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GOLDEN H A N D B O O K  

OF

HEAVY METAL MUSIC

RECORDING

By Timo Tolkki

COPYRIGHT 2012 TIMO TOLKKI. ALL RIGHTS

RESERVED BY THE AUTHOR. NOT TO BE
REPRODUCED OR COPIED ANYWHERE. THE AUTHOR
RESERVES THE MORAL RIGHT TO THIS
PUBLICATION.

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INTRODUCTION

The idea to write this book came mainly out of

necessity to answer to all those questions that I
receive daily regarding recording and mixing
techniques. Lot of people are still interested how
did/do I make that powerful sound in my
productions. The answers are largely to be found in
this book. Recording is a huge and complex form of
art that has many schools of thought. I wrote this
book to present mine.
My intention is to present an easy reading book that
gives you the tools to record good sounds even if you
do not have a lot of knowledge from recording. I will
show you how to equalize drums, which
microphones I use and make suggestions. You can
either duplicate what I do exactly or you can maybe
start from that and find your own way. In any case,
this book can be considered as a technical manual for
recording good basic sounds from drums, bass,
guitars, vocals and keyboards. With the help of this
book you should be able to prepare tracks that sound

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good and make the job of mixing engineer much
easier. There is nothing worse than badly recorded
basic tracks. Also, this book does not cover mixing. It
is an entire universe of its own and needs its own
book. This book is concentrating to help you to get
the best out of the gear you have at your disposal,
whatever they are. You will basically be able to get
good results almost with any gear if you follow the
instructions I am giving in this book.
I run a small mixing and mastering service and I am
at your disposal for mixing jobs. I am quite busy and
I select the jobs based on my work situation. You can
write to me to timo@tolkki.org for more information
regarding mixing.

I wish you happy recordings and hope that this book

helps you to achieve the sound you have been
looking for.

Helsinki 1.7.20 Timo Tolkki

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DRUMS

Introdu ction

Recording good drum sounds possesses many

problems and those problems are mainly the reasons
for the not so good drum sounds we can hear in
many recordings. Especially in Metal Music, which
this book essentially covers, almost the first thing the
listener notices is how bad the drums sound.
Therefore I have spent a considerable amount of
time investigating how to craft that perfect drum
sound. It is a combination of many things but it is
not so difficult that you might imagine. You just
need to follow few rules. And it is always good to
keep things simple and organized. You don’t
necessarily need 45 drum tracks to make a great
drum sound but if you have to do that, then do that.
So what are we waiting for, let’s get straight to the
business.

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The basic principles of Drum Recording

One of the most overlooked factor in drum recording

are the acoustics. I never stop wondering how little
some engineers pay attention to the fact that the
drums are acoustic instrument and therefore the
environment where the drums are being played and
recorded has a huge impact to the sound. It is very
difficult, yet not impossible, to get good drum sound
in a bad sounding room. There are some basic
principles that we must take into consideration when
we are recording drums. These are:

1 Acoustics of the drum room

This is the most overlooked aspect of the drum

recording. Since drums are acoustic instrument, it is
logical to pay attention to the room where the
recording is taking place. You should try to choose a
studio based on the guidelines given here.

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WORST ROOM:

The worst room you can record your drums is

completely dead. When you walk into the room you
sense that the space indeed feels dead. You can clap
your hands and try to get the “feel” of the room. This
room is probably very small, everything from 5
square meter drum booths to 30 square meter room
most likely having a square shape. The walls and
ceiling are most likely filled with fiberglass making
the room completely dead without any reflections
from the walls. The floor might be wooden but it
doesn’t help much since it is usually covered with
carpets. The engineer or designer of this studio
thinks that everything has to be recorded dry. But
this is against the principles of acoustics. Every
instrument has an ideal space to be recorded in.
In this particular room there is very little you can do
to the acoustics. One thing you should do is to take
out all the carpets from the floor. You can use a
rubbery drum carpet under the drums. When you
request to remove the carpets, the engineer is likely
to protest heavily against this since it “destroys the
sound”. But be polite and yet firm. After getting rid
of the carpets, place the drum kit in the middle of the

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room. One thing you can do is that you go and buy
some sheets of plywood and place them around the
room so they are leaning against the walls. This is
not much but it is something I highly recommend if
you have to record drums in a place like this. Drums
are percussive instrument and every hit travels in the
room. In a dead room the drums are suffocated and
do not have any sense of air in them.

GOOD ROOM:

Good drum recording room consists of many

materials such as wood, stone and glass. It is
reasonably sized and reasonably live room. When
you walk into the room and clap your hands, you’ll
notice that the room is “alive”. This is an ideal room
to record drums regardless of the style of Metal you
are recording and gives us a lot of opportunities to
make a good use of this room.

In generally the drum rooms are somewhere from

between these 2 rooms. If you are lucky enough to
record in a good room, you will for sure have a great
drum sound. Therefore, try to look for a studio that

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has a relatively lively sound in the recording room.
Your drums will appreciate this.

2 Tuning of the Drums

I’m assuming here that the drummer knows how to

tune the drums. If not, bring in a person who can do
this because un tuned drums will create all kinds of
problems later and they cannot be fixed. Tuning of
the drums is a must. And it must be constantly
checked in between the recording takes since
especially snare drum loses its tuning easily.

3 New Drum skins

This is another thing that is often overlooked. If your

tom skins are old and filled with gaffer tape, your
toms will sound like that: dead. Therefore you have
to change all the drum skins before the recording

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apart from kick drum skins because we will use only
samples with kicks. So make sure you have a new set
of tom and snare skins before the recording starts.

To sum up the basic principles of the drum

recording: find a good room that is big enough and
“alive” enough. Change the drum skins and tune
them well. By doing this you are doing a professional
work that pays off later as a great basic drum sound
that can be mixed easily later without struggling.
And of course, have a great drummer!

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RECORDING OF THE DRUMS

I assume here that you have found at least relatively

good sounding room for the drums. Instead of
placing the drum kit in the middle of the room, place
it about 2-3 meters from the wall. (see figure 1). If
you are recording in a bad room, place the drums in
the middle of the room after doing the steps I
adviced before as treating the room acoustically. Start
playing something while the person responsible for
the engineer (I assume this to be you) is listening in
the room how the kit sounds. Do NOT use any
damping in the toms or snare. You will not need this.
If the drum is in tune, it will play naturally. Do not
over damp the kicks. Just place a towel or something
relatively light and place it to touch the front skin
from inside.
At this point we are not having any microphones in
the kit. Walk in the room and listen to different
places of the room how the drums sound. Perhaps
the low end of the kick sounds really nice in some
corner of the room. Maybe the kit sounds great
behind the drummer as well. Pay attention and mark

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these places for possible later use. Pay attention if
there are some annoying frequencies in the room,
particularily from the crash and ride cymbals.
Next things to mic the kit so add the microphones to
the drum kit and to the room as well the room is good
enough. You can add considerable air, depth and
bottom to the sound of the kit with room
microphones. The examples here are how I recorded
Joerg Michaels drum kit at Finnvox Studios for
Stratovarius album “Visions”. I am describing which
microphones were used and possible alternatives for
them, their positioning and also equalizing.

