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Fast heavy metal solos and shredding leads using hardware or software step sequencing?
I'm having trouble deciding on gear that I really want, but am not sure if it's for me. I'm also curious if anyone has gotten into this stuff like I have.
I make electronic music that's inspired by metal. That means high speed heavy and complex
solos and fast melodic sounds. The final product ends up being some weird mix of industrial and drum and bass, but with accompanying solos that are similar to the guitar solos you'd hear in a thrash or death metal song, but not as good 🤣.
However to accomplish these solos I always need a midi controller, and either lengthy audio tracks like in a DAW, or a very very high resolution sequencer, like the mc101, gadget 2 or nanostudio, where you can do heavy unquantized midi recording.
This severely limits my hardware options and even some software groovebox options. I love portable grooveboxes since I'm always on the go, often making music during downtime at work or away from home.
The piece of hardware I want, so very badly, is the digitakt.
It's perfect for sampling and sequencing drums and grungy industrial noise, and it looks sexy and is made of metal. But it's very much a 16th note step sequencer with limited resolution.
But I'm curious, do any of you have tips or knowledge about sequencing fast and detailed melodic solos, similar to guitar solos in metal or jazz? Are there examples of this kind of stuff online on the digitakt or even mpc one (my closest second)?
I know this is an odd question, but that's why I pose it here...
The closest example I have found is in old video game music, like Genesis and NES era, where everything was quantized to a grid, but by pumping up the bpm to "higher than you'd expect" you could achieve higher resolution; i.e. ninja gaiden, MegaMan, some of the Batman games etc. And with pitch bends and lfo's they even did vibratos and slides!
Is this kind of thing feasible on the digitakt? Or will I be reaching for a DAW again to complete my solos?
It's the only reason I haven't gotten one yet. I really would like to use it on its own, I'm not about the hybrid setup right now except for mastering.
For reference, the mc101 is the only groovebox I've used that could achieve excellent solo recording due to its insanely high resolution sequencer.
Here's an example track on the mc101 with solos
And another on gadget, also with solos at the 2:00 mark, but that's functionally a DAW, and while I love it, it's not a stand-alone hardware box...
I'm really curious if anyone's tried stuff like this before and how it worked out for you, and just to discuss the options hardware and software for making this kind of music, especially pertaining to sequencers.
Comments
Try using Atom 2 inside Drambo. You’ll have all the resolution you’ll ever need
You just gave me an idea. I’ll be back later…
That's.... That's actually a brilliant idea!
@GeorgeL909 Have you ever heard of Master boot record ? He makes chiptune metal. I really like his music.
Super interesting! I never heard of him, but this is really really good! Great proof of concept example. Those solos sound sequenced, yet they are still interesting, well composed, and shred hard! I guess it is very doable.
Great suggestion.
@GeorgeL909 I actually own a Digitakt and its limitations have made me mostly switch back to the iPad and a Windows tablet with Ableton Live and Kontakt.
What you're looking for will certainly need a good sequencer that lets you edit your high speed riffs easily. On the iPad, I'd use Gadget or LK and on the Win tablet, the piano roll in Ableton.
Distortion effects are available on both platforms.
From my experience, editing complex riffs without a good piano roll can be a nightmare.
That's really good feedback, I appreciate that. You're right the gadget piano roll works amazingly well. I can record live into it, and it's so accurate, I only ever have to edit if I make a mistake and am too lazy to re-record.
Maybe it's just wishful thinking, that I could find something almost as easy, but built into a metal black box with knobs...
The mc101 was damn close but missing the sampling, sample editing, and easy parameter locks (though it does have decent automation).
On a semi-related note, I was messing around with gr-16, and by using the 32 note base option (which is like doubling the bpm and halving the pattern length) I was able to get some almost guitar solo riffs going. They were a bit robotic sounding, but with some lfo and automation wizardry I might be able to make it sound interesting.
No love for Atom2?
LK must have improved greatly since the last time I tried it (several months ago). Because it’s piano roll was nowhere near the capabilities of Atom.
Gadget? I’ve got a new iPad with tons of space, so I’ll be trying this again as well.
I've tried to like it and on paper it's incredible but every time I'm using it, it seems to distract me from making music - like using Atom for Atom's sake.
It just does its job and its capabilities, including automation, cover my needs - what can I say? 😄
I find it a very musical app, and I still love using it.
Interesting. I would have thought you of all people would be totally into it. I reckon there’s an app for everyone lol
Do you play your solos on a keyboard or sequence them?
@GeorgeL909 I am not sure why you could not use something like Cubasis 3. I tried playing nonsense as fast as I could on my midi keyboard and Cubasis recorded all the notes and displayed them in the editor.
Midi Keyboard live recorded usually, unless I'm on the go, then she built in keyboards depending on the program; but I don't mind sequencing either if the sequencer is fun.
I quite enjoy sequencing in a tracker, especially sunvox, since I'm less familiar with tracker spacing and timing so I end up with more happy accidents.
Recording live into a DAW is definitely an option, but one I've grown creatively fatigued with.
