Towards the end of 2011, Zero-G released Nu Metal -- a multiformat sample library crammed with blood-curdling vocals, bone-breaking drums, blood-soaked bass and guitars heavier than plutonium.
The German music production magazine, Keys, recently interviewed the producer of Nu Metal -- Dennis Grell. This young producer is affiliated to the globally renowned Peer Music music publishing company and, amongst his many projects, he has produced numerous metal bands including the likes of Milgrim and The Surge. Keys magazine has kindly allowed us to publish the following translation from the interview.
What kind of material does the Zero-G Nu Metal library provide? What was your approach?
During production we placed a great deal of emphasis on providing the consumer a solid basis to work with this style. I think it’s great to acquire fresh ideas by occasionally using samples here and there, but creativity must always come from the musician’s own fingers. It’s not hard to see whether a musician or a producer works a lot with pre-fabricated material, or whether he is one of those who sits himself down to record and only uses the samples as an inspiration and guide for his work.
What do you consider to be the role of Zero-G?
We were in the comfortable position of not having to follow any specific instructions from our distributors. This was particularly gratifying since it offered us a great deal of creative freedom, a situation which we feel was very positively reflected in the final product we produced. I have, however, heard stories about others in our industry who were kept on a tight leash before the production phase. I think it depends on the type of business relationship one enters. We certainly had a great deal of luck with Zero-G.
How did you get your inspiration for creating the li
brary?
All of those contributing to the library had their own favourite bands, and as such their own source of inspiration. In addition, we all write songs ourselves and were even able to provide a guitar riff or two for the sample content.
What kind of sounds can be found in the Nu Metal-Library? Where did they originate?
We deal exclusively with real instruments, i.e. guitar, bass, drums and vocals. No foreign sounds can be found on our DVD whose origins one can not be determined. In the string department we were best equipped with guitars and amplifiers from Gibson and amplifiers from Sansamp and Marshall. Fender and Ibanez basses were also amplified using the Sansamp bass amplifier. For the drums we used kits from Sonor, Ddrum and Pearl. For all recordings we used a Neumann U87, a Beyerdynamic MC530, a Gefell PM750 and some old microphone rarities from the likes of Telefunken and Grundig. As a preamp the Saffire 56 from Focusrite were used, while a Urel 537 EQ and Mindprint T-Comp were my choices for equalization and dynamics processing.
How do you actually go about creating sounds and loops? Is there a specific workflow?
This depends very much on the genre one is working in. The creation of dance samples is completely different from the production of metal samples. When working on the NuMetal project our guitarist Daniel Schukles began working on writing ten different song frameworks. These frameworks consisted of 5 to 10 different guitar riffs corresponding to the different song parts including the chorus, verse and bridge. These individual riffs were then recorded, cut and processed until the loops were functioning perfectly. The next step was the drum recording with our sticks man Max Zeuler before the bass of Michael Holland, other additional guitars from Hakan Ceylan and finally the vocals of Per Ole Albrecht were recorded. Here it was important to ensure that the complete material was finished before the recording session so that all the musicians who followed on could play to perfectly timed tracks. This well-organized procedure saved us a lot of time.
Sans Amp GT2
How exactly did you go about the recording?
As I already said, the production began with the writing of the guitar parts, which usually came to fruition during long studio sessions. Our guitarist Daniel had already used our ready-to-go recording setup, so that we immediately knew what the result would sound like in the end. When the part was ready, we recorded 10-15 takes for each part. Of course, we always had to use a click track (laughs). After all the guitar parts were recorded, I selected and cut the best takes for each part and edited them thoroughly. This included adding a mild equalization and compression. With the guitars, however, we used a recording set-up that made any extensive post-editing almost unnecessary. The core for this approach was the use of a Sansamp GT2 amplifier which was specifically purchased for this purpose. This is a great little combo that can sound totally extreme, but which can also provide a signal that is almost immediately “ready to mix”. The bass parts were also processed in the same way. Of course for the drums, other processing steps were required to make them sound really like NuMetal. The drum sound in this genre is extremely fat and rounded, and requires extensive dynamics processing.
What software tools did you work with when you created the Nu Metal library?
I basically did the whole production using a sequencer. In my case I used Cakewalk Sonar 8. I like to work completely in the DAW, and when I use that I don’t think its necessary to use any other programmes. The need for other tools is therefore moot, since all major sequencers offer comprehensive groove clip functions that automatically adjust the audio material to a certain tempo, or which include plug-ins that split the loops into your sample fragments.
How much dynamic did you leave in the end product of your material?
I think that anyone who uses this library will still need space to adapt the material to his own needs. Let’s suppose I compress the loops so strongly that the customer has no other option than to accept them as they are. This would really restrict the value and versatility of the product. Anyone who uses the product should have the ability to control the degree of compression on their own.
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Tags: dennis grell, metal samples, nu metal, numetal, samples, zero-g