For the sake of clarity, I am assuming you have in

the studio either a mixing desk or collection of
microphone pre-amplifiers with equalizers in them.
Lot of people that send projects to me to be mixed,
record the drums without eq. But you cannot have a
decent sound from Metal drums without eq and it is
better to do it at this point as much as possible. It is
always difficult later.

For “Visions”, although the control room of Finnvox

B studio had a state of the art SSL mixing desk, I
did not want to use that. This mixing desk was once
worth of almost a million Euros. Yet I have never

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liked the sound of the mic pre amps of SSL desk.
They are too clean and do not have character and
attitude. It is a great desk for mixing but for
recording drums, I would not use that. Instead I
used 16 channel Soundcraft Spirit desk, which
probably cost at that time like a 1000 Euros. It must
have looked weird to have this plastic desk next to
the Titanic sized 5 meter SSL. But I like the sound
of that desk. You can use Mackies, Behringers but
you are going to need to eq the drums. So make sure
that the studio you are recording has a desk with eq
mic preamps. If they have 16 channels of NEVE
1081 mic pre’s, you will be in heaven but most likely
this will not be the case. But worry not. I will show
you how to craft a great sound with just about any
desk.

Now when you are about to start recording the

drums, ask the drummer first to play the whole kit.
Some AC/DC type of simple rhythm with tom fills.
The first thing to do is to adjust the basic recording
levels of the kit and it is best to start with the whole
kit. The drummer will most likely play louder later so
you have to watch the levels. Do NOT record the
drums too loud. The transients of the drums do not
show in the peak meters and you might end up

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distorting the sound. Aim for the 0dB so the red led
blinks occasionally.

KICK(s)

In recording metal drums, kicks are not so important

for me because 90% of the times, I replace the
original sound with a sample. Still it never hurt to
have a well recorded kick drum signal. I keep the
front head in there and just place the microphone to
the hole that is there. I usually use AKG D112 for
both kicks. I just place it in so the microphone is
about half in to the whole and pointed out to the
beater of the kick drum.

EQUALIZING THE KICK DRUM

These are the settings I normally and up using to get

my sound:

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First I take out 5 to even 10 dB’s from around
300Hz area. 250Hz-300Hz usually is the area I
take out. Not completely but a lot of it.
To compensate this I add some low end around
70Hz-100Hz. 2-3dB is usually enough.
I also add just a little in the mid sections around 1
KHz. Maybe just one dB.
And to finish, I really crank the top to the max.
Between 10KHz-15Khz I might boost all that the
knob gives me. Even 12dB.

These are quite radical settings but they are needed

because kicks are very important part in Metal
music. If the drummer is good, you might not need
samples but most likely you do. With these eq
settings you are able to get a sound that cuts through
from usually massive low end of this kind of music.

The microphones for the kick(s) can also be

Sennheiser 421, Shure SM 57 or just about any mic
since we are only capturing the signal basically. But
it would be good to have a microphone that is made
for kicks such as AKG D112

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SNARE

Assuming that you have new skin and the snare is in

tune it should produce a little ringing “clang” when
you play it. This is the sound many people try to get
rid of by tape or some kind of damping devices. I do
not recommend damping the snare in any way. You
just take out the natural sound of the drum and kill
the precious high frequencies that we really need
with this drum. If the “clinging” is annoying to you, it
can be lessened later by a gate. But there are many
frequencies fighting in metal music and that is why it
is really important to take care of the fundamental
basics at the recording stage.

We are going to use 2 microphones to mic the snare.

With some modern drum sets, it is almost impossible
to place the snare mic in between the toms to the
snare. But this is the best and straightest way. If you
cannot do this, you have to mic the snare from the
left side (left from drummer’s perspective). This is
not as good option as is the first one because the
microphone is closer to the hi hit and therefore that
will be result more leakage to the snare drum mic
from the hi hat. This could be problematic at the

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mixing stage. Therefore we are trying to use the
option one. If possible, try to convince the drummer
to maybe move one of his toms if possible. Usually
they are prepared to do this.

Place 2 of your fingers to the rim of the snare to the

place where the mic will be placed. That is the
height of the front end of the microphone. We are
using Shure SM57. Place the front end a little bit
inside of the snare rim but not more than 1 cm. Raise
the back of the mic up keeping the front end in the 2
finger position in a way that the angle of the
microphone would show like 14.30 in a clock. This
aims the mic a bit towards the center of the drum
capturing transients.
Place another microphone under the snare drum
about 10 cm from the drum and aimed at the snares.
This mic can either be a Shure SM57 or any
consender microphone.

I usually add a third microphone as well to the upper

side of the snare drum. A consender mic from AKG
would be good but in generally any short consender
mic would do the trick.

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With the you must reverse the phase from the
bottom microphone. It’s a switch like “O” with a line
a cross the O. You can do this either now or in the
mix. This does not matter. But you must do this.

So now you have 3 snare microphones in place,

which should give you a great sound. Make sure that
the drummer pays attention that he hits the snare
loud enough to produce a pleasant tone. Also keep
listening if the balance of the drummer is good. Some
drummers have a nasty habits to hit the cymbals
really loud. Much louder than anything in the rest of
the kit. Point this problem out to them, although it is
hard to get rid of because they have learned it during
a long time.

EQUALIZING THE SNARE DRUM

Usually you do not have to use much eq to the snare.

The bottom mic and the phase reverse brings quite a
bit of low end to the snare sound so you might have

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to roll of some of that. For these equalizing settings I
am going to assume that the phase has been
reversed and the situation is therefore like it is in
mixing. The amount of faders, if all 3 microphones
have their own channel is:

Mic 1 (top SM57) 100 % (0 dB)

Mic 2 (bottom) 60 %
Mic 3 (top consend) Varies. You have to listen to
what sounds good. I tend to keep it from 30 to 80%.

Equalizing Mic 1

In generally I add 3-5 dB at 10kHz area for the high

end.

Equalizing Mic 2
In generally I roll the bass off with a high pass filter
or cut 10dB’s from 100Hz. You have to listen to the
amount of bass because the phase reverse makes the
bass build up quite extensive and there might be too
much bass information.

