MNEMIC IN MIXING/MASTERING & REVEALING MORE SONG TITLES

Danish metallers MNEMIC have begun mixing their fourth studio album “Sons Of The System”, for a January 18th release via Nuclear Blast Records. Guitarist Mircea Eftemie states; “We’ve currently nailed five songs out of 15 and we are continuing to nail one song per day, so on later this week the album will be completed – good times. Some extra song titles for you gays’n'gals: “Elongated Sporadic Bursts”, “Hero(in)”, “Within”…  and as you can see from the pictures we are having lots of fun here at the Antfarm Studios – we did also nail a bunch of alcohol with these songs.

What can I say, the material is really diverse, the most diverse we have ever made, and I know it sounds cliche to say that, but it really is. We have different inspiration sources nowadays, we are of course still a metal band, but we actually listen to a lot more than just metal. That aspect has contributed to the eclectic and diverse material of this new album.

One more thing that is totally cliche to say; its going to be the best album of 2010 and its going to be the best production Tue Madsen has ever made…. oh yeah!”.

]]> http://studio.sonsofthesystem.com/mnemic-in-mixingmastering-revealing-more-song-titles/feed/ 3 http://studio.sonsofthesystem.com/mnemic-studio-blog-vocals/ http://studio.sonsofthesystem.com/mnemic-studio-blog-vocals/#comments Fri, 09 Oct 2009 10:59:12 +0000 mnemic http://studio.sonsofthesystem.com/?p=71 Finally we are done tracking all of our instruments, except for vocals, samples and keys. Since we all are into ProTools, we are all contributing more or less with ideas.

Guillaume started tracking vocals today, he is a bit rusty since he didn’t scream for the last couple of months, but I quite like it. His screaming vocals sound, and I am not sure if it’s a good idea to say it, but I will say it, like Michaels at some passages. That’s exactly the first thing that came out of Rune’s mouth when we heard the first tracked song. Kind of weird if I may add, but as long as it sounds good to us, it doesn’t really matter in the end.

The main point of this recording is basically “two brains are better than one” – it has been a more collaborative process, actually it’s been the most collaborative process we have ever undertaken. I guess that is how you learn over the years how to cooperate with your friends, you learn to respect other ideas and everyone takes the constructive criticism, if there is any – no hard feelings, we are all contributing for a greater cause, so to say.

I can’t wait for all of you to hear what’s coming out of this monster!

Song titles so far: Orbiting, Climbing Towards Stars, Dreamjunkie, The Erasing, March Of The Tripods, Diesel Uterus…. and a lot more to come! Stay tuned!

Well, moving on to the bass parts, today we setup some of the new gear we got in from our friends at T.C. Electronic. Again we are trying to go different ways, as we always recorded with Ampeg but now its time to try something else.

We setup both the Ampeg stack along side T.C.’s RebelHead 450 bass amp for comparison, and came quickly to the conclusion that the RH450 had a much more raw but clear sound than the Ampeg. As all digital processor units are trying to emulate tube based amps and analog units in general, we must say the DSP took us by surprise in the RH450. By comparing the two we quickly decided to try out the RH450, and it did give us a more clear sound but a very thick sound, which was satisfactory to record. So we trashed the Ampeg, and we’ll go digital all the way, as for the basslines.

The RH450 is quite cool, it even has a build-in chromatic tuner, the knobs on the interface are the basic tone-controls that every amp has, but the cool thing about it is that they are also semi-parametric, in which its possible to change where the tone-controls grab your bass sound. More importantly, as all digital processor units, it emulates a tube-amp, a nice warm tube sound, and without kissing too much ass to our beloved sponsors, we are actually and honestly quite impressed by this piece of wonderful hardware that we are using for the “Sons of The System”.

We have begun tracking the first song, this one is called “Climbing Towards Stars”, not much to say about it other than its mid-tempo, heavy, and all in F# more or less.. so yes, its heavy. Should Tomas nail 15 songs in 2-3 days, he will definitely come out as a hero.

This week we are starting recording the guitars. For this process we have tried out some heads and some different cabs. Apparently it was all in the cabs. We are using 3 different cabs, and actually one of them is the first Marshall cabinet that i bought when i was 17 years old. We even tried Line 6 cabs, but they have this canned sound (yes, they sound like shit), compared to the Marshall, they didnt stand a chance. Randall cabinets sounded pretty good too, but in the end we ended up using one Randall cabinet and 2 different Marshall cabs. Its weird considering that the same units are to be found in both cabs (or maybe all? i dunno).

