Tell me something interesting about yourself

Truffle , 28 minutes ago

I am going to start part three of a contemporary textile art course and I’m so excited!

I don’t think I can suggest much as far as metal music goes. My SO is a big metal fan but oldies only.

Best meal I’ve ever had: Chiles en nogada. Absolutely delicious.

Best place I have visited: A hidden beach in México. Beautiful place where we went scuba diving.

cheesymoonshadow , 45 minutes ago (edited 13 minutes ago)

Part-time cashier at a big orange hardware store while trying to get my degree in horticulture.

Best cake I’ve ever had: Chocolate Chocolate Chip by Nothing Bundt Cakes. Seriously, if there’s a location near you that you’ve always passed by, stop by and try it. Their Carrot cake and Lemon cake are also amazing.

Track_Shovel OP , 46 minutes ago

Check out gnoosic.com they have a really strong algorithm that’s great for finding bands. It’s sent me shit with 27 monthly listeners.

NorthWestWind , 48 minutes ago (edited 36 minutes ago)

I’m an Asian (Hongkonger to be exact) and I speak Cantonese. I love sharing about my culture, most of the time including language. People don’t quite like it tho.

Meanwhile I study CS, make vector arts, play piano, and stream.

0_0j , 42 minutes ago

A proper Chinese always knows how to piano

NorthWestWind , 22 minutes ago

Of course I do, like half of my friends

0_0j , 58 minutes ago

Work: Self-employed software developer, currently designing veterinary shop microservices. Still haven’t decided if I will use Java(spring) or Python(django-rest), (or none?) Insights will be highly appreciated ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Music: EDM, Robert miles ~ children . This song reminds me how we moved around a lot when i was 3-4 yo. (My father was a civil contractor on different companies, states apart) Finally, a song that sums up the confusions I had.

Tidbit: People highly underestimate their hearing capabilities. I mean, We’re not dogs, but our ears collect more information than we ever asked for. All you have to do is LISTEN.

Best Meal: My mom’s. And yes, I know I might be highly biased on this. I’ve tried pizzahut, KFC, and every premium buffet out here. But naaah. My mom hosts catering services, BTW.

Best place: to date? High school where I was studying. It’s at the foot of Mt meru, at the gates of Arusha national park. Almost every day, we wake up to the sound of zebras and giraffes grazing high trees, takes all the stress away.

Track_Shovel OP , 44 minutes ago

Man. That HS experience. I would give a kidney to see Africa like that

0_0j , 31 minutes ago

Lol, you should have seen us the day buffalo herd grazed 50m away from school fence bruv, absolutely no one got out of the hostels (of which, as a high schooler, jumping and hanging all day in the rooms). One of the guards almost got horned.

Still, I wouldn’t trade anything on this earth with this experience. I’m highly thankful 😊

Track_Shovel OP , 30 minutes ago

Those things do not fuck around

Perhapsjustsniffit , 1 hour ago

I am one of a handful of people in the world known to have been diagnosed and treated for a rare sarcoma cancer in an even rarer area of the body, that generally effects only women (I am a man).

It’s a really crappy club. I wouldn’t suggest joining.

Track_Shovel OP , 1 hour ago

Shit.

I’m really sorry, dude. I genuinely hope you get better.

Monster96 , 1 hour ago

I’m a storyboard artist/3d generalist and I’m working towards my dream of one day developing my own cartoon or video game. I’d love to be a showrunner or game director and this is one of the ways I believe I’d be able to get there!

A few of my favorite songs are Love You by Idenline, Sacrificial by Rezz, Over You by Flume, Paint It Black by The Rolling Stones, and Walk by Pantera.

Did you know that for the music in 2016s Doom they used an actual chainsaw as a sound one of the songs (reddit.com/…/til_mick_gordon_pitchshifted_a_sampl…)

Best meal I’ve ever had was a BBQ burger in New York. I can’t quite remember the restaurant since thus was back in high school but I’ve never tasted something as good as that since.

Best place I’ve ever visited was Banff in BC, Canada. I went with a lot of friends and to this day I still cherish those memories of walking around the town, having ice cream, and just having fun.

sharkfucker420 , 1 hour ago

I really enjoy butterscotch and scotch

Zerlyna , 1 hour ago

International buyer for performance exhaust system manufacturer.

