noted to play in this style where Led Zeppelin, Queen, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest

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                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           - Led Zeppelin, Communication Breakdown

This piece shows the overdriven riffing that was used amongst the metal pioneers and incorporates some pretty harsh vocal techniques such as yelling and belting. It also includes some emotional and anguished/lustful lyrics, which are a prevalent theme in metal.

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                                                                              - Queen, Liar

This piece uses heavily distorted guitars and a plethora of good, heavy riffs and also incorporates some double bass drumming and even a few skank beats, alongside Freddie's accusatory and angry lyrics that occur often in metal. Queen are also said to have pioneered the metal genre of Thrash Metal, which is a style that I will be working with, in their song Stone Cold Crazy, which was said to be the first thrash song recorded.

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                                                                               - Black Sabbath

This piece uses a slower tempo, and a really dark atmosphere, made more prevalent with the usage of orchestral bells and a mellotron keyboard, which was a predecessor of the sampler. This song makes use of the dark/fantasy and horror inspired lyrical themes, boosted by satanic imagery, and the usage of a riff with a descending tritone interval, which is said to be the devil's interval, due to its dissonance and dark sound. A tritone essentially refers to an interval, so two notes, that are three tones apart (hence the name tritone), one tone is composed of two semitones, with a single semitone being one note up or down, so essentially one fret on a guitar. to achieve a tritone, one would need to play a root note, such as an E, and move three tones (six notes/semitones) up, reaching to the tritone, in this case an A#/Bb. This can easily be achieved on guitar, since the guitar is mostly tuned in perfect fifths, moving from the E string to the A string, and then moving up one fret on the A, would give the same result. In Black Sabbath, Toni Iommi plays the fifth fret on the D string, then moves down to the fourth fret on the A string, resulting in a descending Tritone. Black Sabbath were also known for pioneering Doom and Gothic metal, the latter is a style I will be working in as it is linked to symphonic metal.

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                                                                              - Deep Purple, Mandrake Root

This piece, alongside many other Deep Purple pieces uses a Keyboardist as part of the band, and thus uses a heavy keyboard tone, with this song in particular, using samples, a synthesiser, and a distorted hammond organ sound, played by the keyboardists John Lord. Ritchie Blackmore (guitarist) also plays in a Medieval/Barque band called Blackmore's Night, and is heavily influenced by Baroque and Classical music, and thus, is known to have pioneered Neoclassical Metal, as well as used many classical elements in metal music, and inspired others to do so, such as those in the symphonic, prog and gothic metal scenes. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                             - Iron Maiden, Phantom Of The Opera

This piece is heavily Punk Influences, alongside most of Iron Maiden's Early works, from both their debut album and their Killers album. It uses fast guitar riffs, fast drums and aggressive punk style vocals, done by Paul Di'anno, who is a punk singer. Alongside the fast and driving tempo and aggression of the drums and guitars, there is also the Galloping bass guitar of Steve Harris, who is known to have pioneered "the Gallop" that essentially uses groups of three notes, called triplets, played with three fingers on a bass, or with and up and down stroke with a pick on a guitar. It has became a staple in many thrash metal songs, such as Raining Blood by Slayer,

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  This piece also uses the horror theme, that is prevalent in metal, telling the story of The Phantom Of The Opera. Iron Maiden also pioneered the use of synths and samples in metal, to achieve symphonic sounds to make an eerie and dark atmosphere, as seen in their Album Seventh Son of a Seventh Son,

 

 

 

 

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where they hired keyboardist Michael Kenney, as well as made use of guitar synths, to achieve choral and symphonic sounds, essentially pioneering and inspiring the symphonic elements of gothic and symphonic metal bands that would come in later years, and this genre being one of the main genres I will be working in. 

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                                                                              - Judas Priest, One For the Road

This piece uses a slower tempo and a more rock oriented sound, with lyrics about good music and having fun and freedom, which often occur in many of Judas Priest songs as well as in many other metal songs. The song also uses heavy guitars and shredding leads, which are also prevalent in metal, with lead guitarists often playing extended, fast and technically demanding solos and lead lines. Judas Priest's style can be categorised as "Biker Metal: with themes about riding bikes and freedom used prevalently.

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Now, For a breakdown of the genres that I will be working in. I will be working mostly in the genres of symphonic metal, ambient metal and thrash metal, however Gothic Metal, Hardcore, Folk metal elements as well as Prog elements will also be present in certain tracks. So first some context regarding the genres themselves are needed. dating as far back as the seventies, metal undertook many variations and style changes throughout the decades, as it merged with other heavy styles and other musical styles in general, to form multiple sub-genres, which essentially means that the genre of music (in this case metal) has multiple different variations and styles it can be played in, such as the traditional heavy metal that it started with, thrash, new wave of British heavy metal (NWOBHM) and many others (Chosic. (n.d.)), I will now proceed to define and elaborate on the ones applicable to my FMP.

