*NO* Metal: Hellsinger "Stygia"

[Liontamer ⚖️]

Artist Name: Zach Chapman

Features Earth Kid on lead vocals, Gregorio Franco (who doesn't have an artist page on OCR yet) doing the harsh vocals, themanpf on guitars, and jnWake (also no artist page) on synths and keys. 

This song was made for Dwelling of Duels' April 2025 Rhythm Games Month. Originally this track was going to be even more faithful to the original, but I only know one female singer who can also do great harsh vocals and she was too busy that month to collab, so instead I split the vocals up between the leads and the growls, landing on Earth Kid and Gregorio for each, who are both fantastic. The other shift in the song's direction came mostly from jnWake, who took the keyboard parts I sent him and added several synths without ever being asked. Anytime you hear a synth in the song - echoing the intro riff, in the background of the interlude, the synth solo before the third chorus - is all stuff that he did entirely himself. That helped to give the track its own identity, and I love what it added to the song. TheManPF killed it on guitars as always, and also put up with me sending him about 20 different drafts of the mix for feedback over the course of the month, as I'm still pretty awful at the production side of things. Other than that it's a largely faithful cover, with some minor changes to riffing and the bass (which I played) to make it more interesting.

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Games & Sources

This is a cover of "Stygia" from the rhythm shooter Metal: Hellsinger, composed and performed by Two Feathers, the developers of the game, featuring Alissa White-Gluz, the lead singer of the metal band Arch Enemy

Edited 10 hours ago by pixelseph

[Liontamer ⚖️]

Man, this source is awesome, thanks for introducing me to it! Really well-produced original. Not sure why the arrangement doesn't have a unique name, but it merits giving it one. 

I get what you're saying about still working on production. As soon as the drums come in at :30, they noticeably lack oomph and verve compared to the original. It'll seem like I'm saying that meeting or exceeding the original's production is our bar, I'm just noting the quality disparity where there's an underwhelming emptiness to them. The stilted, stiff machine gun timing of the drum programming prevents the soundscape from sounding cohesive the whole time. The drums sound like a placeholder rather than an intended final product, and even if they were played in live via keyboard, they still don't feel humanized.

Minor and very subtle, but around 1:09-1:11, it sounded like the volume ducked a few times; not sure what may have happened there.

Everything lacks high-end clarity, and the vocals aren't fully cutting through to the foreground during the denser sections, whether that's Gregorio or EK. Gregorio's vocal performance is awesome. EK's vocals feel too exposed/untreated when they first arrive; I know nothing about anything, but I imagine there's a way to produce them with a fuller and steadier sound; the chorus at 1:26 sounds stronger in terms of the singing, but it's mixed in a way like it's just in the way of and subordinate to the guitar chugs, which doesn't make sense to me.

On my headphones, during the densest sections, nothing takes the lead and nothing sounds distinct. The chorus from 2:41-3:18 is probably the most illustrative example. 3:37-3:55 sounds comparatively better when it's just Gregorio; his voice has more clarity and seems mixed to the front. The chorusing on EK's vocals from 4:14-4:32 sounds so much more stylized and unique, they just needed more airyness/delay, something to thicken them up. The big finish section from 5:03-5:46 was very, very cramped.

I've qualified in the past where I've said if an otherwise strong arrangement were mixed/produced in a non-optimal way, I could look past it; this is a case where even a fully cohesive arrangement would still, IMO, get held back on account of the production. My biggest fear is that, as a non-musician, I'm not able to better articulate these issues or directly speak to how to address them, so my criticisms will feel like a discouraging dogpile, when to me this has a ton of potential. There's a more cohesively mixed track underneath here for sure, Zach, but the mixing's currently mud. Reworking the drums and production of this one seems like it could be a really rewarding growth opportunity and a chance to learn from experienced producers, because there's a behemoth track waiting to break out. It's a great base, but not yet fully baked.

