I imagine youre confused if youve ever asked me to cover Halo or Doom and Ive responded, well its already metal so what can I do with it?. I guess Im kinda bringing down a lot of the rules I set myself to for these things. Ive been wanting an 8 String guitar for a long long time and I was finally able to grab the beautiful Hellraiser Hybrid C-8 from Schecter. When I posted about it last week, I was flooded with jokes to do this song. Jokes on you guys I guess I actually did it!
My goal for this cover was NO SYNTHS but to still capture the ambiance and pitches all with guitars. Kinda tried to take an opposite approach from what the original composer, Mick Gordon was originally tasked with. I wanted to try to arrange a version of this song that could be played by a band. I had to create a really wild tone with the AXE FX III which I called Mick Gordon, Help Me with weird pitch modulation and delays to create the ambiance, but EVERYTHING you hear thats not percussive is coming from a guitar! Even the high pitch beeps is a screwdriver against the strings!
Mick Gordons talk at GDC really motivated me when I saw it two years ago, and gearing up to do this cover, I watched through it again. I decided that this will be the cover that I completely change the process of what I do since Ive been so secure and boxed in by my formulas and templates. If there was gonna be a time to break out, it was going to be this cover. Almost nothing youre hearing is old stuff. The drums are completely new, the rhythm and bass tones are new and improved. The snare is a modified version of my old one as well as my lead tone. I also mixed this from a top down approach, (mastered raw tracks first, then went down to individual tracks). I even just told Corey to have fun and take a different direction with our video!
Its scary, but I feel like even though it was a very frusturating process to do this cover, Im so happy I did and it really recalobrated me for these covers. Looking forward to developing my sound more fearlessly from here on out!
If you listen closely. Maybe you can even hear doom guys chainsaw...
