Sydera review up at antiMusic
February 1st 2007 15:08
antiMusic has my review of Sydera's debut CD.
Main point:
"In many ways, Sydera's self-titled debut is everything mainstream heavy metal should be. The vocals are melodic, the rhythm guitars slam with solid-not-showboating riffs, the solos add to the songs, the lyrics work and classical piano and strings add a nice touch. Even the cover, a blood-drenched white rose, is pretty sweet."
One thing I wish I'd phrased better (wrote it a month or so ago) is when I say that Sydera does a better-than-average job of making the bass guitar pop out in the mix. In the next sentence, I imply that most metal albums don't bring out the "low end," which isn't exactly true.
The problem is that many albums leave too much low end in the regular guitars and mix the bass guitar down to inaudible levels. The problem isn't a lack of low frequencies in the mix; the problem is that they're coming from the regular guitar, which doesn't do a good job of producing them.
When I mix my own music (badly, I might add), I make sure to use what's called a high-pass filter on the guitars. This drains off the extreme low end to make room for the bass (which, as I don't play bass, comes from a keyboard).
The general rule is that you can kill off frequencies below the fundamental tone of the lowest note an instrument can play. At that point you're mainly eliminating mush and handing those frequencies to instruments that play in that range. For a guitar in standard tuning, you can kill everything under 80 hz.
UPDATE: I just realized, this is my 100th post on Orble!
Main point:
"In many ways, Sydera's self-titled debut is everything mainstream heavy metal should be. The vocals are melodic, the rhythm guitars slam with solid-not-showboating riffs, the solos add to the songs, the lyrics work and classical piano and strings add a nice touch. Even the cover, a blood-drenched white rose, is pretty sweet."
One thing I wish I'd phrased better (wrote it a month or so ago) is when I say that Sydera does a better-than-average job of making the bass guitar pop out in the mix. In the next sentence, I imply that most metal albums don't bring out the "low end," which isn't exactly true.
The problem is that many albums leave too much low end in the regular guitars and mix the bass guitar down to inaudible levels. The problem isn't a lack of low frequencies in the mix; the problem is that they're coming from the regular guitar, which doesn't do a good job of producing them.
When I mix my own music (badly, I might add), I make sure to use what's called a high-pass filter on the guitars. This drains off the extreme low end to make room for the bass (which, as I don't play bass, comes from a keyboard).
The general rule is that you can kill off frequencies below the fundamental tone of the lowest note an instrument can play. At that point you're mainly eliminating mush and handing those frequencies to instruments that play in that range. For a guitar in standard tuning, you can kill everything under 80 hz.
UPDATE: I just realized, this is my 100th post on Orble!
| 55 |
| Vote |
Subscribe to this blog
