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Equalizing Mic 3

I add 3-5 dB at 10kHz for the high end.

Without a doubt, the best microphone for the snare

drum is Shure SM57. That is available quite widely
in the studios and should not be a problem to have
in your session. Mic 2 and 3 can be any consender
mics. If you happent to have an access to AKG 451,
that would be the mic I would use for both Mic 2
and Mic 3. It has a nice top end even without eq.

TOMS

Toms might be the most problematic drums to record

for various reasons. In many recordings you can
barely hear the toms or they sound very bassy and
muddy. Depending on the style of Metal you would
want a sound that cuts through, has a nice low and
top end. This requires some extensive equalizations.
But the key to a very good tom sound is TUNING. I
cannot emphasize the importance of good tuning in

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recording toms. You must keep an eye on this as you
record the songs because toms go very easily out of
tune and require almost constant tuning in between
the songs and takes. You must take care of this
because without having the toms in tune, it is
impossible to have a good sound from them and they
might end up sounding like garbage cans (unless you
want that. Some people do). I already emphasized
the importance of having new skins in every tom. If
the drummer is not able to tune the toms it is worth
to bring a person into the studio who can do it. You
will thank me later for that. Again under no
circumstances should you try to dampen the toms in
any way. So no tape or any “special dampening
devices” should be used. Drums are meant to sound
alive. Not dead. And our tools in making them sound
like that are the tuning and new skins, mainly. So
keep your toms free from these. Otherwise you will
again have problems getting the toms audible in the
mix.

We assume that our drummer in this session has 5

toms. 3 rack toms and 2 floor toms. My choice of
microphone for the toms is Shure SM57. Many
people use Sennheiser 421 but it is too bassy and
muddy for me.

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So first you place 5 Shure SM57 microphones near
each tom. Then you put 3 fingers together and place
it against the rim of the tom. This gives you the
height of the front end of the microphone. Its about
5 cm. Use this method for the 3 rack toms. The
adjust the rear end of the mic to be in 13.30-14.00
using the clock method. This results that the mic has
quite deep angle. You should place the front end of
the mic about 1 cm inside of the rim edge of the tom.
For the 2 floor toms you should use the same
technique except you should place the mic deeper
from the edge rim. The front of the mic should be
about 5 cm inside from the edge rim of the tom. This
way the floor toms seem to have more clear and
naturally bassy sound. For years I was placing the
floor tom mics same way than the rack ones and I
was always struggling with the sound. By moving the
mic more towards the center of the tom, the sound
changes quite dramatically. Once again easy and
simple solution is usually the best.

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EQUALIZING THE TOMS

I have noticed that the same eq settings usually

apply to all toms. Even if there are 5 of them like in
our example. This could be because if the toms are
in tune and the skins new then they should sound
natural by themselves. Of course you have to
constantly keep listening that everything sounds
good. If there is a problem, look what is causing it
and fix it right there. Not later. Don’t postpone
decisions just because you are in a hurry. You need
time to make anything valuable and this applies to
recording just like any form of art.
I usually start taking out 5-8 dB from 250Hz and
adding 3 dB of 60Hz. Then I cut 3-5 dB from
800Hz. Finally I boost the high and from 10kHz
5dB’s.

Notice that this equalization is very extensive and is

about to bring a lot of cymbal information to the tom
mics. But I am using tom samples together with
original samples to create my sound and this
equalization is made with this in mind. The samples
come with this book and there are 4 of them. For the

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sake of comfortability in recording, you might want to
lower the tom tracks a bit because the leakage from
the cymbals might be really unpleasant with these
eq settings. In the mix there are ways to deal with
the problem the eq is causing. The main thing is that
it sounds good and also that the drummer hits the
tom properly. Many drummers tend to underplay
what comes to how hard they hit the toms. Keep
listening if the toms actually are played with enough
force and attitude.

You should try to get enough Shure SM57’s to

record the toms but Sennheiser 421 is ok. Shure has
also some newer mics that are very small and seem to
be made for live playing. They sound okay as well.
Basically a dynamic mic without too much bass is
good for this purpose.

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HI HAT

Recording hi hat usually doesn’t present any major

problems in the kit. Most Metal drummers have 2
high hats: one in left and one in right, the other one
been closed and the other one variable. Sound wise
and microphone wise they are treated the same way.
We are going to assume that our drummer has 2 hi
hats. My choice of microphone is AKG 451 for both
hi hats.

Let’s start from the left hi hat (from drummers

perspective). The mic should be placed from the left
exactly to the edge of the hi hat (from the other side
than the drummers is) and it should be 7 cm high in
the air with a rear angle of 13.oo o’clock using the
clock method.

For the right high hat you are coming in from the
front of the kit but using exactly the same diameters
than for the left hi hat. If there is a cymbal close to
the rear end of this particular mic, make sure it
doesn’t touch the mic when the drummer hits the

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cymbal. If it does, you can make the angle to 14.00
to 15.00 o’clock that should fix the problem.

EQUALIZING THE HI HAT

There are many schools in this but I tend to like a hi

hat sound that does not have much bass. Notice that
sometimes a particular part of the kit does not sound
good when you listen to it alone but when you listen
to the whole kit, it sounds good. This happens
sometimes with hi hat.

I roll of the bass frequencies with high pass filter or

cut again from 100Hz about 10dB’s. Then I cut a
little mid frequency. 3 dB’s from 2,5 kHz. Finally I
add some high end. 4 dB in 10 Khz.

This is a good starting point. I usually equalize more

in the mix but not always, This is the principle. Get
rid of the bass frequencies, cut some mids and add
some high end. The rest is up to the drummer.

If you don’t have AKG 451’s you can pretty much

use any consender mics but if you end up using vocal

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mics like Neumann or AKG 414, be careful with the
polar patterns of the mics which are variable usually
with these. It should be cardioid or super cardioid.
Shotgun consender mics are the best for the hi hats.

CYMBALS

Modern Metal drummers usually have a vast array

of different kind of cymbals. Some might even have
close to 15 of them. That kind of situation natuarally
creates a lot of problems from engineers point of
view. Ideally each and every cymbal should be
recorded separately to its own track but since it is not
logical to have 15 tracks of cymbals we have to make
a decision. I am using 3 microphones for recording
the cymbals no matter how many cymbals the
drummer has. I position them left, center and right.
Usually the drummers have more cymbals on the
right (from drummer’s perspective).

I am using again AKG 451’s for the job. We start

from the right and look the rough center of the
cymbals and place the mic there about 50 cm above
the center but aiming the mic to the outer edge of

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the cymbal. The same way I treat the center and the
left. If there are no cymbals in the center, I do not
naturally place any microphone there. But as a
starting point, 50 cm is a good height aimed to the
outer edge of the cymbal or group of cymbals. If the
group of cymbals has some of them deeper towards
the drummer, aim the mic to the outer rim of the
closest cymbal towards yourself.

