ronDRUMS
Just as in most cases, the recording should start with focusing on the drums. This is the backbone of every death/black record, much more so than the average rock or metal recording. they must be unrelenting and in your face. Half the time, the drummers will play to a click track, though some drummers prefer the band to be playing. I always recommend using a click track if the drummer is good enough to play to one. At breakneck tempos of 230 BPM and up, I find this is the only way to truly keep the tempo from drifting. Odds are you won't be using Beat
Detective, as most of the songs will have numerous tempo changes, as well as time changes. Starting with a tempo map is a must. Build a tempo map by having the guitar player play the riffs to the click, and at the point of the change stop recording, set the new tempo and/or time change and then continue recording the next part of the song. Edit this map together, and the drummer will have a rough guitar track that he can record to, in addition to a click track. Mic'ing the drum kit presents unique challenges. Drummers of this genre often come in with very large kits: tons of cymbals, double rides, hi-hats and (usually) two kick drums. I've even seen snare drums on the floor, placed with the intent to be played with an extra kick pedal.
KICK DRUM
I like to mic the inside of each kick, up close to the beater for a sharp attack. Any kick mic will do, such as an AKG D112, Audix D6 or a Shure Beta 91. This helps out tremendously for the sound replacement or triggering after the fact. Be sure to cover the kick with a blanket, or such, on the outside to stop as much leakage into the rest of the mics as possible. This is a must if you need to rebuild some of the fast double bass parts. You didn't think all those ridiculously fast kicks were real, did you? Okay, they may be real in some cases, but in this genre a lot of what you hear is built or manipulated. If the drummer is good enough, we will want to blend some of the real kick drum sound with samples later on. If there's a lot of building of kick drums going on, you may not want to mic the kick and just trigger to tape.
TRIGGERS
I like to use the ddrum's basic Trigger or Pintech's Trigger Perfect kick triggers, if I'm going with a mount- style trigger. An Axis pedal with the EKIT trigger mounted on it is by far the best. Any drum sample brain module I have lying around with a decent sounding kick will do. Odds are I'll be replacing them later on or stacking the samples up for kick layers. The problem with triggers in general is that at these speeds, misfires often occur due to slap backs or sloppy playing, so you may have to spend some time tweaking the sampler unit to stop this from happening by setting higher thresholds and lower crosstalk.
SNARE
The snare drum can be mic'ed top and bottom. Remember to place the bottom mic as far from the rim of the kick drum as possible, in case "kick building" has to happen. Otherwise, you will have to do some serious gating on the bottom head.
TOMS
For tom drums, mic'ing them on the top with a standard Sennheiser 421 will do. I usually do 2" off the head, pointing towards the center for better attack. In death metal, often drummers play with very loose drum heads. This gives a ton of low end, as well as a very thuddy sound without an overabundance of ring. Be sure to make the heads in tune with themselves.
HATS AND CYMBALS
As usual with the high-hats, mic them straight down and point them away from the snare drum. When mic'ing the ride cymbal, I try to always make sure I get half the bell and half the cymbal. The double ride cymbal configuration is becoming more widely used — I make it a point to use two different mics for each ride in order to make them more distinguishable from each other.
OVERHEADS AND ROOM
On the drum overheads, I will often use a three or four mic set up instead of the standard two. With such wide kits, and so many splashes, crashes and cymbals to take into account, this is often necessary. I usually go to AKG 414s, but any decent condenser will do. I close mic the cymbals, about two feet away, due to the speed of the music and clarity that needs to come through. If I need a more roomy sound, I will add a couple of room mics, however these rarely get turned up too much. The drums aren't "pop" drums. Usually the "bigger" the sound, the more muddy it can become with layered guitars and growling vocals. Don't be afraid to carefully compress things hard, even to tape. If the drummer is truly not up to par, tell him not to play the kick drums on the fast parts — then you will be sure not to have any out-of-time kick playing bleed when you build. If you do incur a ton of bleed and try to build over it, the sound turns into popcorn with kick hits everywhere.
BASS GUITAR
I will always track a DI signal, as well as an amp with a cabinet combo, like a 4x10 cab and a single 15" speaker. I usually only use one of my kick mics for the mic'ing of the cabs. I place the mics slightly off axis, maybe an inch and half off the grill, for the 4x10 and maybe a foot back for the 15". Be sure to check for phase issues. After the kick samples are done, you may decide the bass sound wasn't right. You may have to re-amp with a different head or cab.
GUITARS: RHYTHM AND LEAD
For the guitars, there's rarely any room mic'ing. I usually go for a very tight, precise guitar sound — once again slightly off axis of the speaker and usually using a Shure SM57 on a 4x12, an inch or two off the grill. Every now and then I'll blend a Sennheiser 421 with the SM57. More often than not, we seem to come back to the single SM57. I recommend doing a standard left and right rhythm with one amp (two different passes) and then the same thing with another amp for a total of four rhythm tracks. In extremely tech death metal, this may be impossible due to absurdly fast or technical parts. In this case, a left and right is fine. Keep all your harmonies on the same side. This helps with more easily distinguishing the parts and players. I don't want to get too much into the war of amp modelers versus real amps, but I will say no metal record I do will have an amp modeler on it! I prefer a tube powered guitar amp head, preferably Mesa, VHT, Budda, Hughes & Kettner — something along those lines. Even a Marshall JCM 800 will do, as long as it's heavy sounding. One common mistake is to turn the gain all the way up on the amps. This prevents any clarity or note discernment. With grinding guitar parts, a super high gain just sounds like buzz. Gain is important, but don't overdo it. You will be surprised how much heavier it sounds when you can actually hear notes. Sometimes I track a DI of the guitar with no distortion and then blend that behind the mix for clarity. Even though it's death metal, whatever you do, don't overdo the low end. This is one of the most common mistakes people commit when trying to make the record sound heavy. As opposed to a standard guitar tuning, with a low E string, many times these guys are tuning to B and sometimes even C. Have the band go to a baritone set of strings, if they are tuning lower. Floppy strings and low tunings cause mud. The heaviness doesn't come from boosting guitar low end to an insane amount. Don't be afraid to low cut by a few dBs, even as high as 80 Hz. Guitar amps with the EQ set with the low end turned up to ten, highs up to ten and the mids removed usually need tone adjustment. Mids are important; especially those flesh tearing upper mids. Remember to always check the bass and guitar intonation. These low tunings can really mess up a neck if the guitar was not properly set up after changing tuning and strings. For guitar solos, I usually will go to a different amp, or at least change the settings by removing more low end and giving a slight upper mid boost, maybe around 5 kHz. I keep solos in the middle of the mix instead of panning left or right.
VOCALS