I'm interested in a stand-alone groovebox, or groovebox environment, but most of the cool ones seem very step sequencer oriented especially hardware grooveboxes. I might be trying to fit a square workflow peg into a round sequencer hole by trying to sequence fast solos on a groovebox... and that's where I hit a wall.
Best solution I can come up with for something like a digitakt or circuit is to crank the bpm very high and make shorter patterns to chain together. It kinda works, but I don't know if this will get frustrating after a while.
If it does, and I just end up back on nanostudio or gadget or even cubasis, then there may be no point in shelling out for a digitakt.
I can imagine! Being a Drambo die-hard, some may think that complexity doesn't put me off.
But a sequencer and a sound generator are two different worlds.
Music in my brain wants to be written down fast. Whatever tool gives me the fewest obstacles to do so will win, and for me these are Gadget, LK, Genome MIDI and Ableton Live.
Creating sound is a different step in the process. Once the sequence is written, I can start searching for the right sound, tweaking, manipulating, layering and that's a much more open and experimental thing. And somehow the opposite because the more time I spend, the better it gets.
Interestingly, when I have a musical idea in my mind, I'll pick Gadget.
When I have a concept, sound or effect in mind, I might open Drambo and assemble it. Then while playing around with it, I might stumble upon something nice and build on top of it so the song basically comes out of experimentation.
@GeorgeL909 You're right, I forgot to mention Nanostudio!
Anyway, my take on the Digitakt is to use it as a high-end drum machine. The ease of using its sequencer won't help if you write more complex melodies. With drums, it's easy: One hit per step button, you can scroll through 4 bars fast and editing is fun. But melody and off-the-grid hits? Not so much. You never see your sequence as a whole. It's just not built for that. Even Groove Rider is better because at least you have a mini piano roll showing up to 4 notes in a track. Another no-go in the DT, as only the MIDI tracks have 4 voices polyphony, not the audio tracks.
Add the restriction to mono-only samples in the DT and we're back in drum machine territory.
When I've received my DT, I've combined it with GR-16 for a while and I liked the combo for the similar concepts and the rock solid MIDI Sync. But the more I've worked with both, the more I've asked myself why I was still using the DT when GR-16 can do all that and so much more, except sampling but that's covered by TwistedWave and AudioShare.
At first I just didn't want to accept that because the DT has a really beautiful steel box with controls that feel great (except the annoying encoders for some parameters!) but at some point, when getting more into writing music, the hardware feel became much less important.
Both are just tools to get the job done, be it on rock solid hardware or on a touch screen, and what makes the difference for me is how usable it is.
In fact, for an all-in-one compositional sampling tool, Nanostudio 2 with its fantastic Slate and Obsidian is still first class.
The shredding in the following track was made with a simple bass loop that was processed through “Scatterbrain” to make it sound like guitar shreds.
Here’s the detailed processing chain:
Toneboosters DualVCF (Random ramp filter)
Slow Machine (Chops bass loop for the for the slow shred sections)
ScatterBrain (randomly chops the bass loops into psychedelic shreds
(live switching between Slow Machine & ScatterBrain for each section)
ToneBridge (Octopuss > Rocketon Zombie > Taos .50 Cal > 4x12 Taos Rectifier with Wideload 421 mic on axis) (Input gain increasing from start to finish)
Bass Leveler (to keep consistent bass)
Toneboosters Compressor (Sidechain for ducking only the lower frequencies. Side chain trigger input from the lower frequencies of the drum bus)
I have been eyeing an MC-101 for the near future, and one video that may seem interesting for your needs is Jakob's recent one. See if it helps give you some ideas:
I definitely have been diving in deeper with gr-16 and it more than hits the spot sound design and parameter lock wise.
The only thing that kept it from being my perfect music app is the lack of high note resolution. However, I've been experimenting more with 8 bars and 32 note rhythm base, and I found that I can actually record in some very complex high speed melodies due to the functional tempo doubling.
The downside is it sounds a bit "quantized" even with quantize off, but then I can p-lock steps in the solos that lead to a very unique and chaotic sound!
I think the difference between this and the digitakt is if I had to limit to 64 steps (functionally 32 higher resolution steps if the tempo is doubled) I'd be using tons and tons of chaining and it would be frustrating to compose!
Gr-16 solves this with song mode and 128 step patterns.
This may be the way!
I highly highly recommend the mc101. I made tons of stuff from black metal to jungle on the thing and it's fantastic. But take it for what it is, an advanced Rompler with preset tweaking and phenomenal effects, and a basic sample player with minimal editing, combined with the highest resolution polyphonic hardware sequencer I can think of.
If the romlper part bothers you, go for the 707 instead, which exposes all the synth parameters without the need for all that zenology pro faff faffing about
Super interesting! Scatterbrain huh? Now it's definitely on my radar! Great track too!
@GeorgeL909 In GR-16: SEQ > EDIT > Time Shift and Stroke values per step.
And yes, double bpm is another option.
Wow I've never noticed or used those parameters before! Definitely gonna delve later.