 

Thrash Metal:

Thrash Metal, also known as Thrash, is known for being the first official genre of extreme metal. It evolved in the early eighties, where bands in the metal world took to different directions regarding their music - on one hand, there were the more accessible, mainstream acts, such as the Glam Metal bands in the likes of KISS, Mötley Crüe, Cinderella and WASP, with Glam Metal, also known as Hair metal being a popular trend in the eighties, and involved bands adopting Glam Rock looks, wearing large, fluffy hair and heavy makeup and adopting pop music characteristics, including obscene and rude behaviour, disrespectful attitudes, overt pompousness and other "pop star cliches", into their music, as seen in this shocking video, where KISS members belittle an interviewer for wearing an Iron Maiden shirt.

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Musically, Glam was usually a lighter version of heavy metal, with most of the emphasis being put on aesthetic - to shock, both with an extreme and rebellious look, as well as explicit and sexualised lyrics, as seen in the aforementioned Mötley Crüe song, which often were about partying, sex, drugs, alcohol and what is known as the "Dionysian Theme" by metal lyrics researcher Deena Weinstein (dbpedia.org. (n.d.)) who uses two concepts as a way of referring to lyrics in the metal community - one being the Dionysian theme, which refers to the god Dionysus, who is god of wine and entertainment/party and thus the term Dionysian is used to refer to lyrics that are about partying, sex, drugs and booze, as seen in Glam metal, which are also a strong prevalent theme in pop music, which Glam is influenced by.

On the other hand, there were bands that disliked this Dionysian themed, pop craze and solely intended to be heavier, darker and go further against the mainstream. These bands were influenced by the older bands of the 70s, such as Iron Maiden, and used their heavy sound as an inspiration for their own music, which they made even faster, darker and heavier. This resulted in the birth of thrash metal, an extreme metal style, which used a much heavier and darker atmosphere, fast, distorted, dark, percussive and palm muted guitar playing, influenced by Iron Maiden's Galloping technique, which consisted of playing up and down triplet strokes on a Palm Muted E string (www.youtube.com. (n.d.)). Palm muting here being a technique used in metal which involves the player placing the side of their picking hand's palm, against the strings, to "mute" them, stopping them from ringing out as much and resulting in a tight, percussive and sharp sound (wikiHow. (n.d.)). I have used palm muting heavily in my riffs and ensured that they sound "thrashy" by playing rapid successions of palm muted power chords, with "pedal notes" in between, pedal notes being the palm muted E string, which give the riffs that drive and percussive feel. Of course, as stated previously, metal uses mostly heavily distorted guitars, so I used heavy distortion on my guitar, using an Ibanez TS-9 Tubescremer, as I could not get my hands on the original TS-808, which was said to have been used in many thrash albums such as the Reign in Blood Album, by Slayer, which I based my guitar tone of (Mixdown Magazine. (2018)).

I also used a Virtual Marshall amp, known as the Kerry King Signature, which emulates the sound of the real Kerry King Signature valve amp, made for Slayer by Marshall, and also copies the sounds of the Mic placements on cabs, using Impulse Responses (www.youtube.com. (n.d.)). I have used a virtual plugin solely because I could not afford a real Marshall, tube amp, for financial reasons, meaning that I had to use an amp sim, which uses software to colour and model the sound to sound like an amp, at least for the demo. For one of the lead guitar tracks, I used Ignite amps Emissary amp, to change the tone slightly. I may re-amp the guitars with real amplifiers in the studio, should I get the chance, as this will allow the guitars to sound better, due to playing through actual valves, and not fake software ones, as well as through a large cab, and into a mic, capturing room ambiance, and not just directly into an interface. Re-amping is essentially the process of recording a real, live amp and making it react like a real live guitar would, except it is done with pre recorded audio, in this case my pre recorded guitar parts (ProSoundWeb. (2020)).

Another strong influence for Thrash metal was the hardcore punk scene, which was focused on playing faster and more aggressive punk music, with rebellious lyrics fuelled by anger against the conservatism of the current political state of the world, such as the republican governments in America. According to Barney Hoskyns, Thrash and Hardcore, was essentially a younger, harsher, angrier, faster and more extreme version of typical punk rock, made by adolescents who hated their lives in a "bland Republican America", as quoted by him in the book Grinding California: Culture and Corporeality in American Skate Punk (Butz, K. (n.d.)).

