There is a trend that I’ve been noticing for years, and that has crystallised into a succinct summary in my head just recently. 📈

Heavy Rock and Metal field is massively saturated these days. Too many bands fight for the attention span of listeners that is limited. 🥊

The problem is, however, that musicians are not actively trying to stand out. Some deliberately race to sound like band X, which is OK (although I personally think that bands form a niche by discovering their own sound, and it’s hard to break into an already pre-occupied niche). 🚥

Others, though, simply fall into a certain sound by using software (and hardware) that everyone else in the field is using! 🍃
As the technology has grown so much recently 📲, we have a few go-to very high quality plugins for shaping the guitar and bass sounds, and enhancing drums with samples. These modern tools are really easy to use and get results in no time.👌

These results, however, sound very similar! And because of their wide spread and limited sound libraries, we basically get 2-4 major studio sounds across all modern metal productions. The final sound has a staple that gets recycled forever! ♻️

As magnificent as it is for the creators of these plugins (and I have the utmost and greatest respect for their hard work and outcomes! ✊), this, unfortunately, does great disservice to musicians and bands who desperately need to stand out in the crowded market! 🔉

My takeaway would be – always experiment! 🧪 Try weird shit, new approaches, or simply spend time tweaking buttons on your plugins, actively listening and engaging with these tools, and making sure that these sound great FOR YOU and YOUR MUSIC, and not just good in general. 🧬

This will allow you to power up your sound 🧨 and move towards discovering something special, something that your fans will remember for years, carve out your own niche and rocket up your live and studio career. 🚀