If the room sounds bad or is too alive, you might

have to experiment with the height. In generally a
bad room will not make much difference but if the
room is very much live, then you might want to place
the mics closer to the cymbals. I have used distance
of 30 cm.

EQUALIZING THE CYMBALS

I am using extensive amounts of limiting for the

cymbals at the mixing stage so I have to take that
into consideration when I equalize the cymbals. The
amount of limiting is really to squash them.

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I roll (again) off the bass frequencies with a high
pass filter or cut from 100 Hz around 10 dB’s. There
is actually some logic to this since hi hat and cymbals
do not have much, if any, information below say
400-500HZ, it makes sense to cut it because
otherwise you end up recording also snare, kicks and
toms and they do have the low end information.
Some people check phase by pressing the reverse
phase button but to my experience, the only place
where you really need it is the low mic of the snare.
You might try to press the button of kick channel
and listen to any difference but since we are cutting
the bass frequencies out and the phase cancellations
are mostly there, you will probably not hear much
difference.
I also take out, sometimes a lot of, middle frequency
information from the cymbals. That is in 800Hz and
I always add some high end like 3-5 dB at 16KHz.
Then in the mix I really squash all the cymbals with
a limiter and that usually does the trick. Then it is
only about how loud you want to cymbals to be.
Because they fight with vocals you should be careful
with the levels.

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Again any condenser microphone with cardioid or
super cardioid pattern will do the job but the ones I
have been using are really good for the purpose. All
these settings, techniques and microphones have
been used in Stratovarius:Visions album.

RIDE CYMBAL

Recording the ride cymbal is a bit different from

cymbals and hi hat. It is used far less than high hat
and when it’s been used, it usually has quite a big
part in it. Therefore my approach in recording ride
cymbal starts out with choosing the correct
microphone for it. I have experimented with many
mics but I find that AKG 414 in cardioid pattern
gives the best result. Ride cymbal can be recorded in
2 ways: from the top of from the bottom. The top
gives more high endy sound whereas the bottom
tehchnique gives more dark sound. The isolation is
better using the recording from down method but
the sound is better recording from the top.
Depending the drummer I vary with these 2
methods. If the drummer hits the ride cymbal really

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hard, I will go for the record from down method. And
if the drummer has a good balance in his playing, I
will record it from the top.
I place the mic 10 cm from the center of the ride
cymbal pointing the center. Looking from the side,
the 414 is at 16.00 o’clock angle towards the center.

If I am recording from below, I place the 414 the

same way, but just from below.

EQUALIZING THE RIDE CYMBAL

Ride cymbal is far more heavy sounding than hi hat

or cymbals and it does contain low frequency
information. Therefore I don’t want to take it out too
much and might even add some depending of the
song.

The “cling” sound is around 250 Hz, so if I need a

really prominent ride cymbal sound and the
drummer is not hitting too hard, I will boost 2-3 dB’s
of 250 Hz. I cut 5 dB’s from 50 Hz anyway and add
some top. 3 dB’s at 16 KHz.

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You will notice that most of the time ride cymbal is
not used. You might leave it on or close the channel
in the mix. It depends. I tend to keep all the drum
tracks open in the mix.

If you don’t have AKG 414 you can try some other
vocal mics or consender mics there are in the studio.
Same eq settings apply. Be careful with the low end
if you are using mics like Neumann 87 which have a
lot of high end. You might also not want to place and
expensive 8000 USD vocal mic close to a drummers
reach with his sticks. I have seen a couple of nasty
things happening this way.

CONCLUSIONS

Now we have covered the basics for the drum kit.

Some people use 2 microphones that they call
“overheads”, literally over the head. These mics are
supposed to capture the sound of the whole drum kit
from above. But there are other ways of capturing
drum kit from different places than from above. I am
not using overheads because to me the sound from
those microphones is weak and does not add

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anything to the sound. In my opinion it just captures
the room. This leads us to:

USING ROOM OR AMBIENCE

MICROPHONES IN RECORDING

Remember how in the beginning I asked you to

listen to how the kit sounds in the room and to mark
those places that you like. To me the purpose of any
kind of room microphone set up has to complement
the basic sound of the drum kit. Overheads make
the drum kit sound weaker to me. Along the years
and depending on the space, like Finnvox, I have
discovered few ways to enhance the sound of the
drumkit. For example to achieve a sound like in the
beginning of the song “The Kiss of Judas”, you are
going to need everything that I have explained
before but also my drum samples and ambience
microphones.
You can start by getting 2 similar consender
microphones. Let’s say you have 2 Neumann 87’s

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(on Visions record I used 87’s for this). You place
them in FRONT of the drum kit. The drum room of
Finnvox is quite large. About 70 square meters. So
you have to place the 2 microphones at an equal
distance from the drum kit. So lets say the distance
from the drum kit to the left 87 is 6 meters. Then the
distance from the left 87 to the right 87 must be 6
meters as well. And when you place the mics like
this, you will get a triangle in which all the sides are
as long. So 6m x 6m x 6m (fits to Metal!). You can
move the two mics further if the room is big enough
but the sides must always be equal. So 8 x 8 x 8 etc.
This is the sound you hear in the beginning of “The
Kiss of Judas”. The you pan these 2 microphones to
left and right and add as much as you dare. It will be
a totally different sound than captured from above
with overheads. The polar pattern of the 2
Neumanns should be omnidirectional.
In your studio you also might have places where you
did not even think you could put a microphone in.
But open some doors and you might find some
rooms or corridors. I miked the coffee room when we
were recording “Dreamspace” album. On “Visions”
record, right outside from the recording room is a
corridor about 30 square meters. So I opened the

  34  
door, left it open and put one Neumann 87 in there.
This usually brings really cool low end sound that
you can mix together with a kick if the song is slow
enough. The best example is “Eternity” on
“Episode” album. The polar patter of the 87 should
be omnidirectional so it captures as much
information from the space. Omni because it does
not have to be so precise.

Usually room microphones are heavily compressed to

really bring out the room qualities. If you listen to the
song “Eternity” from “Episode” album, you hear
heavily compressed and squashed room microphones
recorded in the way I explained. You don’t have to
equalize them much usually. Maybe take out some
of the low mid frequencies. 2-3 dB’s from 250 Hz
and you can also try to boost the extremely low end
like 30 Hz for 5 dB’s. This is what I did with
“Eternity” and it sounds nicely powerful. Of course
the kick sample is there as well but about the
samples I talk about little later.

