1, 2, 3, 4, I declare a NWoBHM War!!! - Progressive Rock Music Forum

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Certif1ed

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Topic: 1, 2, 3, 4, I declare a NWoBHM War!!!
Posted: April 28 2008 at 18:43

In response to some of the recent "out of ideas" and "how can I hone my skillz" threads, here's a fun challenge;

Over the next four months, the challenge is to create an NWoBHM style EP, like they did in the good old days.

However, without going out and gigging the material and keeping studio time to an absolute minimum is where the challenge lies.

Personally, free time is a very scare resource, so I anticipate no more than 5 hours per week studio time on this - hence one month per track actually equals 20 hours studio time.

That boils down to 4 band hours per track, or 16 hours for the entire EP, when you consider that drums, bass, rhythm and lead guitars and vox need to be added. Nice touch of realism, I thought...

For further authenticity, lyrics can be "fag-packet" jobs - cheesey and NWoBHM in style - e.g. songs about bikes, metal music, dragons and kings, leather - you name it as long as it's metal.

Drums can be 4-to-the-floor loops, but if you can get fills in, so much the better.

Remember, solos need to go up to 11 - pentatonic bluff, pull-offs and hammer-ons, tapping, pitch harmonics and the odd neat little chop are de rigeur - but no shredding - although Blackmore or Rhoades-esque classical-edged licks are allowed.

The first track will be the filler track, to make an easy start.

A nice, open bass sound to go with a drum loop, quickly joined by a chugging rhythm section to kick the verse off, and a chorus that goes somewhere predictable like a major 3rd down from the verse, with a bridge a tone higher should do the trick - not too many parameters, and nothing adventurous - just heads down, no-nonsense, mindless boogie. That said, Spider impersonators will be laughed at.

To level the playing field, I'm using Sony ACID, a free version of which can be downloaded from their site, and Beta Monkey Alt/Modern Rock Drum loops, which are created in single sessions so patch up together nicely - they're also quite cheap and only take a week or so to arrive. Just so you know I haven't got a hidden drummer secreted about my studio anywhere.

Because this is a war, I've cheated, and spent the last hour and a half on my home studio creating a kind of verse structure already - so I'm winning.

I'll put my work so far up onto my normal share when I can get to a more reliable uploading machine... this one timed out halfway through.

Any takers for the challenge?

The important thing is not to stop questioning.

heyitsthatguy View Drop Down

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Posted: April 28 2008 at 18:45

I already recorded a hevy metallluh when I was really bored with harmonized leads LOL

so I may join

gonna have to do the vocals when family isn't home

and the style will be sort of more progressive metal a la Fates Warning

unless you want it to be strictly NWoBHM

Edited by heyitsthatguy - April 28 2008 at 18:47

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Posted: April 28 2008 at 18:46

heyitsthatguy wrote:

I already recorded a hevy metallluh part with harmonized leads LOL

so I may join

gonna have to do the vocals when family isn't home

and the style will be sort of more progressive metal a la Fates Warning

NO NO NO NO!

Saxon is what we need.

Blargh

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Posted: April 28 2008 at 18:48

seee, edited post

I think I'll just reuse the leads and rhythm then LOL

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Posted: April 28 2008 at 18:50

heyitsthatguy wrote:

seee, edited post

I think I'll just reuse the leads and rhythm then LOL

I'd really like to join. But I have no recording equipment whatsoever, and even if it is for a good cause, I wouldn't waste money on it!

Blargh

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Posted: April 28 2008 at 18:51

I don't have an actual studio LOL

it's a piece of crap toneport but I'll make due (with comical results)

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Posted: April 28 2008 at 19:11

Sorry, but what does NWoBHM stand for? Also, the whole range of rules and explanations makes me confused, I'm not sure what I would be allowed to do and what not

Not a problem though since I don't have access to any kind of studio at any time.

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Posted: April 28 2008 at 19:56

New Wave of British Heavy Metal

think early Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Saxon and Diamond Head to name a few.