The resulting sound for thrash, was fast, palm muted and angry metal music, with punk influenced beats, such as the aforementioned skank beat, which is made heavy use of in thrash, and consists of playing a traditional rock/metal beat of kick and snare, in double time, meaning that the snare will hit on every beat, in rapid succession (with thrash pieces often averaging in tempos from 185 to 230 beats per minute). double bass drumming is used extensively in thrash, with continuous bursts of double bass hits, and high hat/ride cymbals and china cymbals are played on every eighth note/quaver (www.youtube.com. (n.d.)). The vocal deliver techniques in thrash metal ranged from melodic singing, as seen by bands such as Anthrax and Megadeth, to harsh shouted vocals using the overdrive technique I mentioned in my blog, as seen done by bands like Slayer, Exodus, Death Angel, Overkill, Destruction and early Metallica. I have used these elements also in my music, with my pieces ranging from 186 to 220 bpm, and I plan to include vocals that will be angry and shouted, letting loose my rage regarding topics, such as mental health, global warming, war (such as the Ukraine war), politics and other similar topic that plague me in this day and age. I have also parodied certain things I disliked, hardcore punk style, and made a mockery of BoJo's Transphobic clown show,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

in the dark ambient/thrash outro piece, Stellar Eclipse, which will serve as an instrumental outro for the EP, where I played back a distorted/bitcrushed sample of his tirade, adding some heavy tape saturation and Wow/Flutter, which are effects created by tapes as they wear down, by using Nembrini Audio's Tape Cassette Plugin, and making BoJo sound Like a Dalek/Alien creature, further making him sound evil (​Observer, R. (2022)). I also played some of his speech backwards to make it seem as if he is going insane and saying random gibberish.

Certain bands in Germany, took the vocal harshness to the extreme and resulted in really raspy vocals, as seen done by Mille Petrozza from Kreator, whose technique pioneered the first death growl, and later paved the way for death metal bands like Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel, Orbituary and Death, the latter of which coined the term death metal, who used very distorted, guttural and harsh growls to convey brutal lyrics about slaughter, death, cannibalism, horrors and other vile topics, influenced by the nature and atmosphere of lyrics from thrash metal bands such as those from the pieces Angel Of Death by Slayer,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and Pleasure To Kill by Kreator,

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both of which focused on bloodshed, murder, war crimes, macabre and other horrors, and gained prominence for their controversial topics, often sparking controversies, in a similar vein to how hardcore bands would mention these and other politically incorrect themes, as a means of shocking audiences or parodying the messages they disagreed with, such as racism, sexism or homophobia, or even just mainstream music, as seen done by Lauren Kashan from Sharptooth in Say Nothing (In The Absence of Content) (​Revolver. (2020)). The principle of thrash lyrically was to use the Chaotic Theme, which is a term used by the aforementioned theorist Deena Weinstein, that refers to lyrics that are darker than the previously mentioned Dionysian theme, and talk about the bad things in life, such as injustice, mayhem, carnage, crime, death, hell, war, darkness etc. This is seen in the aforementioned two pieces by Slayer and Kreator, which talked about matters that were violent and controversial, such as the war crimes and human experimentation that are mentioned in Angel of Death, or bloodlust and murder, mentioned in Pleasure to kill.

Likewise thrash uses the previously established punk themes of anti-establishment lyrics, as seen in World Anarchy by Kreator

 

 

 

 

 

 

and anti authortitarian lyrics, which spoke out against Fascism as seen in the lyrics of Totalitarian Terror https://youtu.be/nb7kmUfMazc by Kreator (genius.com. (n.d.)),

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

but also other, more subtle authoritarian systems are criticised, such as how drugs and substances control the user, which is stated by James Hetfield in an interview with the Thrasher magazine in 1988 as the meaning behind the dark lyrics in Metallica's famous thrash metal piece Master Of Puppets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the 1988 interview, James Hetfield (guitarist and lead vocalist) stated ““Master of Puppets” deals pretty much with drugs. How things get switched around, instead of you controlling what you’re taking and doing its drugs controlling you. Like, I went to a party here in S.F., there were all these freaks shooting up and geezin’ and this other girl was real sick.” (Story of Song. (n.d.)). Also the piece Disciple by Slayer,

 

 

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criticises the Christian dogma and the church, and the control that religion has over people, implying that "God Hates Us All", another theme used in thrash, which is nihilism and pessimism, essentially stating "Screw it all, the world is F--ked" as also seen in the anti-war and anti establishment piece called Maniac Forces by the band Tankard,

 

 