My foster child is also my niece

LOVED Belgium. Visited St Truiden, Ghent and Brussels. I cried for a week when I left I missed it so much.

I have every album by Radiohead, Bela Fleck and Medeski Martin and Wood.

Track_Shovel OP , 1 hour ago

That’s really great you took your niece in.

Never been to Europe and kick myself for going to Asia instead.

RandomStickman , 2 hours ago

I'm going to a King Gizzard show next month, pretty excited.

Best meal I probably had was an emotional support curry I made for myself.

I'm also excited about restarting my D&D campaign after a small hiatus.

Currently I'm pretty tired but I'm also going though some revenge bedtime procrastination...

Track_Shovel OP , 2 hours ago

I’ve never actually sat and listened to Gizzard. On my list, but my free time is chronically limited.

Curry is love. Curry is life.

What are you going as for DND? I don’t play, but know enough to be dangerous. Also, I’ll make an AI drawing for you if you like.

Example:

https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/6d203890-904e-4a09-800b-4abd3888b62b.webp

Goblin Cleric

Hope you rest up. I burn the candle at both ends so I know the feeling.

Phenomephrene , 3 hours ago

What types of metal do you like? I can try to aim if I have an idea of what you're into.

If I'm going just for an out of the blue rec, maybe try Emptiness - Not For Music if you're not already familiar. Belgian black/death band having turned toward the avant garde have left nearly every indication of their more extreme roots on this album, and it's fantastic. All the tracks are great but if you're looking for the "single" maybe try the track Ever.

Track_Shovel OP , 2 hours ago

This is right up my alley; it’s going on my collaborative playlist called ‘forks in a blender’ which is just me and my bud making a playlist.

I really, really like Vvilderness. Huge fan. Also like panopticon, Unreqvited, Witchcraft, Nordic Winter, Skrm (I think?) Elderwind. Psychedelic Witchcraft and Blood Ceremony are up there too.

Phenomephrene , 1 hour ago

Ok, I can work with that. If you are a Panopticon fan you may already be familiar with this, but if not it's worth a listen: Eneferens. A little more toward the VVilderness vibe, but essentially purely folk, check out Ekstasis. And to go with the psych vibe, if you haven't heard Hexvessel - Dawnbearer then give that a spin and thank me later.

Track_Shovel OP , 1 hour ago (edited 1 hour ago)

God, how have I not heard any of these metal bands in this thread? I listen to metal every day, most of the day. Such a huge genre.

I’m going add these to the list.

Holy shit I’m in love with Eneferens and I listened to about 40 seconds. Thanks. Checking out the others .

They do a Kettering cover? Fucking wow

All of this. All of it goes into my and my friends joint playlist (forks in blender)

Phenomephrene , 1 hour ago

If you care to, let me know what you think of these. I think I'm on the right track, but I'd be curious to hear how these strike you.

Track_Shovel OP , 1 hour ago

Eneferens is top notch. That’s going to be a deep rabbit hole with associated bands, once I have time to sit down and explore.

I liked hexvessel and Ekstasis (in that order). Again, need to check out more before I really pass judgement, but they have a lot going on that I like

Phenomephrene , 54 minutes ago

I'm not sure there's much in the way of branching off from Eneferens. I thought you may have heard of them due to label affiliations. At any rate, glad you are receiving these positively. And yeah, trust that the Hexvessel album is worth some deeper dedicated listening. That's a special album imo; I don't know of anything else that's quite like it.

Vaggumon , 3 hours ago

Arron Nordstrom from Gemini Syndrome and I could pass as brothers, and not just because we are both albinos. We both look a lot alike, even though I probably have 80 lbs on him.

tiefling , 3 hours ago

What do you do for work, or what are you studying towards

My day job is in tech. At night, I’m a bonafide freak. I perform with fire and sharp things.

Musical recommendations (bonus points for metal)

In This Moment - Ritual

Useless tidbit you know (bonus points for citing sources)

The tongue consists of two muscles that go down to your throat. I know because I have a forked tongue.

Best meal you’ve had

I will kill for sweet plantains

Best place you’ve visited

Salem, MA is one of my favorite places. I go very frequently (just not in October)

toomanypancakes , 3 hours ago

I approve people for disability money when I can. It’s a lot of reading medical records and ensuring I’m being compliant with some really stupid rules.

