2013 was a break out year for dynamics in metal. Not only did we see a lot of independent and boutique label artists such as Monolithe and Tortured Division deliver highly dynamic records, but we also saw much bigger named artists (or at least more well known) such as Gorguts and Dan Swanö crank out fantastic specimens of fidelity too.
And a big part of last year’s success is due to New York’s own all around dynamic metal superhero, Colin Marston. You see by day, he is the bassist and/or guitarist for Krallice, Dysrhythmia, and Gorguts, but by night, he is mastering engineer of his own studio, Menegroth: The Thousand Caves, overseeing that all the metal he just recorded for those aforementioned acts sound brutally delicious. And if he isn’t currently busy with his own projects, then he is working on mixing and mastering some of the best of breed products from the likes of Woe, Vaura, and East of the Wall to name just a few.
Recently, I got to speak with Colin about Menegroth, the Loudness War, and about mastering metal in general. Check it.
MFi: For MFi’ers who only know you as a musician, can you give us an overview on how you got started in producing extreme metal and the history behind Menegroth: The Thousand Caves Studios?
Colin: I started recording when I was a teenager, running my own studio in 2004, and moved into my current space in 2006. One of the first albums I recorded for hire was the unreleased Thoughtstreams full length. That’s about as extreme as metal gets. I’m more interested in recording and mixing than mastering, but I started doing mastering out of a combination of necessity and being totally unsatisfied with the process most modern mastering follows.
MFi: Now 2013 was a big year for both you as an artist and engineer, with you either producing and/or playing on releases from the likes of Gorguts, Woe, Vaura, and East the Wall, as well as releasing your second solo album under the Indricothere moniker. So if you had to pick your favorite project of 2013, what would it be and why?
Colin: One of my favorite things I worked on last year was the Geryon album (Nick and Lev from Krallice’s duo). The music is really unique and awesome. I’ve found myself ripping them off a lot in my new Dysrhythmia songs. I’m also really proud of the recording. It’s nice to allow the bass to take up all the sonic space usually supplied by the guitars. We used a fun amp setup for that album: 2 tracks of bass split to three amps each: a Traynor TS50b into and Eden 4×10 (light gain), a 5150 into an Orange 4×12 (light gain), and a metalzone set to heavy distortion into a 70s fender twin. The combination sounds pretty massive. I really like the drum sound too, even though there’s nothing too out of the ordinary going on. I also really like the Mick Barr album with a piece written for Kronos Quartet. Who knows what that one is called… I think he changed the title a few times after the release.
Another one I was really into from last year was Tom Blancarte’s solo electric upright bass album. Side one is all bow and side two is percussive and neither sounds anything like bass. I also got to work on recordings for Cleric, Oneida, Man Forever with So Percussion, Oldest, Kevin Hufnagel, Castevet, Mutant Supremacy, Dan Peck, Radiation Blackbody (another recording I really like!), Brandon Seabrook, Imperial Triumphant, Panopticon, Artificial Brain, Mastery, and last but very much not least, Zevious (their new album is totally awesome and I really like the way the recording sounds), so it’s hard to pick a favorite. I really enjoyed the freedom and pace of working on my 2 Indricothere albums too. One I approached like the first, and the other is all keyboard improvisations – my first improv album.
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MFi: As you know, the overwhelming majority of metal mastered today is typically brickwall limited, but all of your work that I’ve reviewed is extremely dynamic. It would seem that retaining a modicum of dynamics has become a priority in your work. Why are dynamics important in metal?
Colin: It’s not necessarily that retaining dynamics is my priority – sometimes I’m trying to greatly reduce dynamics. It’s all dependent on context. Rather than that, I’d say I’m not concerned with mastering for a destination volume. How “loud” an album ends up being compared to other records never enters into my process. I view mastering as reactionary: correcting problems, improving balance and general timbre. How much and in what way I compress or EQ a mix is always a response to the source material, allowing it to be the best it can be without masking its inherent character.
To put it another way, I think a lot of people view mastering as away to achieve some nebulous professional “standard” of volume and brightness. And that standard tends to be all about screaming at you and getting your attention right away by being the LOUDEST, MOST CUTTING, PUNCHY, and all of those other dumb words, it just make me think of commercials for monster truck rallies and laundry detergent. The main point is that this mentality of mastering has nothing to do with making the mixes sound better. It’s like taking a lovingly prepared plate of pasta, and instead of garnishing it with fresh pepper and parsley, you just dump a ton of spicy bright orange buffalo sauce over everything to make it catch the eye and hit the taste buds right away, but in that process you annihilated the original flavor of the dish.