  35  
USING P.A SYSTEM IN DRUM
RECORDING

I have been using this on Elements pt 1 & 2 and the

self titled album “Stratovarius”. Basically the idea is
to find a space where you can bring a powerful P.A
system and play the drum tracks through it and
record the result. For Elements I brought in 10 000
Watt P.A system and placed it in the 70 square
meter drum room. I thought the room is too small
and I also though that the P.A system was too small.
The idea is to play back the drum tracks really really
loud.
The way to do this is to use just the kick (sample),
snare (all 3) and toms and play those tracks to the
P.A through a mixer and record the results. I placed
2 x SM57 about 10 cm from the P.A speakers and
then used the normal room microphone recording
technique I described in the previous chapter. That
gave me 5 tracks of powerful P.A drum sound that I
could use in the mix for the drums on “Elements”. I
think you can hear that it is the best sounding
Stratovarius album ever. But it is only because we

  36  
really took care of even the small detail in the sound
and equipment.

For the self titled “Stratovarius” album I wanted to

have more powerful P.A system so I decided to taka
my computer, recording system with kick, snare and
toms and went to a local rock club and played the
tracks through that. If you listen to a song like “Back
to Madness”, you really hear the power of the P.A
system in the drums. I really like it but you cannot
really use it with any fast songs. It fits to slow and
mid tempo song but it remains as a great way to get
even more power to the drums. I can highly
recommend that if you have a possibility to do that.

  37  
USING DRUM SAMPLES

With this book you will receive 8 drum samples that

I have used and am still using in all my productions.
These samples are:

The samples are 24 bit wav files and are the

following:

KICK HEAVY (used in songs like Infinity, Abyss

of your eyes, Kiss of Judas

KICK FAST (used in fast songs like Black

Diamond, Father Time, Speed of Light)

SNARE 1 (used in all the Stratovarius songs)

SNARE 2 (used as a support to snare 1)

TOMS 1-4 (sampled from Tommy Lee's drum kit.

These were used together with original toms of Joerg.
Really great sounding tom samples)

  38  
Tommy Lee’s toms were sampled in their self titled
album “Motley Crue” recording sessions.

The way I am using these samples is that 98% of the

time I completely replace the original kick drum with
a sample and use only that. Whereas with snare and
toms I use a combination of the original sound and
the sample. Mostly it is 50% of the original and 50%
of the sample. You have to experiment to get the
right sound. This book is not about mixing so I am
just giving you overall loose idea how I am using the
samples. You can find your own way with them but I
am sure you will benefit from them regarding your
drum sound.

CONCLUSIONS REGARDING DRUM

RECORDINGS

Recording heavy metal drums requires patience,

precision and skill along with a good equipment. You
don’t necessarily need highly priced equipment to
make good drum sound. If you follow the advices
and techniques I have explained, you should be able

  39  
to craft an acceptably good drum sound in almost
any conditions.

  40  
ELECTRIC BASS

I have had the luck to record Jari Kainulainen, who is

one of the best bass players in the world. The way
we crafted the bass sound of “Visions” is just about
the same what I am doing still today. It is a
combination of clean bass signal and distorted signal.
These are recorded to 2 separate tracks and can later
be processed separately.
Obviously a great bass sound starts with the player
but you also need a good amp. We used Ampeg
VST with a big cabinet. The signal went from Jari’s
bass to a BSS D.I box from which a clean signal
went to Pro Tools and another signal to Boss Bass
Overdrive and to the Ampeg. The cabinet had the
distorted sound and I placed an AKG D112
microphone close to one speaker. I usually put it
right at the center the way that the microphone
touches the surface material of the speaker.

The room where you record bass could be the drum

room. You should not record bass in a small room
because this kind of room can generate nasty phase
cancellations and bass build up that is hard to get rid

  41  
of. Also make sure that your bass has new strings. It
is very important. And keep checking the tuning
regularily.

EQUALIZING AND COMPRESSING THE

BASS

I use a little bit of compression in both of the tracks

when recording. But just a very few. As a general
rule of using compression at the recording stage is:
use it very sparingly because you might destroy
valuable dynamics that cannot be brought back later
in the mix. Therefore I use the compression very
moderately in the recording. Just a few dB to knock
out the peaks with a gentle ratio. The same applies
to both signals: clean and distorted. Do not over
compress them. Be VERY careful of not doing this.
You can use it in the mixing stage.

As equalizing goes, I don’t use any eq for the clean

sound. For the distorted sound I first make sure I
like the sound that comes from the amplifier. If that
doesn’t sound good, there is no way to make it sound

  42  
good later. So go there yourself and listen to the
amplifier. Does it sound good? If it doesn’t, fix it and
tweak the amplifiers settings or the distortion
settings to achieve a sound that pleases you and
then go to the control room and see how it sounds.
Very often then you don’t have to touch the eq. It is
always better if you don’t have to use eq but very
rarely this is the case in Heavy Metal music.

I usually take out a lot of low mids. 6 dB’s from 250

Hz and I add low end around 60 Hz about 4 dB’s.
Then I boost 1 KHz about 2 dB’s and the high end
10 KHz about 5 dB’s. That usually gives me a
pleasant and powerful bass sound. Then I add a
gentle compression like to the clean sound and make
sure I do not over compress it. Stay in the 1-2 dB’s
and you will be okay.

  43  
HEAVY RHYTHM GUITARS

I have always wondered how difficult way some

engineers seem to record the heavy rhythm guitars.
Simple and shortest signal chain is usually the best
way to capture great sounds with just about any
instrument. The same with heavy guitars. There are
some important factors we must take a look at in
search of a great rhythm guitar tone. Simplicity is the
key here.

THE AMPLIFIER AND THE REST

It really starts from here. I used Mesa Boogie Dual

Rectifier with “Visions” album. Normally any high
gain amplifier is good enough to record. I can
recommend Engl amps as well. You might also be a
guitar player that completely has his sound and
effects together. In this case, the engineer’s job is just
to capture that sound in a best possible way. But
since I am telling about my method, this is the way I
am doing it. I adjust the sound in the room, just like

  44  
with the bass. I experiment with bass, mid , treble
and presence knobs. I go down and hear how it
actually sounds there. It doesn’t make any sense to
make judgements about your sound while you are
standing. You have to hear how it actually sounds
down there at the speakers. Then experiment how
much gain you need. Most guitar players use a lot of
gain including myself. But if you can back off 20%
from your ideal gain stage for the recording, you will
achieve more clear sound and help also the overall
sonic picture.

