Emunator Posted May 5 Share Posted May 5 Credits: Emunator: Arrangement, programming, guitar/bass/percussion (programmed), mixing, mastering Psamathes: Vocals Pixels & Paradiddles: Rhythm guitars, lead guitar (e-bow), drums (kit) Ridley Snipes: Bass (live), vocal mixing Lucas Guimaraes: Guitar (clean) Chromatic Apparatus: Cello Theophany: Guitar (drone, lead), additional vocal editing (special thanks to Chimpazilla and Snappleman for extra assistance with mixing and mastering advice) Notes: This was my entry for Dwelling of Duels, where it placed 7th out of 27th for October 2023's Horror Month. I love competitions like this, because it gives me an opportunity to branch out of my comfort zone and try new things while under a deadline, which means that I actually have a chance of finishing something. This piece, aside from being my first submission to Dwelling of Duels, marks a few other firsts for me - my first time working with a lead vocalist, and my first time producing metal. My catalog of previous remixes probably doesn't imply this but I'm actually a huge metalhead, so to actually be able to pull something like this off was a dream come true. The reference for this piece was Chelsea Wolfe (specifically Twin Fawn), whose dynamic arrangements mix clean and distorted vocals with industrial, gothic, and doom metal elements. I actually had a fairly easy time with the initial arrangement, and quickly recruited a team of performers to help bring the vision to life. Psamathes was an obvious choice for lead vocalist - her entire vibe was PERFECT for the brand of gothic metal I was aiming for, and she was totally on board with the reference tracks I sent. Chromatic Apparatus and ParadiddlesJosh were also no-brainer choices - total professionals who really elevated the arrangement beyond my capabilities. CA also shared some home-brewed horror sfx that he recorded himself, which you'll hear throughout the piece! As far as guitars go, that's where we got a little more creative. I'll give a brief breakdown of how each person contributed - 5 different guitarists (if you count my programmed ones) contributed to the final product. It was truly a blast getting to mix and match everyone's contributions, and thankfully the arrangement was long enough that every part had room to breathe. Myself: Original part writing for rhythm and e-bow lead, sequenced tremolo guitars (1:33-1:56, 4:55-5:55) and feedback effects during the outro Pixelseph: Distorted rhythm guitars, e-bow lead throughout the song Ridley Snipes: Distorted bass (which was actually just a pitched-down electric guitar) Theophany: Distorted noise guitars throughout, tremolo lead guitar from 3:13-3:53 Lucas: Clean guitar riffs from 1:23-3:13 If the impending DoD deadline lit a fire under me to get the arrangement completed, it also completely torched me on the back-end production. I was working non-stop up to the day of the deadline, and only received the drums and raw vocals 3 hours before submissions were due (through absolutely no fault of my collaborators, to be clear! The procrastination was all on me.) I barely left myself with time to mix anything - I literally slapped an Ozone preset on the master, exported the song and uploaded it 1 minute before the deadline, dredging up some horrible flashbacks to uploading my college homework at 11:59pm on the due date. Because of this, the submitted version contained some pretty unfortunate technical errors, namely me forgetting to disable a gain plugin AFTER my mastering chain, effectively clipping the entire track by +5dB. I'm honestly amazed I managed to pull out a 7th place finish with how rough it sounded (it's still preserved in all its sausaged glory here, if you're a masochist.) After the competition, I enlisted some help to give this the proper level of shine that it desperately needed. I continued to polish the instrumental mix, Theophany helped me edit the vocals properly in Melodyne, and Ridley Snipes flexed his producer chops with some really creative vocal processing across the whole track. I then made several passes at the mix/master, working with Chimpazilla and Snappleman over a long span of time while I tried to perfect everything. Finally, after 7 months, it's reached its final form! A million thanks to everyone for the brilliance you contributed to this, and patience while I got it across the finish line. Silent Hill 4: The Room - Room of Angel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted May 16 Share Posted May 16 (edited) lot of big names on that list. starts out with some big sfx and distortion elements before settling into to some very gothic architecture with the cello and keys alongside the distorted cinematic percussion elements. vocals at 0:37 are stunningly similar to the original - what a great choice of collaborator, and the lead guitar here sounds incredible next to the vocals. we get the really raw band sound at 1:14 and it's appropriately huge and intense for like five seconds. i love the patience shown there. next verse is at 1:23 and it quickly kicks back to the big metal band sound. the singer's timbre doesn't quite work with the band sound here simply because it's so delicate compared to the backing elements. it's audible because of the mixing but i'd have preferred more meat to her tone there. the patience again show at roughly 1:50 through the next verse reminds me a lot of Blue Man Group's first album - there's a lot of interesting interplay between percussive and plectral elements here. i start to hear some of ridley's vocal processing at like 2:48 and that's some interesting work. it helps keep it moving forward so that's good given how slow the bpm is. we finally get a full-throated singer with the band at 3:14. i think this is a little blown still - it's hard to really pick out what the vocalist is doing here with how oppressively loud the guitar elements are, i keep losing the tone amidst everything else. it's still super exciting and a good payoff section. there's another bridge/backoff section after this that's pretty extended, again showcasing patience and not just blowing through the concepts. the string work here is really pretty, and the build into 4:55 is great. this chorus is a little less oppressively loud and i found it easier to hear everything that was going on. after this is all falling action, which as expected doesn't go quickly given the pace of the overall track. there's a lot of interesting distorted elements in here. there's a wobble in the vocalist's line right at the 6:00 that i think is unintentional. other than that it's a fade with some juicy reversed elements and then it's done. as expected, this is super dope! the list of collaborators was intense so i knew it would be a pretty big effort overall, and it's turned out great as a result. i have nitpicks as expected for such a big undertaking, but overall this is superb. you did a great job of capturing the feel and unnerving vibe of the original in a totally new format. excellent work. YES Edited July 3 by prophetik music formatting Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hemophiliac Posted July 3 Share Posted July 3 There's amazing restraint and contrast in this piece. If more metal was like this I'd listen to it on a regular basis. When everything is heavy, nothing is. So giving a great contrast between heavy and more ambient contrasting sections really allows this to develop and creates weight with the heavy sections. 3:14 feels like the section caught the compressor and got squashed some. The distortion on the lead vocals here is interesting. With everything being full-out here it causes the vocals to be buried some and the distortion on them makes it even tougher to understand what's being said. I don't have a huge issue with it because it's done for effect, and goes by pretty quickly. I personally would have preferred a clearer vocal in the mix, but that does not sway my vote because it is sung well. All of the drones are very cool, and the cello line fits in very well with the rest of the textures too. For me it came down to usage of source, and it took me many listens to familiarize myself because it's a longer source, but it's there plenty within the arrangement. Also 5:28, I love the close and crunchy vocal harmony. YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted September 15 Share Posted September 15 ROFL at the background of the last-minute DoD submission; I wonder if there's a hall of fame for entries where some critical detail got f00ked up. Sounds fucking AWESOME! Absolutely love how Psamathes' vocals were produced here; lots of cool & varied effects on 'em throughout. The source tune's already pretty cool, but this definitely took it in an even darker direction. :-) YES Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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