👍🏼
I create shreddy guitar solos using Geoshred in GarageBand. I play/record the basic idea, then go in and write/build/edit the solo step by step. It’s actually really simple and quick with some copy/pasting.
Shreddy part around 2:07. It’s pretty basic but could easily be made more complex.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vdgso9494oquxjf/Demon Seed.m4a?dl=0
I noticed you mentioned trackers but those would definitely give you some wildly fast solos that could push the limits of human ability. I like using geoshred recorded into atom 2 since it’ll do mpe as well. I’m never super satisfied though with it and just end up using my guitar and midi guitar
I quite liked that track! > @Fingolfinzz said:
I have fallen in love with trackers late in the game, but I can't bring myself to buy the Polyend tracker, since I can run sunvox on practically anything with more than quadruple the tracks (functionally infinite on a proper PC), polyphony, more drive space, more sample editing, more effects, and don't get me started on the modular synth stuff. The Polyend tracker is freaking awesome, but... Sunvox spoiled me. I haven't even tried renoise but that might push me further into tracker software territory.
Now the dirty wave m8, that might be a strong contender, since it's crazy portable, but just crazy hard to get one right now 🤣
Thanks!
@GeorgeL909 inspired by this thread, I did a little bit of sequenced “shredding” in this piece in ATOM 2 (driving PureSynth platinum in Drambo Standalone) today.
The shred part first appears at 2:12 (I use a simple launch note on Drambo’s sequencer to fire the shred sequence in ATOM 2.) and then a few more times later in the piece. The shred sequence is 1/64th.
Edit: I know it’s not “heavy metal”, but the concept is relevant, I think.
I play guitar, so if I need something like that I’ll record it as audio as I have never really been able to get anything similar from a MIDI controller.
Keyboards are probably one of the more difficult controllers to use as the techniques are so different, but there are hardware controllers aimed at guitarists that would make things much easier.
Geoshred is probably the nearest I have found, but it’s more in line with tapping guitar solos, so isn’t quite the same and doesn’t allow for tremolo picking.
Not really sure what to suggest for the results you want, but it’s probably a good idea to try everything suggested and see what works best for you.
That was very cool! Atom 2 seems to be an easy way of adding note resolution to drambo without having to change the whole project up. Very cool. This might be the cure for my digitakt woes, in that the best of both worlds is achievable: step parameter locks and fast high resolution melodies. It seems that with the hardware only I'd have to sacrifice the latter or functionally restrict myself to composting in chunks of 32 steps (64 at double time), which I think will get annoying for longer tracks.
Gr-16 also almost gets around this a little with 128 step patterns, that in double time are functionally 64 steps, and that's way less frustrating to work with than 32 steps...
That is excellent feedback, and I agree, it's never quite the same, but that's ok.
I have the opposite issue. I can pay the solos much more easily on keyboard than on guitar, especially with a pitch and mod wheel because I suck at guitar. The goal is not quite to sound like a guitar solo, but to match the attitude and aggressive energy heard in metal guitar: i.e. fast dissonant or melodic high resolution notes with variation.
The problem I have is not really playing the solos, but finding a way to record the solos accurately in a groovebox because most groovebox environments have fairly low resolution sequencers.
Why would I want to do this? Step Parameter locking on digitakt, drambo, gr-16 opens the doors to a lot of sonic possibilities that get tedious and frustrating on regular daws.
So the goal was to find a groovebox like sequencer that could handle both high resolution note recording and parameter locks, or some workaround and compare it to the digitakt, which is currently the king of p-locks I guess.
It's a confusing exercise in brainstorming, but from it I've gotten a lot of ideas and inspiration from the comments here.
Best contenders so far
Double tempo gr-16 (or 32 note base)
Drambo hosting atom 2 as au
Digitakt + lots of patience and pattern chaining
Or just doing everything in a groovebox, then importing into a DAW and playing the solos live over it with a keyboard into audio tracks; which I've been doing, but it's getting kinda boring and samey.
I'm currently exploring koala sampler samurai edition unquantized with xequence 2. It doesn't have parameter locks per say, but you can quickly edit and duplicate samples in ways that mimic parameter locks. And the sequencer is surprisingly much higher than I expected.
I really appreciate the conversation and ideas tbh, since it's not something easy to find a lot of info on and only applies to a few niche genres not often explored in the electronic music production world especially via hardware and grooveboxes.
Also it's an excuse to combat expensive GAS with creative ideas.
For anyone still curious,
I stumbled upon this just now, and wow, this was composed on lsdj
It seems to be at 193 bpm, and even though it's a chiptune track, it has all the intensity and complexity of a metal song imo.
I guess the moral of the story is that any sequencer will do, whether it's live recorded or programmed in, it just requires patience, and a high bpm with lots of half time composition.
I guess in theory then, the music I want to make can be achieved on the digitakt, a tracker, drambo, anything really, just with a firmer understanding of note spacing and relationships. It's different than just hammering it out live on a midi keyboard, but if the results can be as spectacular as this track, it's very doable, especially with portable and compact setups.