I have never been a sucker for gear, well at least not when we started the band, i always found it boring, but thats how it is when you are young, naive and like to party and have tits and ass on your mind 24/7. My point is that i learned the hard way about gear over the years, bad sounding shows forced me to look more and more into my gear. I always loved Machine Heads sound, and after playing with them a couple of times, i got into their gear as well. Both guitarists used old 5150s and i never understood how they got this massive sound, untill i asked Rob about it, who solved the mystery by telling me its all in the Tubescreamer… i guess everybody knew that, except for moi – as i said, i never gave a shit about gear, i always fiddled around to whatever sounded good to my ears.

During last year i had the opportunity to buy a 5150, a Tubescreamer and i have never been more happy about an amp or sound – guess what? We are also recording with it. For most of the times we have used Mesa/Boogie, which everybody is using, not that they are sounding bad or anything, but why not try to record with something that you actually can replicate live?

As far as recording the amount of guitars, we are trying different combinations, all in all to make it sound more dynamic. This means, instead of recording with the same amp for an entire song at the time, we are combining 3 different heads for different parts in each song.  The majority of the rhythm guitars are recorded by Rune, who is doing a great job. First day nailed 3 songs, and now its my turn to try and fuck things up. We’ll keep you updated – in the meantime, check out some photos.

Why don’t we just start from the beginning…At the end of 2007 I started composing the first Mnemic song, which I later trashed ’cause it simply sucked. It was uninspiring, regular metal, nothing new under the sun. Since then lots of songs have been trashed, haha…and the same goes for the other band members. We have had a hard time pinpointing where we wanted to go musically. We are 5 different individuals these days, with 5 different views on music. I listen to everything from the Wu Tang Clan, Curtis Mayfield to all sorts of drum’n'bass artists, to mostly the old metal records. The same goes for the others, we are not listening to the same metal albums that inspired us 6-7 years ago, we have different inspiration sources. This aspect did contribute to a lot of debate between us, and also helped shape the 15 songs we chose out of a big bulk of material. At the end of the day we are still a metal band, but with different inspiration sources. With this said, we are ready to fuck everyone up.

So, before we started recording the drums, we also tryed to listen to some other productions that we liked. In fact we kind of came to an agreement of not having a superficial drum sound, where everything is cut, everything is edited, and in the end done by “Beat Detective” – we have actually never done that, for all of you non-believers, Brian knows how to play his stuff, its really that simple.

Moving on to the sound, we want a simple sound, and first and for most a natural drum sound, wihtout sounding too dry, a la Kyuss or C.O.C. but more punchy and in your face. More like a Rick Rubin sound, where everything is more open, and unprocessed, think Red Hot Chilli Peppers or Slipknot.

We have simple groovy songs and we have complex songs, so Brian started of course warming up with some of the more simple songs, to get into the groove. At the moment we have tracked 6 songs out of 15, and the drumming sounds extremely solid!

I can’t wait till we move on to the guitars…well, actually I can’t wait till we are done and have the final product in my hands!

Written by Mircea

“After a minor 2 year break from touring, we have returned to the studio, to record 15 brand new tracks. Our batteries are re-charged and we are extremely excited to let you all hear the new stuff. The material it self is a mixture of grind, rock, polyrhytmics, electronics and represents the sound of a more mature Mnemic, at least in our humble opinion. Compared to the last album, the recordings will be kept completely on Danish soil. This time we are more within our own comfort zone, and will be working with the same dude that made us 2 great sounding albums in the past, which is none other than Tue Madsen, who is a really good friend and a great producer. The drums will be tracked at the Antfarm Studio, while guitars, bass and vocals will be immortalized at the bands own studio, under Tue’s supervision. At the end of the recording process, electronics, mix and mastering will then again be handled at the Antfarm Studios. During the recording process we will try to keep you all updated on the progress via sonsofthesystem.com.”

Watch out for the “Sons Of The System” in the making right here at this site! There will be tons of updates, pictures, videos and information directly from the band – Stay in-tune!”