Machine Called Man (Metal Band)

[Erado San]

Hi Everybody.

In my spare time I am a sound engineer / mastering engineer. Last year I spent a couple of months working with a band called Machine Called Man. I did the final mastering for their upcoming album 2.004. It was quite funny to do the mastering here in Holland while they are based in the United States.

Personally I think the music is very good, and if you're interested in prog metal you will probably think the same. I personally think the sound's quite good too, but hey, what'd you expect?

Anyway, if you like metal, hop over to their new website and listen to the samples:

Machine Called Man Website

Cheers,

Erado

[KukriKhan]

Thanks for the tip, Erado San. Those guys are pretty high-energy. How in the world did you hook up with a northern california underground metal band?

[Big_John]

never cared for metal, personally. but the real question is, "what will JAG think of them?"

[Erado San]

Kukri,

I got in touch with them on a forum where drum samples were being discussed. We discussed a few ins and outs of how to deal with drums and sound engineering, and that resulted in me doing the mastering.

Basically they did all the mix engineering, resulting in the bare 2 channel audio mixes of the individual songs. Mastering is the process where you apply certain sound effects to the whole 2 channel tracks to make the separate instruments sound more cohesive, and also apply the effects to make the individual tracks become more cohesive in relation to another. In other words, you apply sort of a layer of sound effects that first make the individual instruments blend in with eachother, and use that same layer of sound effects to make the songs sound better in relation with eachother.

Meant that a lot of raw and test audio files have been going over the internet to and fro.

[KukriKhan]

You make that sound so easy.

This internet thing still amazes me. A band in San Francisco records music, ships it via wires and cables and satellites to a guy in Holland, whom they've never met, who cleans up and tweaks the sounds. He ships that back to them (using the same wires, etc) , they upload it to a website, where I can listen to the finished product.

Sure beats the heck out of how things were at the birth of rock-n-roll: record in someone's basement, put out some $$ to get it pressed into vinyl, then drive around to radio stations, begging them to play it on-air.

BTW: great work on the drum tracks, IMO. Several parts had guitar licks that could/should have overwhelmed them, but you brought them out, crisp and clear.

[JAG]

I can't say their music really appeals to me, it is not bad but just not that unique / brilliant. There are many bands out there which do similar imo.