I have never been a fan of re amping or using lot

microphones in recording rhythm guitars. In fact, all
the records I play in have been done the same way.
Just one microphone, one cabinet and one high gain
amplifier head. I don’t like to postpone decisions in
the recording process and re amping is to me just a
way to postpone an inevitable decision about the
guitar sound. There will be enough work in mixing
and that is not the right time to start making
amplifier decisions. Stick to your amp, make it sound
good and put a microphone in front of it. That
simple.

  45  
After adjusting the amp to my liking I place one
single Shure SM57 in front of one of the speakers
right in the middle so that it touches the speaker
grille. From there I usually like to go to a Neve 1081
mic pre amp but anything from Neve would benefit
your sound tremendously. If you don’t have a Neve,
you just have to use whatever the studio has but
don’t use ANY eq in recording guitars. Now that you
have adjusted the amplifier, bring the amp head to
the control room with a long cable and listen to the
sound through the speakers. Whatever you need to
adjust, do it in the amp, not with the eq. Heavy
rhythm guitars are very sensitive to the phase
problems and using heavy equalization like some
people do, will create a lot of problems later. In a
distorted heavy rhythm guitar sound there is no
sound information above 5 KHz. Anyway, all the
possible eq adjustments are better left to the mix.
I in generally record 2 tracks of rhythm guitars that
are identical. So I am doubling one track. Sometimes
in slow and heavy songs I record a third track and I
pan this to the middle but the fader of the mixing
desk will be lower than with the other 2 tracks. This
creates a really thick sound with 3 guitars playing
identical lines.

  46  
Few words about the room where you record the
guitars. Since the microphone is so close to the
speaker, the room doesn’t matter that much. But
don’t do anything like cover the speaker with a
mattress or something like that. I have seen people
doing this and all it does to the sound is to make it
muddy and unclear. Also do not use ANY effects
when you record your rhythm guitars. Leave that to
the mix. The goal is to get as clean and direct signal
to Pro Tools as possible (or whatever you are using).
Also do not place the amplifier to any small room
since high volume sources do not sound good in
small spaces, especially if they are acoustically dead.

  47  
SOLO SOUND

The way I usually do this is that I use the same amp

but I do add the gain back to the ideal stage
(remember the 20% decrease). I also make the
amplifier as loud as possible. It can be extremely
loud in the room. I am using the same set up that I
did for the rhythm guitar parts but I want to capture
the room as well. Especially if it is a great room, like
that Finnvox drum room is I definitely place 2
consender microphones there. I normally use a
technique called X/Y where you put 2 identical mics
very close to each others so they form “half of X” in a
way that the front heads of the mics almost touch
each others. Then I angle them to 90 degrees from
each others and I pan those 2 tracks left and right. I
don’t use any eq once again. I try to place the stereo
pair as far from the speakers as possible in the room.
So I am using 3 tracks for the guitar solos as a rule.
With this method I can make the solos sound huge
because I am also using the room sound stereo pair.

As with the new skins and new bass strings also

make sure that your guitars are equipped with new
strings and keep checking the tuning regularily.

  48  
Some people use a voltage device called Variac,
which lowers the voltage. Finland has 220 Volts
electricity. With Variac you can lower the voltage to
60 Volts which makes your amplifier to sound very
electrified. The way to do this is to crank pretty much
everything up in the amplifier, lower the voltage with
Variac and feed that signal to a power amp and to a
speaker. Eddie Van Halen used this method in the
first Van Halen albums. It does sound very good bit
it also consumes a lot of tubes since they will be gone
quite soon. This method works the best way with old
Marshall amplifiers that doesn’t have so much gain
in them.

As with the rhythm guitars, I do not do any re

amping with the solos either. I like to get a good tone
there and then and then do the solos for as long as I
am happy with them. I don’t want to leave anything
to the mix that I don’t have to or before the mix. And
in my opinion it would be ideal to have a break of 3
weeks before the mixing not listening to the recorded
material at all. That would give a fresh perspective to
the whole mixing process.

  49  
CLEAN GUITAR SOUND

I have quite specific way of recording clean guitars. I

normally use both acoustic and clean electric guitars
to achieve a certain tone.

As an example for the pure clean sound, you can

listen to a song called “Luminous” from Stratovarius
album “Elements pt 2”. You will need some kind of
D.I box where you feed your guitar signal. From
there it then will go to either the mixing desk or a
separate mix preamp. Usually guitars with active
pick ups such as EMG sound great when played as
a single coil. Once again you have to make sure now
that the sound of the guitar is good. You might have
to turn the volume down a few or try different mic
positions from the guitar. I have never used and
amplifier for recording clean guitar sounds. I have
always used the D.I and mic pre but mixing desk is
okay as well.

You will need to compress the signal slightly but

once again, be very careful not to ruin the signal by
over compressing it. It is very dangerous. I cannot
emphazise this factor enough and it goes to all

  50  
recording. Over compressing at recording stage will
always result a permanently compressed signal. So
stay away from that. Adjust the compressor to a
gentle setting with slow attack and release time and
make sure you will not knock out more than 1-2 dB’s
in the peaks. This way you maintain the dynamics of
your playing and you can later compress the living
daylights out of it if you wish to do so.

EQUALIZING CLEAN GUITAR

I usually check how much low end there is in the

clean signal because that easily affects to how the
compressor reacts. It’s going to be around 100Hz
anyway so if there is a problem there, cut 2-4 dB’s
around that area. By now you should be fairly
accustomed to the way I use equalizers and which
frequencies I in generally boost and cut although
there are no hard rules for anything. If it sounds
good then it is good. I usually boost 1-2 dB’s at
1KHz and boost the high end around 20 KHz (or as
high as your eq qoes) for as much as even 10 dB’s.
Listen to this if it sounds good. If it sounds shrilly,

  51  
back of a few dB’s from that. But in generally it
should make the sound sparkling and shiny on the
top. Pay attention to the settings of your compressor
as you are adjusting the eq. You might need to
adjust the compressor accordingly. Especially that
you do not cross the 1-2 dB line.

  52  
ACOUSTIC GUITAR

There are two types of acoustic guitars that you

might have to deal with in a recording situation:
nylon stringed acoustic guitar and steel stringed
acoustic guitar. Although both are completely
different kind of instruments, much of their recording
technique is the same. There is a theory that with
stringed instruments, whatever they are, the length
of the neck of the instrument affects directly to the
distance of the microphone. As in every rule in
recording, it is true and it isn’t. There are always so
many variables in any given recording situation that
it is almost impossible to have any rules that cannot
(or should not) be broken. The rule: if it sounds good
to you, it is good might be just about the only rule
that can be applied to every recording situation.
Once again, the room sound plays a considerable
factor in the sound and the placement of the
microphone or microphones.