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where lyrics, which were written at the time of the cold war, state the uncertainty and the fact that we could all die due to nuclear war. I have somewhat used these themes in my work, Criticising the state of the world in my lyrics for Upon A Bloodied Earth, and mentioning nihilistic and self hating themes in The Blade, which is about Mental Health issues, mostly used for shock value but also to shed light on the ignorance of people, ignorance being the thing that I criticised most in the lyrics of all three pieces, mentioning how people harm the world for their own gains in Upon A Bloodied Earth, in lines such as "World heats up, as we burn up, fossil fuels for energy", as well as referring to the Ukrainian War in said piece, criticising Putin's evil, "Assault on innocent nations by Bloodthirsty Dictators". I have also mentioned the melting of the Ice Caps, in the lines "In the year of 2022, there is little we can do, as the world around us melts", The environmentalist lyrics were heavily inspired by the lyrics of Critical Mass by Nuclear Assault,

 

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however the rhythm and aggressive delivery, and over criticism of the world were inspired by the lyrics of Dittohead  by Slayer.

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The darker themes themes of thrash, often bleed into other aspects of the Chaotic concept, and often the dark, gothic and satanic/mythological themes are seen in thrash metal, inspired by the shock value that these themes had when bands like Maiden and Sabbath used them, thrash bands such as Slayer, Sabbat, Sodom, Onslaught and Venom used these themes in their music, either to further antagonise the christian dogma, and "scare" people, however it is important to note that many of these bands were not satanic, and in fact did not conform to any religion, instead using the symbolism simply to mock religion (referring back to the parody aspect brought in from Hardcore Punk) or to "scare" or even offend religious bigots. As stated by Kerry King (one of the guitarists from Slayer) "Look, I can get into anything I write about. I can write about serial killers; I can be a fucking Satanist. I'm not a Satanist, I'm an atheist, but I write the best satanic lyrics on the fucking planet. And it's great entertainment. And religion is the funnest thing to make fun of." (Bomb, C. (2020)). I have applied many cryptic and gothic/satanic themes in my works, having made references to Celtic Paganism in the lyrics of my piece Tuath De Dannan, as well as openly criticised the christian dogma in said lyrics, presenting their god as evil, and equating him to the Fomorian leader Balor, which would be seen as extremely blasphemous by religious bigots. It is worth noting that christians have done the same thing to pagan gods in the early days, where they would equate the gods to evil spirits/demons, specifically the horned god Cerunnos/Faunus/Pan, was often said to be an embodiment of Satan. This means that making references to paganism in metal, as is often seen done by bands, such as Slayer, with pagan/witchcraft inspired pieces like Black Magic, would be seen as "satanic" and "evil" by religious bigots.

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The influences of the satanic themes, and the raw, rough style of bands like Venom, paved the way for Black Metal, another extreme genre which was created in Norway, and similarly to how death metal focused solely on death, horror, macabre and morbid themes, Black Metal capitalised and focused on the satanic, dark and gothic horror themes and imagery used by the aforementioned bands, in pieces like Crypts of Eternity by Slayer,

 

 

 

 

 

 

and Black Metal https://youtu.be/Tp_NKr_XDxQ by Venom,

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the latter of which actually coined the term and created the subgenre, and later bands like Celtic Frost and Bathory expanded on this with overtly and exclusively satanic and dark themes, as well as a raw and rougher sound that was characterised as Lo-fi and harsh sounding, shrill, shrieked vocals and frenzied, tremolo picked guitars, which is a technique were the player plays a single note in rapid succession by striking the string with a succession of up and down strokes, going up and down fast and consecutively. The dark lyrics of this genre later paved the way to enigmatic and mythological/pagan inspired lyrics of folk metal, as well as the dark, creepy and horror inspired lyrics of gothic metal.

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Production Wise, Thrash is heavily guitar driven, using multiple instances of guitars, using double tracking, which is a technique where two guitars play the same part separately (or one guitar plays it twice, in two separate takes), and both takes are then panned left and right , to create a wide stereo feel, of two guitars playing (Sundown Sessions Studio. (2019)). I have used double tracking in all my pieces for the EP, having tracked each guitar separately, on the same guitar. However to make the guitar sound more nuanced, I changed the amp settings for each take, and even changed the amp sim, for the lead. I tracked both rhythm guitars twice, and panned one hard left and hard right, and I did the same for the lead parts, however I did a third lead track, for the solos, which I ran through Logic Pro's pedalboard, and applied effects such as delay pedals, and the Pitch Pedal.