Blargh

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Posted: April 28 2008 at 21:56

I don't actually have any recording stuff right now

and the problem is I might not be getting any for at least another 1-3 weeks, but I am a big Maiden, and before I started to shred, NWoBHM type solos come easy to me. I could very well find a way to get bass guitar and drums in there, but vocals are a problem and I don't have any chance to get lessons until June. Well, I'll probably lose, but hey if I can get some stuff together, I might just be in on this.

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Posted: April 29 2008 at 03:06

A studio isn't necessary - I just used the word out of habit.

My setup;

Standard PC.

Sony ACID (as I said, you can get it free).

Line 6 TonePort - hey, I like these boxes - they take up less space than a regular amp and you can get some good 1980s metal sounds if your guitar's up to it. And they cost less than £40 these days, which I think is a bargain for getting your guitar into your computer.

I also have a Shure SM-58 - if you've got a decent amp, this is your man every time (or the SM-57, if you don't plan to do much vocal work). At £80 it's a total bargain for live recording.

At a push, you could use a standard PC mike, DI your guitar amp into your PC, double-track everything in ACID, then effect it to the max.

I wouldn't say that vocal lessons were a necessity - you don't have to sound like Sean Harris, Biff Byford or Bruce Dickinson - check out Holocaust or Blitzkrieg. Tank, at a push. James Hetfield did, and it did him no harm...

Holocaust live - check the top quality vocals...

Apologies for assuming that everyone knew what NWoBHM meant. It's just that there seem to have been several threads about it recently, so I guessed that there would be a reasonable number of musicians into it.

The rules are; write a piece of NWoBHM style heavy metal.

As for (Proto) Prog Metal, that's fine; If you can write in a kind of Budgie/Scorps/Priest/early Sabbath or Purple style and pull it off, then you rock.

I deemed the first track the "filler" track because it's the first one.

The idea is (in a honing songwriting skillz way) that the last track we write will be the opener - the big number that, had it been released in the 1980s, Metallica would have later covered and it would have been the song that propelled them to stardom rather than "Am I Evil", "Blitzkrieg", "Small Hours", "Breadfan" and so on.

If you follow the link to the Holocaust track above, there are a number of the other songs that Metallica covered - note the proggy pretensions in all of them. Wannabe Prog Metal is well within the remit - as long as it's not too slick

Exaggerated and cheesey is what I'm aiming for...

To re-iterate, the point is to attempt to create something in this style within similar time and budget constraints. Budget productions don't necessarily harm the music - consider some of the early bands that recorded on Neat, like Raven, Tygers of Pan Tang and Venom.

It's really easy to just get into the style and produce something that's way too elaborate... I just re-listened to last night's "studio" session, and the riff cycle is way too complex - but I'm very pleased with the guitar sounds, given that I've done next to no mixing or production work on them. Neat TonePort!

I've put it onto this share (password is nwobhm) - and I apologise profusely for the guitar solo. Normally I'd chop out the aimless doodle and only leave in the bits that work, but hey, this is only a prototype to scare the competition off... NOT!!! Have a cheap laugh on me - I deserve it for this.

There's no vocals ATM, and it's just a set of phrases looped 3 times to give the impression of what the finished article might sound like. Fortunately there are more ideas in here than I need to use.

ENJOY

The important thing is not to stop questioning.

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Posted: April 30 2008 at 15:45

I think that I may also join. I can use my friends studio which I'm still recording in right now so it should be fine. Sounds fun!

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Posted: May 01 2008 at 03:41

Cool - I wonder who's going to be first to produce a song?

I think I'll start a blog on my MySpace site by way of a progress report.

I'm fairly pleased with the way things are going - I now have at least 2 more riff set ideas, and 4 lyric sketches - 2 of which are fully realised ideas, while the other two are just fragments of metal cheesiness.

For example;

Metal Army.

Flying in the wind to fight the legion of the damned
We hurry up our steeds, our swords gripped tighly in out hands
The leather meets the metal through the forces of our bands
And we fight on.