Depending on the kind of metal you like I’m a big fan of Delain, especially The Human Contradiction, The Agonist, especially Lullabies For The Dormant Mind, and Infected Rain, especially 86.

For useless tidbit, the barnacle has the biggest dick to body ratio of any animal.

Best meal I’ve ever had was the pizza my realtor made for me after hubs and I closed on our house. I don’t know how he did it, it was an outdoor dinner in a frickin wood fired pizza oven, he made a margarita with miyoko’s mozzarella and fresh basil he grew with homemade sauce. It was so fucking good.

Most fun place I’ve ever visited was New Orleans. I went on a cruise to Mexico once that left from there, and I had an amazing time both days I was in new Orleans and a miserable time while I was on the boat.

Track_Shovel OP , 2 hours ago

Those recommendations are on the punch list.

That’s a super cool, and I imagine, rewarding job.

PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S , 3 hours ago

What do you do for work, or what are you studying towards

Studying towards masters in electrical engineering.

Musical recommendations (bonus points for metal)

If you like the song by Beyond Creation, you’ll love this.

Useless tidbit you know (bonus points for citing sources)

The Ibanez Tube Screamer pedal contains no tubes.

Best meal you’ve had

I have a sous vide machine. I’ve obviously done the whole “food porn steak” thing, but one time I took an entire chicken breast, sous vided it like a steak, breaded it, pan fried it, and ate it like a massive chicken nugget with a juicy interior.

Best place you’ve visited

Home lmao. Close second would be Cedar Point, although I don’t think I can fit on roller coasters at my current weight.

Track_Shovel OP , 3 hours ago (edited 2 hours ago)

That’s wild about the tube screamer, given the chubbies pedal heads get over them.

I haven’t had a pedal with a tube yet, but I’ve got a Wampler Pinnacle deluxe that covers some ground that my Supersonic 22 can’t do.

That second recommendation is outstanding. First one is good, too but more prog than I usually go for. I like prog, but I’m so far down the atmospheric black metal rabbit hole it’s dizzying.

PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S , 2 hours ago (edited 1 hour ago)

atmospheric black metal rabbit hole

Fuck I love me some atmoblack. It’s honestly my biggest inspiration as a musician. But I’ve been jamming tech death lately because it helps me study. I gotta recommend Mare Cognitum for a heavier atmoblack sound, and Trna for an instrumental post-black metal expanse.

That’s wild about the tube screamer, give the chubbies pedal heads get over them.

I keep a Tube Screamer clone in my arsenal precisely because it’s not a very “tube-like” sound. It is midsy and crisp. Like 95% of all metal recordings are done with a Tube Screamer, 5150, and Vintage 30s, or digital clones thereof. It’s a dream to play, but that’s kinda why I’m trying to move away from it as a guitarist. But as a producer, it’s a really nice tool for the toolkit. Also if I was playing tech death or something where I’m at the limit of my skill level, I’d probably rock a Tube Screamer so stuff is easier to play.

Also though, I believe that historically it was marketed as “tube sound without the tubes” early in its life. Which, compared to some of the alternatives available at the time, did come a little closer to tube amps’ softer clipping.

But IMO as a metal player and electrical engineer, I think that whether or not your distortion is generated by tube, transistor, or simulation isn’t that important [1] compared to properly tailored filters at every stage, especially the “tone stack”, at least not for metal players or people who play with “fully saturated” distortion. For this reason, I’m absolutely not afraid to use solid state amps if they sound good, and for metal they absolutely can sound better in the mix.

And even though tube distortion pedals do literally have a tube in the signal chain, they are probably not being run at a high enough voltage to actually be the source of distortion. You’d have to check the schematic to be sure. So there’s no benefit to getting a tube distortion pedal in general, and tubes have microphonics and just electrically kinda suck. Tube amps are great, but again, it’s more because of the various filters and the fact that the saturating nonlinearity exists at all rather than that the nonlinearity is generated by a specific device, so long as you use fresh tubes because old tubes do deteriorate an amplifier’s performance. But also, tube amps are “warm” without any further filtering, and I typically find that “warm” amps have trouble standing out in a metal mix. Hence why when I (and other metal players) pick tube amps, I pretty much exclusively use amplifiers (and their simulations) that filter out that warmness, which shows up in metal as muddy garbage.