Dive Bombs are a quintessential performance technique in thrash, and are used often in solos by lead guitarists, such as Kerry King. A dive bomb is a technique on guitar that involves the vibrato bar (also known as the whammy bar) and is performed by playing a note then moving said bar up and then down rapidly, to create the effect of a bomb being dropped, essentially like a dubstep bass drop almost (Wilde, R. (2021)). Unfortunately I cannot use my whammy bar with my guitar, as it will go completely out of tune, so I used the pitch pedal and automation, to program in some faux dive bombs, after I recorded the solos. Automation essentially causes an effect to automatically come in during a piece, in a similar way to how you would stand on a pedal, while playing, and I used automation to trigger most of the virtual pedals (iZotope (2018)). I added some drama to the dive bombs by running them through the aforementioned delay pedal, called Blue Echo, which caused the bombs to echo and fade out, as the song continued. Delay is an audio effect that essentially causes the output wave to be repeated a few times, getting quieter and quieter, the amount of times the repeated wave is repeated, depends on the settings on the pedal, with the repeats control controlling how much the transient repeats, and the time control controls how long this happens (Hack Audio. (n.d.)).  

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                          - The Blue Echo Delay Pedal Set Up

                          

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- The Virtual Pedalboard that the Lead Solo is being ran through. The Graphic EQ Here Serves as a Tone control pedal, boosting the mids, in order to ensure the solo cuts through the mix. The Wham pedal, as the name suggests, serves the function of a virtual whammy bar, with the main foot board being controlled by automation, in a similar vein to a wah pedal, to control the pitch of the sound wave, creating dive bomb effects. These effects are them repeated, in a fading out, echoing manner by the Blue Echo pedal, which is turned on by automation, after the dive bomb happens. As stated before, the guitar is also being ran through a Tubescreamer pedal in real life, which helps boost the signal and add some initial drive. the TS-9 Tubescreamer is an overdrive pedal, which is a type of distortion pedal that applies mild distortion to the guitar, allowing it to be even more distorted by the amp. Whilst many metal genres achieve distortion differently, some using fuzz or distortion pedals as their main form of drive, for example Swedish Death Metal, which uses a Boss HM-2 distortion pedal, with a clean amp, letting the pedal do all the work (www.youtube.com. (n.d.)), Thrash metal however mostly relies on the warm sounds of distorted valve amps, such as Marshall amps, to achieve a distorted tone. 

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A fundamental sound in Thrash Metal is a scooped mid range rhythm tone. I have set up my amp sims on both rhythm guitar tracks, in all the pieces, to have a scooped mid range, and more emphasis on Bass. This gives the guitars a thicker sound, with less mud and loose frequencies, and a bigger and more rounded sound, as Mid range tends to be where mud and boxiness lies, as well as tinny frequencies. Many thrash metal artists will turn down their mids, and use a Tubescreamer to boost their signal instead. Mids in thrash are scooped specifically due to the speed at which the riffs are played, and their emphasis on low end, meaning that the boxy frequencies of the midrange will interfere with the sound and mud up the mix, as stated by A Metalhead's Life "...A guitar tone with loads of mids is good for anything before thrash." (www.youtube.com. (n.d.)).

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 Here is the Amp Settings for the Left Rhythm Guitar Track (Above) and the Right Rhythm Guitar Track (Below), Both Use a similar setting and sound, however one has slightly less mids and more presence, to differentiate between the tones, to create the feel of two guitars playing, and make the mix have a wider feel

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 There is no specific way that cabs have to be mic-ed up in Thrash, however in metal they have to be thick and punchy sounding, and not sound brittle, messy or tinny. A Shure SM57 mic on an ENGL cab, placed near the edge of the speaker, would sound best for thrash, as shown in this video,

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which shows that a lot of the tone here is dependent on one's tastes, and finding that "sweet spot", with the Microphone. A shure dynamic mic is great for up close mic up of a cabinet, as it is a dynamic, meaning it can handle higher SPL levels, which are sound pressure levels, and essentially refer to the amount of amplitude, in decibels a mic can take before becoming overloaded (Anon.(n.d.)). 

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To achieve a Slayer-esque sound, I can use the microphone positions shown on the Cabinets in the Kerry King Signature Amp plugin, which are apparently, how Slayer's producer Rick Rubin set them up for Kerry King:

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From Personal Experimentation, I have found out that the 57s ( mics 3 and 2) as well as the M88, sound the best, due to being off axis, meaning that they are not in front of the audio source (inSync. (1997)), and both from personal experience, as well as from the aforementioned ENGL Cab Micing video, I found that off axis sounds thicker and fuller, and less scratchy/fizzy. 