Where's the "devil horns" emoticon when you need it?

Edited by Certif1ed - May 01 2008 at 03:41

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Posted: May 07 2008 at 03:18

Can't believe the first week is well and truly up already, and week 2 is well under way.

Having gone back and read some articles on the NWoBHM "movement", I'm getting a feel for some of the difficulties I'm facing;

How to get an "authentic" style without directly copying is the hardest part for me;

I now have 4 or 5 lyric fragments, 2 of which are near-complete songs. All were "fag-packet" jobs, and dealt with "typical" metal themes.

I also have 7 riff ideas that I have recorded on rhythm and bass over a drum loop, at least half of which feel plundered rather than written.

So I dug around for some articles, and came up with some real treasure troves - and a few good ideas that I'd like to put into the melting pot;

1) A lot of the music was produced "on the cheap", and recorded either onto cassette or privately pressed on short vinyl runs. Bands financed the whole thing themselves, in the absense of support for the music from large record companies. The whole thing with the NWoBHM was that it was "honest" music, written by the fans of hard rock/heavy metal for other fans to enjoy. Both fans and bands "believed" in the music - there was a lot of passion for it.

2) In order to circulate the music, bands and fans would trade tapes - this practice was core to helping the music disseminate, and it's inevitable that riffs would also be traded . The trick when writing it is to come up with something catchy and good to headbang to, AND overlay a personal style.

3) There was no one style - the music ranged from speedy power metal verging on (but virtually never achieving) thrash, through standard chuggers to full-on ballads. NWoBHM was about stamping your personality on a music that shared the old hard rock (and even Prog Rock) roots with revitalised punk energy and street-level musicianship (bearing in mind that some street musicians are extremely talented, and some appalling). This fascinating aspect of it means that the NWoBHM is very close in spirit to Folk Music, which is (and always has been) disseminated the same way. The drawing together of different elements also brings it close in spirit to Prog Rock.

4) Bands would play a lot of small gigs, during which they would be able to weed out the stuff that didn't work from the stuff that did. Few environments are as testing as playing in front of a small audience - even playing in front of a large audience who think you suck. In the latter, resorting to covers often works. In the former, it doesn't matter how good your covers are if your original material isn't up to snuff.

So the first 3 items are helpful to creating music in this style, and ideas can be come by simply by listening to as much as possible.

The 4th is somewhat harder - given that I'm not in a gigging band, and am not likely to assemble one - especially for the purposes of playing outdated music to people who aren't interested in hearing it - how to weed out the good stuff from the bad?

Also, how to you recreate that authentic sound of 3-5 guys thrashing it out in their garage when there's only one of you?

I think the answer lies simply in writing as much as possible - continuing with what I'm doing for the rest of the first month, then working on a) hammering them into songs and b) jamming with the ideas to add life and spontaneity in the second.

In the third month, I'll stick as many finished articles onto Garageband as possible and see which ones get the best reviews.

In the fourth month, I'll assemble the EP from the "winning" tracks - could be as few as 2 or as many as 5 (following standard practice of the time).

Of course, the studio time always included mixing and mastering - which generally took more than half of the time, since actually recording the music doesn't take too long when the band are familiar with the material.

Thanks to digital recording, this is not a concern - but what is a problem is the "pumping" and dynamic flattening caused by digital compression. I'm going to try to excercise a light hand with the compressor for this exact reason - but we'll deal with mixing and mastering once the music has been decided upon!

Hope some of these ideas are useful to anyone still with me...

The important thing is not to stop questioning.