NO (resubmit)

[prophetik music ⚖️]

intense open. that synth in the opening is really fun. and the fading in guitar is great. drums come in with bass at 0:23 and it sounds way, way, overcompressed. drums have zero punch, especially the kick, and they've been scooped pretty hard to my ears. there's an enormous peak in this opening section where the bass is, at about 80hz, and it's a lot of pressure in my ears. everything sounds hyper-notched and heavily boosted within that notch. EK's voice is really loud without any formant boost which is part of the issue - she takes up a lot of the freq range - and also her voice's reverb is really present and loud, which is also occupying freq range. gregorio's growls are pretty deep, and that might be affecting it a bit too - some formant boost in the low 2k range would help him to pop without being so loud.

the chorus really highlights some of what i called out. ek's reverb on her voice is louder than the drums - cutting that back a bit, turning down her voice a decent amount, and pushing her formant a bit will allow you to get the band sound more balanced. the kick is all beater and no beef - the drum patterns sound really cool, but i just can't hear what they're doing. the beater tone is louder than the overheads for example. bass is pretty loud for not having a very bright attack tone - again, most of this track, the bass peaks at 80hz or so and i'd expect it to be an octave below that, at 40hz (edit: this is apparently unfamiliarity with the genre, my mistake). the rhythm guitar parts feel very noisy and not particularly meaty - that might be with how they're tracked, i am not as good at that stuff. but i'll note that the lead guitar part that comes in right after feels thin. that might be due to the choice of distortion and amping, or due to the EQing. gonna page @pixelseph for more specific recs around that.

the chorus with harmonies, at 2:40, feels good and aggressive from an arrangement perspective. ek's harmony voice needs to be heavily EQ'd down to be a lot thinner, and again formant boosted so it pops. that'll help it not press back so much on the guitar elements in the same range. it's not super clear why her harmony part isn't in the same rhythm as the melodic line - that'd be easy to fix in melodyne if you wanted to.

there's a big break at 3:18, and i think this emphasizes how loud everything is. there's just the lead guitar by itself and it's loud loud, and then everything else comes in and it's so present. the bass is way, way too loud here, especially under the growls that come in right after. i like this section as a break section though - it's intense and a fun idea.

the unison section right after this at 4:14 is something i didn't care for at all. unison singing is one of the hardest things to do in a way that 'feels' right because our ears so naturally identify phasing and intonation issues at the unison. ek does an admirable job, but the reinforcement of the two parts makes it way louder than everything else.

we go through another chorus - this might be five times? and they all sound the same, at least mixing up rhythmic elements would be a huge improvement - and hit the last big chord to fade it out.

so, yes, i agree that there's a lot to be done on the production side here before this is really there. something this big is always such an undertaking. i think the performances are great! and i like the approach a lot. i wouldn't have minded more personalization throughout, but the big dealbreaker for me is the mastering. crank the bass back, fix ek's effects chain and formant/eqing, and spend some time getting the drums to be punchier and the overall mix to not have such a huge peak at 80hz, and you're going to have a much more enjoyable experience overall.

 

 

NO

Edited 6 hours ago by prophetik music

[pixelseph ⚖️]

I have been summoned!

The guitars sound properly treated to my ear in this mix. The bass living @ 80hz seems to be a mixing decision to give the sub-bass frequencies to the kick drum (which is a stylistic choice for metal that I often make as well) and so it's a feature, not a bug. The drums, though, throughout the mix lack any room tone and sound dry as a bone; the opening choruses (@ 1:27, 2:41) and the second verse (@ 2:04) really demonstrate how dry the drums are. We can expect to feel a lot of dry kick and maybe a little snare, but if there's any room/reverb on the drums, I cannot hear it. Compare this to EK's vocal, which is swimming in reverb by comparison - would love to hear this balanced better!

Another thing about the drum writing here that falls flat for me is the lack of time-keeping shells or cymbals - they aren't non-existent, but for this style especially, the song loses a lot of energy by their absence. @ :49 - 1:26 is an excellent example of how much impact from the part-writing is lost from there only being a single cymbal hit (the hats) on every other bar on beat 1. What frequencies proph perceives as noisy in the guitars would be swallowed up by the cymbals in this sort of section. If there was still too much fizzy/scratchy/amp noise (basically stuff above 11khz) audible after that, a nice shelf on the rhythm guitar bus tames that up. 

This mix has a lot of heart and passion in the writing! The part-writing and performance from the guitars, synths, and vocals are excellent, and my main problems with this piece are the drums and the production in general. I don't think the things it needs to find a home here on OCR are quick fixes, but they are worth pursuing for the song - specifically, to pass this track, I would need to hear:

• drum programming adjusted to feel more natural and dynamic
  • adjust velocities, add room or reverb to the kit as a whole, and bring some element of time-keeping back to the sections missing it (choruses, verses)
• vocal production adjusted to balance out the mix
  • EK's reverb crowds out the rest of the band and her own dry vocal, making it hard to decipher what she's singing

NO (resubmit)