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Symphonic Metal:

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Symphonic Metal is a style of metal music that involves orchestral/symphonic sounds in the mix, alongside a regular metal band set up, of guitars bass and drums. Symphonic metal in essence can refer to any kind of metal with these orchestral elements included, in the form of strings, choirs, brass, woodwinds or percussion, and technically speaking any metal band could be symphonic, as long as they make use of such elements. That being said the term symphonic metal was first coined in the late eighties and early nineties, where thrash, death, black and gothic metal bands looked at expanding their sonic palette, in order for their music to sound darker, heavier and more cryptic. The first "officially" recognised symphonic metal piece was Dies Irae, by the thrash metal band Believer.

 

 

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Despite this, symphonic elements in metal have existed to some extend prior to this, dating as far back as the 70's, were bands like Black Sabbath, used the mellotron, a tape based sampler, which used strips of tape to play back samples of orchestral sounds, since digital sampling was not introduced back then (Soundfly. (2017)), as seen in their piece Megalomania.

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Real orchestras were also seen used by bands, as seen on Spiral Architect by Black Sabbath.

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Prog Metal bands in the Seventies and Eighties, also used symphonic elements provided, by mellotrons and organs alike, as seen on the 1970 album by Iron Claw, in the piece Devils.

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With the coming of digital synthesis in the eighties, synthesisers were used to achieve symphonic sounds, as seen on the aforementioned album Seventh Son of a Seventh Son by Iron Maiden, where the band became the first to make use of the technological breakthrough, and even got Steve Harris' bass technician, Michael Kenney, To play keyboard synths for them live on tour (Kielty, M.K. (n.d.)). As stated by the article, It was a controversial move on Maiden's part, as many people feared that the synthetic sounds of a synthesiser would sound bad trying to emulate orchestral sounds, and would ruin the bands sound. This is still a prevalent factor to why many symphonic metal bands choose to avoid synth/keyboard orchestrations and instead invest into sample libraries or hire orchestras or strings players, as seen done by the band Blackthorn, who hired a String Quartet and Choir during the recording of their second album, Codex Archaos (www.youtube.com. (n.d.)) and also have a violinist as part of their band, this is an issue prevalent even today (Ultimate Metal (n.d.)).

I have opted to also not use my Korg Pa700 Workstation Keyboard for my symphonic works, firstly as my keyboard skills are poor, and I would need to record each instrument separately, to sound like a full orchestra, meaning I could never get the timings right. Secondly, and more importantly, because I dislike the stock symphonic sounds of the Keyboard, as like most synths and keys, they do indeed sound fake, and maybe even slightly annoying, and I really do not want the EP to sound "cheesy". So I instead decided to use a professional scoring sample library, by Spitfire Audio, which features professionally recorded orchestral samples, that are only playable in the range of the real instruments. I have also used the Mel9 mellotron pedal, which serves as a guitar Multi Effects unit that turns a guitar sound into a Mellotron sound. I prefer real orchestral sounds, so I used the mellotron only for the choirs, as they serve as a nice textural pad for the guitar. I may also track some bowed guitar, using a power bow on my guitar, to create the sounds of strings. A power bow, also known as an E bow, or guitar sustainer, is a small device that uses an electromagnetic field to vibrate the strings on a guitar, when applied, in the same manner a cellist would move their strings with a regular bow, resulting in new sounds achieved from the guitar, which are said to sound like bowed strings, flutes and even brass, but also new effects can be achieved when soloing, allowing for infinite sustain, as the strings on the guitar will vibrate for as long as the power bow remains on them, only ceasing if the bow is removed, is turned off or runs out of battery life (www.wise-geek.com. (n.d.)). 

If it wasn't already obvious, symphonic metal doesn't always have to be made with real symphonic instruments, as samples and synthesised sounds often are used, as seen done by the band Nightwish, who are probably one of the first and possibly the most well known symphonic metal bands, and feature a live organist and keyboard player who is also the founder of the band.

                                                               

                                                                - Toumas Holopainen (founder of Nightwish) Playing                                                                         his keyboards

                                          

 

 

Production techniques in this genre therefore vary, as some bands, such as SepticFlesh or Dimmu Borgir, who use real live symphonies, will need to physically set up overhead Mics to capture the sound of each strings, brass, woodwind and percussion player, as well as choir singers, in a live setting, as seen here:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 where each section of the orchestra and each percussionist has two or more overheads around them, to capture the sound . Some bands such as Carach Angren, or Blackthorn, do most of the "dirty work" of scoring, tracking and recording and producing the orchestrations in the studio, and then play them back as audio in the background, when playing live, as seen on this live video of Blackthorn:

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where certain pieces, such as The Nethersource, Feast Upon Lifeblood and Hosts Of Sylvian Gloom have a pre-recorded orchestral/choral soundscape, and the only other orchestral instrument present there is Less' Electric Violin, which can be plugged directly into a D.I. box, which allows it to be instantly hooked up to the mixing desk, and to the PA, as stated by Radial Engineering, a DI box also allows the sound to travel for one hundred meters, without adding any noise (Radial Engineering. (n.d.)). This sort of setup allows bands like Blackthorn to play in smaller venues, as they do not have to haul in loads of mics or hire loads of players.