  53  
RECORDING NYLON STRINGED GUITAR

This type of guitar is often played with fingers

instead of pick. I always try to mic the instrument far,
so in the case of nylon stringed guitar and applying
the length of the neck rule, I place the microphone
from about 70 to 80 cm from the player and aim it
towards his hands. I use Manley Reference Cardioid
microphone to this but in generally any good vocal
microphone will give you good results. My Manley
has only cardioid pattern but if your mic has an omni
directional pattern you might want to try that as well.

EQUALIZING NYLON STRINGED GUITAR

Once again, try to stay away from the eq if possible

by varying the distance of the mic or changing the
angle of the mic. If you have to make any corrections
with the eq, it will be along the same lines that just
about every instrument before this: controlling the
low end, taking care of the mid frequencies and
adding some high end. The low end build up with

  54  
nylon string guitar can be considerable, so you might
have to make large cuts of even 10 dB’s from 100
Hz area. Depending on the player you might have to
either cut or boost 1-2 KHz area a few dB’s and add
2-4 dB’s at 10 KHz. This should give you a nice
presence with the instrument. Be careful with any
breathing sounds from the player and tell him to be
careful with his breathing because the microphone
will pick that up very easily.
You should also add a touch of compression again
when recording but just like before, do not kill the
dynamics of the player. Keep it within 2 dB’s with
relatively slow attack and release times of the
compressor. It is also good to add some reverb to the
monitoring of the player but not to the track. You
should always record all the instruments without any
effects in my opinion. At this point of the recording
process, your job is to capture the best possible dry
sound. The effects will be added in the mix. You can
use them in the monitoring but do not record them to
the track.

  55  
RECORDING STEEL STRINGED GUITAR

You can try the similar techniques described for

nylon stringed guitar but they might not work with
this one. If you want to record a lot of tracks, also you
should be careful with the distance of the mic.

In generally I place the mic about 20 to 40 meters

from the guitar and aim it towards the sound hole. If
the sound is too bassy I aim the mic towards the
neck or in between. This might have quite dramatic
effect to the sound in the recording.

EQUALIZING STEEL STRINGED GUITAR

The same equalization applies to this than to the

nylon stringed. Only if your aim is to record say 20
tracks of steel stringed guitar playing exactly the
same thing you should equalize the instrument the
following way: take out more bass from 100 Hz than
with nylon string. Then cut the mids 4 dB’s from
1KHz and add just 2 dB’s from 10 KHz. You can

  56  
then in the mix equalize more and you most likely
have to. I have recorded 20 or even 40 tracks of steel
stringed acoustic and it can sound wonderful but you
have to be really careful with the compression and
the breathing sound.

Recording acoustic guitars can be a lot of fun and we

can get fantastic results with minimal effort as long
as we keep these principles in mind. Also beware of
the leakage from the headphones if you are using a
click track. That is sometimes leaking to the
microphone and cannot be later removed.

  57  
LEAD VOCALS

Recording vocals can be at the same time the most

frustrating or most rewarding thing in studio. Since
most people either consciously or unconsciously
listen to the vocals when they listen to music, it is
very important to capture them the right way. And
this is not easy to do. It took me years to learn the
process of recording vocals in the correct way. There
are many elements in recording Metal vocals that are
different from for example pop vocal recording.
Sometimes the vocalist is singing extremely loud and
the microphone might not be able to take the sound
pressure that enters its capsule. The environment
where the vocals are being recorded is really
important as is the choice of the correct microphone.
There isn’t any “overall” microphone that would suit
to everybody’s voice. Along the years I have gone
through just about every microphone that has been
used for vocals. I have found the ones that I like and
I will describe the process of recording vocals here
divided into segments a bit like drum recordings but
not that complicated.

  58  
THE ROOM

Like with the drums, this is where you can make

really bad mistakes with your vocal recordings. The
environment where the microphone is affects
dramatically to the sound because of the reflections.
If the room or space where the mic is in is not
properly treated for recording vocals, you might end
up having some really nasty frequency buildups that
could even ruin the sound. Most people are not
aware of the fact how much the acoustics of the room
affect to the vocal sounds. I have received vocal
tracks that are so badly recorded that I have had to
turn the project down because there was nothing I
could do except to tell them to re record the vocals.

For many years I struggled with finding an ideal

space to record vocals. Should it be live? Which
materials should it have? What made it even more
difficult was that nobody seemed to have the
answers to these questions I had. I read books and
recording magazines but found a very little
information about this. In my own thinking I knew
that a very live room would result in reflections and
the voice bouncing from every surface that was close

  59  
and even as far as 4 meters away from the sound
source. So I knew that at least would not be a good
place to record vocals. How about a small room but
live? That was even worse because the vocal
reflections where even closer.

Finally I had to admit that a space with a minimum

reflections would be the best for vocals. This goes
against the rules of acoustics because a voice is a very
delicate instrument. But we are here dealing with
Metal vocals which can be extremely loud and
extremely high. And therefore I finally got the best
results from a space that was acoustically treated to
be dead. I am even covering that lyric sheet stand
because they are very often from metal and can
cause some weird reflections. So my recommendation
would be a room that is about 10 square meters and
treated with acoustically absorbing material. Very
often you will not have a place like that for recording
vocals and then you should experiment in the studio.
We even once built kind of a tent with 4 carpets
hanging from the ceiling when recording vocals for
Elements pt 1 with Timo Kotipelto. So we kind of
built a room inside of room from carpets and placed
the microphone in the middle of that.

  60  
CONCLUSIONS:

So you have to try to make sure that the room is dead

enough to record Metal vocals in there. Use carpets,
mic stands, whatever you need to take care of the
reflections because you will not want to have to deal
with a shrill vocal sound in the mix. It can be the
worst nightmare to try to fix that in the mix.

MICROPHONE

Choosing the right microphone is one of the most

important decisions of the whole recording process.
Each microphone has different characteristics and
can complement the vocalist’s sound but you have to
have some knowledge about vocal microphones in
order to find the right one.
If possible rent 3 or 4 vocal microphones. I suggest
the following: Manley Reference Cardioid, Sony
C800, Neumann 87 and AKG 414. Most cities
have rental places and it makes sense to invest some
money for renting a microphone because it is most
likely that the studio where you are recording is not

  61  
having these microphones. If you manage to get a
hold on these 4 microphones, put them in that
acoustically treated space and record some lines with
vocalist singing to each microphone and then do a
blind test. This is the best way to decide which mic is
the best for that particular session.
To make it more complicated, a microphone
preamplifier, so either mixing desk or a separate one
makes also a dramatic effect to the sound. There are
some microphones that sound good with only
particular mic pre’s. I know this sounds a little weird
but according to my knowledge, this is the case. I
have made blind tests with Manley Reference
Cardioid to 3 different mic pre’s and for that singers
voice, only one of them was good. With the same
setup with a different vocalist, another mic pre was
good. So there are a lot of variables in this. If you
have the luxury to have this equipment at your
disposal, these 2 combinations have been working
great for me:
Manley Reference Cardioid Microphone into Great
River MP-500NV, Vintagedesign M581mk2 or
Buzz Elixir. These are all API Lunchbox 500 series
where you place the mic’s into the lunchbox. Then

  62  
you have to test the different pre’s with Manley for
the particular singer and decide which one works
best. This is the start of my signal chain these days
and I have found that Manley is the best
microphone for my use from Pop to Metal. It is a
brutally honest microphone which doesn’t color the
sound in any way. For that I have the choice of 3 mic
pre’s.