Dynamics aren’t just important to metal, they’re important to all recordings. Dynamic level and frequency are the two components of sound, so the more you process either or both (with compression and EQ) the more fidelity – the more character – you loose. Dynamic range might be especially important for metal because it’s supposed to sound loud. Things only appear loud relative to quiet things. So if the difference in level between “no snare hit” and “snare hit” are a 10th of a db, the snare doesn’t sound like it’s being hit hard. If you leave some difference between off and on, you hear an attack – the sound quickly going from soft to loud – and your brain says “ow! a loud snare!” It’s such basic information that seems to be forgotten most of the time.
MFi: Many engineers tout that heavily compressed material can sound good, but its takes a lot work. I generally agree, but I am also of the belief that at a certain point, the material can never really sound great at the current industry level volumes. Where do you feel the point of no return is when it comes to applying dynamic range compression and is there some material that really warrants copious amounts of it?
Colin: The funniest thing about “loud” mastering is that it doesn’t exist. Just the simple fact that the audience sets the listening volume every time he or she listens negates the idea that there is any standard volume. You’re in your car listening to a mix CD: a quiet song comes on, you turn up your stereo to hear it better; a loud song comes on, you turn your stereo down because it’s too loud. You decide to put on a whole album instead, so you press play and then set the level to a comfortable listening level. So…why did that hyper compressed loud master make any difference?
So we’ve already established that loudness doesn’t exist because the listener always has a volume control, so what are we left with? More and less compressed. Can more compressed sound good? Of course! The point is it doesn’t matter so goddamn much. If it’s a good recording and a good mix, it will sound good heavily compressed and not compressed at all. But that said, why not use mastering to compress an amount that sounds good instead of to reach a particular VU meter average level? The current industry levels are stupid because they’re not about music or good sound, they’re about competitive marketing or more simply, getting your attention for the first two seconds of listening. But if a good recording gets a bad mastering job, it can often still sound good. Low dynamics mastering doesn’t necessarily prevent everything from sounding good at all.
MFi: Have you had a Menegroth client, either an artist or label, demand a master to be disproportionally loud in order to sound “competitive?” If so, how do you handle it? Have you had to master mixes that have been already too compressed? Again, how do you handle it?
Colin: Yes, occasionally I’ve heard this request (and from some people I never would have expected – people who should know better! Hahaha). Most of the time it doesn’t come up. Mastering is such a mysterious process for 99% of people, musicians included. They don’t know what the hell you’re doing, so they just let you do it. And yes, I get peak limited mixes all the time for mastering. When I get those, I always ask for a non-limited version. If one doesn’t exist, I just roll with it and do what I can to improve the sound (just like I do all the time – doesn’t really change my process since it’s reactionary anyway).
MFi: In general, why do you think the Loudness War exists and why do you think artists perceive louder as better?
Colin: Because loudness always sounds better for a split second. When comparing any two recordings/signals, one must always monitor them at the same perceived volume to hear differences. Human hearing isn’t linear across the frequency spectrum, so when we hear the same sound but louder, we perceive disproportionately more bass and treble, making it seem clearer and heavier. That’s the trick of loud mastering seeming better when not evaluated at a constant listening level.
If you run a record label and you don’t understand what is lost by over-compressing, you just think, “Oh it’s possible to have this mix be louder? Great! It’ll really get people’s attention on blogshmog.news.tweeter/facebook!” And if you’re a record collector and you get that new 2014 remaster of your favorite 1986 death metal album and now it’s WAY louder than your old CD, you think, “Oh cool, they turned it up! That CD was always quieter than my new CDs. They did my volume knob hand a favor!” You don’t think about how the drums don’t seem to hit hard anymore or the fact that the bass guitar is now inaudible mush because it sounds loud and shiny when you first put it on. But over time you might notice that your ears hurt after listening to the whole album and it seems to sound like shit when you crank it in the car.
MFi: There seems to be two camps regarding mastering for vinyl: One side believes that if the digital master is highly dynamic and not heavily compressed, it can be transferred to vinyl without much change. While others believe that vinyl always need a special master to compensate for the formats limitations. Which side do you stand on and how do you approach mastering for vinyl in general?
Colin: I don’t stand on either side necessarily since it depends on the source material. If your mix contains things like ultra loud out-of-phase sub bass information, it will translate to vinyl horribly. But a fairly typical rock record mixed and mastered without a ton of limiting will probably translate just fine to vinyl. Another thing to keep in mind is that the lacquer cutting engineer will often EQ and subtly process the master to adjust for the limitations of vinyl. So my M.O. is to just do the audio mastering as I normally would and let the lacquer mastering make the final compensations. One thing I notice about vinyl is that it’s not the friendliest to hyper detailed, layered mixes. So sometimes when I know vinyl will be the main format of release, I’ll exaggerate elements of the mix that are supposed to jump out.
