If you want to succeed in the supersaturated modern metal market, you need to stand out.
Here are a few principles that you may implement based on my lasting experience of producing bands and my own music.
💡Standing out is a very fine balance between fitting the pocket of the market and differing enough just to push its boundaries
💡Hence, using JUST your authentic ideas without exploring what is popular and WHY is a dangerous idea. This may drive your music simply irrelevant.
💡At the same time, mimicking popular trends and creating a mix-and-match of various sonic trends just for the sake of it would not display your authenticity, and your listener would not connect to it at best.
I suggest the following strategies when writing new music and thinking about its future success in the market:
✅ Explore what is new and trending in a similar heavy style to yours. Super important to follow the trends and understand WHY these songs are in high demand. Break down their stylistic elements and feel.
✅ Then, write music sincerely and authentically, project your message fully, without restrictions.
✅ And then, carve that message stylistically based on the trends that you explored earlier and which FIT its atmosphere (sounds, samples, arrangement, layers, grooves)
✅ It also make sense to stand out with your sound and with your mix – with the similar principle. Fitting the pocket and bending it just a bit. One of the proven strategies for me is to capture unique drum samples on the recording day and use them aggressively for sampled yet unique and real sound.
If you ever wondered, what’s the impact of Metal Guitar Cab IR on your heavy tone, and what cabinet impulse response actually changes in your sound, this video is for you. I perform a scientific level-matched test of 2 different metal guitar amps into a single guitar cab IR Impulse Response. I then change this into using the same guitar amp and changing guitar cab IR 3 times.
The difference is stunning and explains a lot! Multitracks from www.tight-sound.site (not affiliated)
Mixing Metal Guitars with Axe FX 2 in Reaper – Full Sounding Digital Tone. In this video, I do a deep dive into the optimal plugin chain, EQ, compression, multiband compression, saturation to get your modern digital metal guitars cut through the dense mix. Using a free mixing multitracks from tight-sound.site (not affiliated) Hope that you enjoy!
“Overcoming” depicts a thorny path through the Doctorate degree, burnout, and insane 60-hour working weeks for years to build a Metal studio.
The Overcoming Project is a Psychedelic Metal project featuring world-class metal musicians Mike Heller (Fear Factory, Malignancy) on drums, Jon Howard (Threat Signal, Imonolith) on vocals, and Sergei “Efes” Fomin (FS Projekt) on bass. Executed by Doctor Mike Trubetskov – Guitarist and Producer at EOL Studios.
Dr. Trubetskov on the new release: “Overcoming” is a recipe of becoming a better person through brutal self-growth”.