[1] Assuming you’re using monotonic distortion characteristics like soft and hard clipping, power laws, exponential. Non-monotonic distortion characteristics (like a sine or Chebyshev polynomial) sound whack and I really wish that more metal guitarists would check them out.

Track_Shovel OP , 48 minutes ago

Holy cow.

That was more signal chain theory that I’ve ever read in one sitting. Really cool. Hard to follow a bit, but I get the gist.

• Source of distortion doesn’t really matter, it’s filters
• TS808 cleans shit up, no tubes. Tubes not necessary and probably dont do much in a pedal anyway

What are you running now for amps and such got get away from the 5150/TS808 combo?

As an aside, I had a Blues Jr. Mark II (2006ish?) that was god awful before I got the supersonic. That thing was so shrill it fired laser beams at my head. SS22 is a brilliant amp IMO. Gets a bit fizzy (thin, fuzzy distortion) at the top end of the gain, but overall rock solid, and the second gain stage is great for fattening up a single coil or for making it sound like you’re murdering a Tweed 57.

Mare is an amazing atmo band!

PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S , 54 seconds ago

• Source of distortion doesn’t really matter, it’s filters
• TS808 cleans shit up, no tubes. Tubes not necessary and probably dont do much in a pedal anyway

Yep that’s it.

• What are you running now for amps and such got get away from the 5150/TS808 combo?

In the “before times”, I used a TBX150 solid state amp alone, and a Peavey 6505, mostly for recording. The TBX150 is a great amp for modern death metal, but it has a parametric EQ. For me, that’s great, but a lot of guitarists don’t like the metal zone because it has a parametric EQ. For both, I plugged them into a cheap birch Seismic cabinet with a Vintage 30 speaker harvested from a Recto cab. Honestly, the biggest factor in the quality of my guitar recordings was switching to that speaker.

At this very moment, since my grandmother moved in, I’ve had to forgo amps altogether for simulators. I actually use either a 6505 simulator (Nick Crowe 8505) or a Fender Frontman (yes, that amp, specifically the AXP Softamp plugin) with the mids cranked up and the cabinet impulse thrown out and replaced with a set of impulses I recorded myself from the previously mentioned cabinet.

The best results I’ve gotten have been with using an EQ before a Boss HM-2 (Buzz Helvetes) set to… however much “HM-2-ness” you want in the EQ depending on what you’re playing, and the smallest possible offset from zero distortion. The pre-EQ is typically a bandpass so I can get more “grinding” and as a cheat for not changing my strings. But, it doesn’t really change the “overall” frequency response of the output of the HM-2, just how the HM-2 “sees” your guitar, so you still get its nastyness. Then the majority of the gain comes from the amp.

If an HM-2 or Metal Zone is too much, I’ve gotten really “smooth” results with using the ProCo Rat as an overdrive. Note that on a ProCo Rat, the Filter (tone) knob “is backwards”; all the way to the left = minimal filtering.

My inspiration for this is really the fact that old school death metal was recorded on shitty gear compared to what is available today, and that some of the magic lies in the fact that it sucks in just the right way. Besides At the Gates who used two shitty pedals, Chuck Schuldinger from Death used a shitty Valvestate and got great results. Most of the old school death metal bands were using Valvestates.

In the past few months, I’ve been experimenting with using the RS-MET tool chain plugin to generate nasty sounding distortion with odd-order Chebyshev polynomials. It initially sounds like a more unhinged Boss HM-2 with no pre or post eq, but since the plugin lets you input the math you want to do, it’s much more controllable. If you use this plugin, you gotta make sure to set the built-in filters to cut off high frequencies that will be aliased, or turn on oversampling, or both. This is included within the plugin, but you have to actually set it. Otherwise, everything just sounds like aliasing, although that’s pretty gnarly too.

So the short answer is: switch out a tube screamer for some garbage piece of gear, preferably something with a frequency response (loosely “tone”) you like and a “bold” distortion. Then, set the pedal so it is giving the least amount of gain while still exhibiting its nonlinearity (minimum possible distortion), then set the amplifier to give you the rest of your gain and cut through the mix. I cannot stress enough that for metal guitars, particularly recording guitars, you gotta set your knobs so that it sounds good in the mix. If it sounds perfect in the room without the rest of the band, I guarantee you it will sound muddy in the mix.