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Posted: May 07 2008 at 03:53

Certif1ed wrote:

This means 'fox' in Japan

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Posted: May 07 2008 at 03:54

By the way, if you end up sounding even close to Split Beaver I've got the yen ready

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Posted: May 19 2008 at 05:09

Well so far, I've haven't recorded anything, but nor have a wrote anything for it, been far too busy with other guitar stuff. I could get the guitar going and recorded, as well as programmed drums via computer software, but bass is a problem, I don't own one and can't borrow one either

So yeah, as it turns out, I did end up getting a Behringer V-Amp2 multi effect/amp modeller unti last Tuesday, so about 2 weeks into this thread's life. It sounds far better than I expected for the price, some very nice high gain amp models on there

Edited by HughesJB4 - May 19 2008 at 05:11

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Posted: May 21 2008 at 02:53

Quick update, since we're now well and truly into week 4 (where does the time go?);

I now have 13 musical ideas, and am going to draw a line under this at the end of this week to stop myself going into 1,000,000-ideas-but-no-songs hell.

I'm still stuck at 5 lyric ideas, so I think next week should be purely lyric writing - really, I thought it would be easier, but the trouble is that, while I want the songs to sound typical of the era, I don't want them to be carbon copies or obvious rip-offs. I think that humourously referential would be good, however - it's just where to draw the line.

I'm finding that with the musical ideas too - at least three of the ideas I've "had" now remind me of songs of the time, especially by Rainbow, Priest and Maiden. I suppose those 3 are almost inescapable influences!

Still, as month 1 draws to a close, I'm quite pleased that I have a number of workable ideas. The biggest drawbacks I'm facing are the inability to jam with other musicians (and create a true band effort), and gig the ideas (thus drawing audience feedback).

My plan for month 2 is to draw the ideas together into between 6-8 songs (there's never any difficulty in producing more riffs), and close out the month by reducing this to 3-4 songs for the EP.

Month 3 will then be spent honing and polishing the songs themselves, adding dramatic curves and decorative fills.

I'm very happy with the unproduced sound I'm getting from the TonePort - just a little compression on the individual tracks and the overall mix to keep the music under control (because in a digital studio, letting the meters go over 0db is very bad) - so I've decided not to spend any time in production or post-production, and use that time on the music itself.

HughesJB4 wrote:

(...) bass is a problem, I don't own one and can't borrow one either

If you can produce beat-mapped WAVs of your guitar parts, you could upload them to a fileshare and I'll be able to lay down a bassline for you. Given that it's NWoBHM, the bass should just follow the rhythm, except for a few cliched fills every 4 bars or so - so it's (theoretically...) no real effort on my part, and it's in keeping with what bands did at the time

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Posted: June 16 2008 at 04:37

Week 8 dawns, and I'm still going...

I'm up to 20 song ideas now, despite my best efforts to minimise them - but the ideas are coming out more as fully-fledged songs, with verses, choruses and instrumental breaks, so maybe this is just the way to go when writing in this style - I still like some of my early ideas, but the new ones flow so much better.

I managed to get some time alone this weekend, so improvised some vocals for two songs - the results are OK, but my "screaming" sounds more like Matt Bellamy than a metal vocalist, so that needs work. I never sang in a band at the time, as I was still having singing lessons, and felt my voice was too clean and operatic for the style - so this is all new ground. Come to that, I've never sung for a band because I've never felt that I've got a particularly good Rock voice.

I didn't use any of the lyrics I wrote a few weeks ago, as they were all written (in time-honoured tradition) on scraps of paper, envelopes and beer mats, which have all gone walkabout... so I just made up some gobbledegook as I went along - seems to work OK, and I'll post the two song fragments on request (ie, you'll have to PM me if you want to hear them) - but it's all WIP, nothing is finished yet.

So only one song left to go (for a 3-track demo), and all is needed is the 3rd song idea to be settled upon, vocals, drumming, structuring and solos tidied up, and final mixdown to take place - and 6 weeks left to do it in (6 band member hours).

My plan for 6-8 songs is looking over-ambitious, but at least setting such a high target ensured that I've (almost) got the 3 I needed.

Edited by Certif1ed - June 16 2008 at 04:47

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Posted: June 23 2008 at 09:35

So this is more a blog than a thread now...

Song 3 is now live.