SONY 800 into Focusrite RED 3 mic pre. This is

the combination we use with Elements albums with
Stratovarius which has a really great vocal sound.

WHAT IF I DON’T HAVE THESE

POSSIBILITIES?

There is always a chance that you cannot do as

extensive gear hunting and you have to settle to
what the studio has. I would say that then you
should try to get your hands into AKG 414 which is
a pretty good overall mic for vocals. “Visions” was
recorded with this microphone. If you don’t have any

  63  
outboard mic preamp, then you have to just use the
mixing desk of the studio.

COMPRESSION

Compressing vocals is a must since we are dealing

with a sound source that has incredibly large
dynamics. But again I must warn you to be careful
with not squashing the signal (at this point. Later
you might do that). There are many compressors that
are classically used for the vocals such as UREI
1776 Blackface. The problem with these and much
of the old gear, also with microphones, is that they
are very unreliable because they are old. That is the
reason I did not choose a tube Neumann
microphone from the 60’s but I settled for a new
Manley mic. The same logic I applied to my
compressor. I am using Cranesong Trakker. It is a
digital device that simulates all the old compressors
and it sounds amazingly close. At the recording stage
I normally use a bit harder ratio than with bass for
example because of the dynamic range. The attack
time is more fast and release time too. You have to

  64  
listen to the compressor as well and adjust it from
song to song. With vocals, the peaks should not go
over 3 dB’s. This should give you some control to the
vocal sound and make it easier to make decisions in
the mix.

EQUALIZING VOCALS

I will make this one really easy for you. You should
not use ANY eq when you record vocals. If you
record vocals through a mixing desk, make sure the
eq button is off because it affects to the sound even
if the settings are on zero. So one more time that you
get it: NO eq when you record basic vocal tracks.
None. Zero. Nothing.

NO EQ WHEN YOU RECORD VOCALS!!!!

  65  
BACKING VOCALS

Recording backing vocals depend on what kind of

sound you are after. I will explain here how I record
what I call “big choirs”, which for example most
Stratovarius choruses have. It is a very time
consuming process and you have to have a certain
knowledge of how to record them so you can use
them in the mix without killing the lead vocal, which
is the most important thing.

The way I do it is to have 3-4 singers in studio and

record only one chorus and copy that to all choruses.
Naturally if the song has key modulation, that part
has to be done separately. I do not like to use pitch
shift devices for this but real singers.

The microphone should be something that has omni

directional pattern. Then you place the guys around
the microphone about 1 meter from the mic. Because
of the omni pattern, the mic picks up the sound from
all around the mic.

In generally I record first the chorus in the way that

the guys are singing exactly what the lead vocals are

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singing. This will be done 8 times so we are getting 8
tracks. Between each take I ask the guys to change
places. It has an effect to the sound. Then I figure
out which other things fit to the chorus and all will be
sung 8 times. Changing places continues always
between each take. I usually end up with 4 different
voices times 8 tracks so 32 tracks of backing vocals.
To ease my workload in the mix, I usually use the
mixing desk and record each voice to a stereo track.
So 8 voices become 2. At the end I should have 4
stereo tracks of backing vocals.

Sometimes if really big choir is needed, I might

record even 96 tracks. In the case of a big and
massive choir like this, I place the guys in the start
about 2 meters from the microphone. Again between
each take they change places but also move a bit
closer to the mic ending up quite close in the final
tracks but not closer than half a meter. Then I again
use the mixing desk to record or bounce the tracks to
4 stereo pairs. I do not eq them at this point but I
might eq them for monitoring purposes by cutting a
lot of mid frequency information from the stereo
pairs. This way I have recorded all my productions.
Sometimes there can be more voices than 4. It really
depends on your musical knowledge and imagination

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how you want the backing vocals to be. You can
experiment. I usually play each voice with a guitar so
the backing vocalists have easier time to sing it. I also
always mute the previous take so they only always
listen to the current track.

Everything else that applies to lead vocals applies

also to backing vocals. Remember the room
treatment and the compression. Watch out for
recording levels as well. You don’t always have to
record so loud since you are most likely recording
with 24 bit system.

KEYBOARDS

Keyboard players are dangerous. They can easily fill

the entire sound spectrum with their sounds.

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Modern keyboards have massive low ends and
sparkling highs not to mention the effects. I would
here apply the first rule that can save your session:
record keyboard without any effects. I mean the
effects of the keyboard. Do not under any
circumstance accept keyboard tracks that are full of
lush reverbs etc. You need to control the sound and
you need to have the option to decide later if the
sound needs reverb. This is a basic rule. Of course
there are some effect sounds where it is okay to have
them but usually all the keyboard tracks that I
receive for mixing are full of reverbs and then it is
almost impossible to make them audible. So make
sure that you record or receive your files dry. It is
really important. Usually keyboard players do not
like to do it this way because they want to decide
how their instrument sounds but they are not able to
think about the big picture. It is not possible to
achieve a clear mix with a massive keyboard sound
with 4.2 secong hall reverb.

You should also keep the keyboard tracks well

organized and not record too many tracks. For
example, most keyboard players record their lead
sounds in stereo. This is completely unnecessary.
Make sure that the leads are also recorded without

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any effect. Other than that, there is no big mystery
in recording the keys. You have to use eq but this
should be again done when you are mixing. You
have to watch the low end of the keyboards in the
mix.

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TIPS AND ADVICES

So we have come to and end of this handbook. I

have written down the way I do things and given
you some general guidelines. Remember that
recording a Metal band is not an easy thing because
many times the music is quite extreme. But if you
are lucky to be able to record musicians and bands
that are of high caliber as players, things should be
easy. I wish you luck in your recordings and as a last
thing I would like to say: never give up your quest for
that perfect sound you hear in your head. It is
possible to achieve. But never without hard work.

If you have any questions about this book, about

recording or you want me to mix your album or
songs, please send me an email to timo@tolkki.org
Happy recordings!!

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