MFi: Another hot topic is digital vs analog production. Analog proponents claim it typically yields a more pleasing product to the ears, while the digital camp believe that most of the warm and fuzzies can be simulated with the right plugins and a keen sense of EQ. Do you do the majority of work in the digital domain or the analog one or a combination of both?
Colin: Most of the work I do is all digital and all in the box. I typically do the basic tracking here at my place to 2″ tape, but I always do overdubs and mixing digitally. And now I’m in the process of getting rid of the tape machines entirely – the maintenance is too expensive and the demand for analog isn’t great enough in metal and experimental music. I’ll miss it, but at the same time I think my current all-digital recordings sound better than anything I’ve done in the past, so maybe the tape didn’t play as big a role as I thought it did. I like the process of recording on tape – so nice to be at work without a computer even ON! That’s what I’ll miss the most. I also like the limitations of not being able to do a zillion takes and edits. It encourages a more live organic approach to recording.
But as for the whole digital vs. analog “which is better?” debate: Neither. Both. Who cares? Just record music!
MFi: Have you had a Menegroth client, either an artist or label, demand a master to be disproportionally loud in order to sound “competitive?” If so, how do you handle it? Have you had to master mixes that have been already too compressed? Again, how do you handle it?
Colin: Yes, occasionally I’ve heard this request (and from some people I never would have expected – people who should know better! Hahaha). Most of the time it doesn’t come up. Mastering is such a mysterious process for 99% of people, musicians included. They don’t know what the hell you’re doing, so they just let you do it. And yes, I get peak limited mixes all the time for mastering. When I get those, I always ask for a non-limited version. If one doesn’t exist, I just roll with it and do what I can to improve the sound (just like I do all the time – doesn’t really change my process since it’s reactionary anyway).
MFi: In general, why do you think the Loudness War exists and why do you think artists perceive louder as better?
Colin: Because loudness always sounds better for a split second. When comparing any two recordings/signals, one must always monitor them at the same perceived volume to hear differences. Human hearing isn’t linear across the frequency spectrum, so when we hear the same sound but louder, we perceive disproportionately more bass and treble, making it seem clearer and heavier. That’s the trick of loud mastering seeming better when not evaluated at a constant listening level.
If you run a record label and you don’t understand what is lost by over-compressing, you just think, “Oh it’s possible to have this mix be louder? Great! It’ll really get people’s attention on blogshmog.news.tweeter/facebook!” And if you’re a record collector and you get that new 2014 remaster of your favorite 1986 death metal album and now it’s WAY louder than your old CD, you think, “Oh cool, they turned it up! That CD was always quieter than my new CDs. They did my volume knob hand a favor!” You don’t think about how the drums don’t seem to hit hard anymore or the fact that the bass guitar is now inaudible mush because it sounds loud and shiny when you first put it on. But over time you might notice that your ears hurt after listening to the whole album and it seems to sound like shit when you crank it in the car.
MFi: There seems to be two camps regarding mastering for vinyl: One side believes that if the digital master is highly dynamic and not heavily compressed, it can be transferred to vinyl without much change. While others believe that vinyl always need a special master to compensate for the formats limitations. Which side do you stand on and how do you approach mastering for vinyl in general?
Colin: I don’t stand on either side necessarily since it depends on the source material. If your mix contains things like ultra loud out-of-phase sub bass information, it will translate to vinyl horribly. But a fairly typical rock record mixed and mastered without a ton of limiting will probably translate just fine to vinyl. Another thing to keep in mind is that the lacquer cutting engineer will often EQ and subtly process the master to adjust for the limitations of vinyl. So my M.O. is to just do the audio mastering as I normally would and let the lacquer mastering make the final compensations. One thing I notice about vinyl is that it’s not the friendliest to hyper detailed, layered mixes. So sometimes when I know vinyl will be the main format of release, I’ll exaggerate elements of the mix that are supposed to jump out.
MFi: Another hot topic is digital vs analog production. Analog proponents claim it typically yields a more pleasing product to the ears, while the digital camp believe that most of the warm and fuzzies can be simulated with the right plugins and a keen sense of EQ. Do you do the majority of work in the digital domain or the analog one or a combination of both?
Colin: Most of the work I do is all digital and all in the box. I typically do the basic tracking here at my place to 2″ tape, but I always do overdubs and mixing digitally. And now I’m in the process of getting rid of the tape machines entirely – the maintenance is too expensive and the demand for analog isn’t great enough in metal and experimental music. I’ll miss it, but at the same time I think my current all-digital recordings sound better than anything I’ve done in the past, so maybe the tape didn’t play as big a role as I thought it did. I like the process of recording on tape – so nice to be at work without a computer even ON! That’s what I’ll miss the most. I also like the limitations of not being able to do a zillion takes and edits. It encourages a more live organic approach to recording.
But as for the whole digital vs. analog “which is better?” debate: Neither. Both. Who cares? Just record music!