When I recorded orchestral parts for each of my pieces, I tracked the mellotron parts alongside my guitar, directly into an input on my interface. This allowed me to track guitar and track the choir at the same time, which gave the piece a more live and organic feel, as this is the way a guitar player usually would use this pedal live, as seen in this video:

 

 

 

 

 

 

where the player actually uses two amps, one with a clean channel and reverb, designated for the mellotron, and another designated for the guitar, as opposed to tracking the guitar, and then separately tracking choirs. However one thing I also did do is double track choirs, when I double tracked guitars. This allowed me to achieve a fuller and wider stereo sound, as previously explained when referring to guitar double tracking. A symphonic metal band that does this well, is the Symphonic Thrash/Groove metal band Hevein, who use a single cello and a single violin as their main source of orchestration, and studio recordings of them often feature multiple instances of tracked celli and violins, with the final outcome resulting in a large string section sound, out of literally two instruments, as seen on their EP Gentle Anarchy.

 

 

 

 

 

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Another thing Hevein does well, is string harmonies, using the naturally high sound of the violin, layered with naturally low sound of the cello, to create a haunting two part harmony. I have done this too, using the low choir sound on the Mel9, blended with the high choir sound, often done alongside guitar harmonies.

The Mel9 pedal can play back nine of the orchestral sounds that would usually be seen on a mellotron, and the can all be switched on the fly with a dial, and their Attack, meaning how fast they come in, and decay, meaning how long they last, after the string stops vibrating (isle.hanover.edu. (n.d.)) can also be adjusted with the attack and sustain dials (www.youtube.com. (n.d.)). For symphonic metal, an ethereal sound is required, that sits well with other orchestrations, dominant guitars and drums, bass and vocals, for this, I set the attack to 12 o'clock, meaning that the transient would not be so heavy, as the guitars were very percussive, due to the thrash style riffs, meaning that I would need to set the attack back a bit, to stop the choir being "jerky" and percussive, and giving it a smoother sound, while also retaining a somewhat loud transient. I also set the decay on full, as I needed the choir to sustain over the guitars when they are playing pedal notes, so to create an ethereal choral drone under the riff, adding drama and weight.

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                                        - The Mel9 was set either on Low Choir (8) or High Choir (9) and                                                 had the dry effect turned all the way down, which means that the                                               dry sound of the guitar was not present in the choir sound. The                                                 Effect (Wet) dial was set to be on full volume, giving                                                                       the full volume of the choir. Attack was set to just  around 12                                                       o'clock, and Sustain cranked fully, to make the choir flow smoothly. The pedal has two outputs, one where the choir comes out (alongside the dry guitar if the dry dial is turned up). The other output only lets through the original guitar sound, allowing the original sound to go to a separate input to a high gain amp, and the choir to go to a different input.  

 

To make the choirs really sound large, I ran each choir track through a bus with Space Designer on, which also was connected to the main orchestra. This would create the feeling that the orchestra and choir are all playing together in the same room. Space Designer adds reverb and a concert hall IR, which causes whatever audio that runs through it to sound like it is in a certain room, in this case a concert hall; it is a capture of the acoustics of an environment or room. According to the Helix blog, "IRs were first used to recreate unique acoustic spaces in reverb processors, and they changed the professional music mixing game by making huge rooms like the Sydney Opera House available as studio reverbs for the first time" (Helix (n.d.))

Likewise, for the orchestral parts themselves, I used the aforementioned Sample Library, and orchestrated the tracks in a similar style to the way SepticFlesh have in their album Titan:

 

 

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with focus on the low end to add weight and darkness to the guitars, using french horns, celli and bass trombones, as my focal point, as seen on many songs from the aforementioned album. In order to give the parts a human factor, I played each section separately, using my guitar as a MIDI controller, with the Jam Origin Guitar to MIDI converter. A guitar to MIDI converter, essentially allows the user to convert notes played on the guitar, to MIDI, which is, as stated before in my blog, Musical Instrument Digital Interface. Guitar to MIDI converters were used by Iron Maiden to achieve symphonic sounds in Seventh Son of a Seventh son, alongside the regular keys, and also provided for the main bulk of the cyber/synth bass tones in the previous album, Somewhere In Time:

 

 

 

 

 

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as well as on Judas Priest's EDM influenced Turbo album:

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Guitar to MIDI converters allow guitarists to control synthesisers and sample based instruments with their guitars, removing the need for keyboard setups, vastly reducing space and giving guitar players more sonic freedom (Anon, (2020)). As the article explains, guitar to MIDI devices serve as a much more "expressive" alternative to a MIDI keyboard, and allow the player to perform and achieve sounds that are difficult to obtain or unachievable on a keyboard, such as slides, which are techniques that involve the guitarist sliding from one fret to another, up or down the neck (published, K.D. (2017)), creating a huge Glissando effect, which is essentially a continuous move from one note to another (www.wise-geek.com. (n.d.)). With a guitar, you can also achieve vibrato, which is a pulsation in pitch, often seen on orchestral instruments, such as strings, and essentially involves rapid shifts in pitch, and it is done by moving the fretted note slightly up and down (hubguitar.com. (n.d.)). 

Likewise, I have used this technique to ensure that the orchestral instruments sound organic, meaning that they will have all the pitch fluctuations and nuances that a string or wind instrument would have, such as vibrato and detune. Detune is essentially used to refer to the slight pitch nuances between sounds. When controlling a sample, it is impossible to achieve detune on a keyboard, meaning that the instruments will always be perfectly in tune each time, or in the same tune that the sample was in. However when using a guitar, the natural detune of the bent strings and fingers being on different positions on frets, means that detune is achieved on each sample, when played so that they are not always perfectly in tune, just like real instruments would be, and according to Basic Wavez, "...Detune can also be used to make sounds wide" (basicwavez.com. (n.d.)) meaning that the whole orchestra should sound bigger.  

Some more mainstream bands, such as Nightwish and Epica, feature classically trained singers, who are often sopranos and sing in an operatic soprano style, as seen on Dark Chest of Wonders by Nightwish.

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Similarly other bands, such as Cradle Of Filth and Blackthorn, use a "Beauty and the Beast" style approach, pioneered by Gothic metal band Theatre of Tragedy, which consists of using two vocalists, singing in a duet with two vocal techniques - very often this being that the first vocalist will sing in the Soprano Operatic style, and the other will perform harsh vocals, guttural growls or black metal shrieks, or a mixture of all (Metal | aminoapps.com. (n.d.)). This technique is most often seen in the Gothic metal inspired bands, such as Dimmu Borgir or Cradle of Filth, as seen in the latter's hit single Nymphetamine Fix:

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where Danni Filth does harsh or shrieked vocals, and Liv Kristine sings the clean chorus. I however will refrain from doing this to my vocals, when recording, and instead stick to clean singing, shouting and overdrive, to keep the thrash metal/punk aesthetic. I may however record choral vowel sustains on vocals, or shouts of certain phrases with the song, as seen done by the choir in the piece Prometheus by SepticFlesh,

 

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where the choir simply shouts "Deus Ex Machina". doing something similar to this will help add drama to the piece, these little chants/vocals however will be multi-tracked separately from the lead vocals, in the background of the mix and ran through the same reverb bus that the orchestra and tape choir is going through, so to make it seem like there is a chanting choir in the same room with the orchestra and mellotron choir. This has been seen done by certain non symphonic bands, such as Dethklok, as seen in their show's intro piece Deththeme:

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and Queen, as seen in many pieces, for example Ogre Battle:

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One problem that I have faced, and will possibly face more over time, when recording and composing orchestral/choral parts for metal, is the fact that the mix will become really busy, due to the large amount of instruments and sounds that occur when working with a full orchestra, and the sonic clashes that will occur, when two heavy and intense styles of music, in this case metal and orchestral music, are blended together. I have faced this issue a multiple of time, and fund out that when composing both metal and orchestral music, the less advanced parts that you give to the different instruments the better. This is due to the fact that the cube theory will come into play. The cube theory states that every mix is confined within a sonic "cube", with lowest frequencies being at the bottom of said cube and mids being at the middle and highs being on top respectively. The sides of the cube represent the stereo pan, meaning that things on the left side of the cube will be panned left and those on the right will be panned right (J. Falconer (n.d.)).

Having said that, in order for a mix to sound clear and not be overcrowded, each instrument must have its own space within the cube. This is difficult to achieve when many instruments are playing at once, as the different frequencies of these instruments begin to clash and blend with each other, drowning each other out. A common culprit in metal music, is the bass guitar and bass drums - very often in a metal band, the bass will be playing a riff while the drummer will be hammering out rapid bursts of double bass kicks. This often leads to the low end of both instruments clashing, and being inaudible over the louder instrument (in this case the two large drums can easily over power the bass guitar). I have somewhat fixed this specific issue by using a five string bass on most songs, which is even lower then the bass drums, and will sit lower  

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