I had about 8 song ideas encapsulated in 2 jam sessions, and one now has vocals, thanks to some unexpected time I had. Finally managed to get a "NWobHM" kind of sound to my vocals - now hoping for more time in the virtual vocal booth to redo the others.

The three demo songs are;

1. Payback Time

2. (untitled)

3. That's Just The Way It Goes

All that's needed now is

1. Finalisation of the song structure.

2. Intros and endings.

3. Drum changes and fills (very time-consuming).

4. More vocals, if the opportunity arises - otherwise what's there is final (and embarrassing)

5. Guitar Solos (the fun bit).

6. Mixing (I've tried to mix as I go along, but every time I hear the songs on a different system (car, HiFi, work computer) I spot different things wrong with it. Compared to demos of the time, though, I'm not doing badly - maybe it sounds a bit too modern in places.

7. Mastering (the really hard bit - at the moment all the tracks are at wildly different levels, because I'm keeping my hands away from the compressor and any form of limiter or normalization).

I'm trying to get away from excessive use of compression by subtly panning stuff, and cutting chunks out of the EQ (NO boosting - it sounds awful on a digital system!) - the problem comes when I need a volume curve (obviously automatable effects were available back then, but only in hugely expensive studios).

I managed to get more power to my vox by copy/pasting double-tracking - I know that's cheating, but double-tracking was available in budget studios - and, at a push, you could always bounce a mono vocal track so that it became double-tracked (I'd guess) - so it's not too far-fetched.

This is easily do-able in 5 weeks, so I'm well on target.

The hardest bit of all is letting you guys listen to it - because it's all jam ideas, with absolutely no rehearsal whatsoever (and that includes the vox - you try it!) - it's going to sound clumsy as hell, no matter what I do to it (I'm not a pro studio engineer by any stretch of the imagination).

Still, that fits in with the amateur style of demo I'm trying to mimic - if you've ever heard any of the late 1970s/early 1980s metal tape demos, you'll know what I mean: Great music, but, shocking execution and production. I think my production will be quite clean and hiss-free...

The important thing is not to stop questioning.

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Posted: June 30 2008 at 17:41

Hehe, looks like Mark will have most of the songs Tongue

Well now that I've finally got some free time on my hands (because I had been working on other musical projects for the last two months, such as transcribing stuff for people etc etc), I'll get on the game.
I've got zilch access to a microphone and won't have any money to buy one, so may as well do some NWOBHM style instrumentals. No bass guitar access either, but I do have drum machine software and I've decided to give Sony ACID a test run too:)
My rig consists of no microphone LOL

, Behringer V-Amp2 amp modelling pre-amp, using the direct line-in recording that it offers, my trusty Brian Moore Guitars I12000 series with blocked off tremolo, which is a super strat, but consider by the mid 80s Iron Maiden and possibly some other NWOBHM were beggining to jump on the super strat bandwagon (remember the music videos to Stranger in a Strange Land and Wasted Years, Adrian Smith has some floyd rose equipped Jackson guitars).
I've also got a wah wah pedal, and my V-Amp 2 has a built in adjustable noise gate to cut down on the hum,although for lead guitar I turn the Noise Gate off since it reduces sustain by a little bit.
I've got all sorts of amp emulations on my V-Amp2, with two Mesa Boogie Rectifier models and two other models which are based off that, which I love to use for rhythm guitar, but the Recto sound isn't very authentic in a NWOBHM because Rectifiers didn't exist until the 90s.
So instead I'll be using the Marshall JCM 800 model, an amp which was of course and for many still is with us for a classic metal sound, and for NWOBHM the Marshall tube amp sound was big.
You'll notice the lead sounds change in tone, because I'm going to cheat a little and use the Soldano amp model for lead guitar, because for some reason there is more noise on the JCM 800 model at high gain and I want to get a reasonably good signal without excess noise.

First off, in the next week or so, I'll start using the ideas I've already got, plus I'll have to refrain from using sweep picking and fast alternate picking which are pretty natural components of my lead style, but I can certainly live with legato and tapping licks as you mention, as well as the occasional pinch harmonic.