Help For Death Metal

[bloodbrother]

Hey Guys i have a 7620 was looking for advice on what scales and other things alot of death metal bands use also have a questionon string gauge what should i use on the 7620 i have it tuned down a whole step to A. any help is appreciated, sorry if im in the wrong section this is my first time posting been a memeber for a long time

 

[arktan]

Hi there.

I have my Xiphos tuned down to ADGCFAD and use a 10-46 set with an extra 60 for the low A.

About the scales:

There is no typical "Death Metal Scale". Most bands use melodic minor scales or simple minor scales if they play melodic stuff and with technical bands you're going to find stuff like chromatic scales or diminished/augmented scales and so on.

 

[bloodbrother]

Thanks Maybe Ill Check Out Some Diminished Scales going for a Necrophagist type sound for what im going to try and write

 

[ittoa666]

Diminished, diminished, diminished. And maybe some Phrygian.

 

[the red rocket]

phrygian dominant and harmonic minor, also look up oscilation cycles by ron jarzombek on youtube to see an explanation of how to apply chromaticism

 

[ittoa666]

Damn.

 

[CrushingAnvil]

Diminished, diminished, diminished. And maybe some Phrygian.

Morbid Angel have pretty much never used the diminished scale...It has never been a big part of most death metal up until bands like Decapitated or Necrophagist.

There is no 'Death Metal Scale' or a scale that every death metal band has to use. The point of death metal is to use whatever interval or scale you want, even if it isn't in the same key as the song...look at Deicide.

If OP is talking about guitar scale lengths, It literally makes no difference - Rob Barrett uses Gibson Les Pauls for Bb and even G# I'm fairly certain, while Pat O'brien uses Baritones and standard 6 & 7 string guitars.

Believing there to be a tuning, scale length, musical scale or interval that suits death metal irks me to no end.

A standard works fine If YOU like the tuning. Aeon use B standard, Morbid Angel use A#...

Sit in your room and write some music - stop worrying about all this crap.

Oh and use a guage YOU like...

Try them all until you find one you like.

Personally I'd use 11-50-65

 

[DrewsifStalin]

Harmonic Minor and Diminished

 

[Mr. Big Noodles]

Well, typically, death metal is based around minor scales and diminished harmony, but nothing says that's where it has to stay. There is plenty of death metal that uses the major scale (usually for isolated sections rather than entire songs), and you'll find everything from an entire song being done on one chord to formal and harmonic complexities beyond what any normal human could ever fathom. It's music, dude. Nothing's ever black and white - "sort of black," "sort of white," and "sort of grey" is more accurate to how music works.

That said, you'll find the majority of death metal makes the most use of natural minor, harmonic minor, phrygian, phrygian dominant, and octatonic scales, as well as chromaticism.

As for tunings, scale lengths and string gauges, it's all up to you. There's death metal written in E standard, believe it or not.

 

[i_like_shred]

thats the awesome thing about death metal, you can play whatever notes you want

 

[CrushingAnvil]

thats the awesome thing about death metal, you can play whatever notes you want

This guy knows what it's about

 

[snuif09]

you can pretty much play everything next to eachother xD i once made the most chromatic shit ever put some blast beats underneath it and its pretty death metal sounding

but you can do pretty much everything i mean with my band i play in the byzantine scale for an arabic atmosphere

 

[CrushingAnvil]

Whoever said I'm 'being a jerk' in their neg-rep obviously didn't bother to read any of my posts properly. This is bullshit and I refuse to stand for weenies filling some poor new member's head with ideas of what scales a genre of music should consist of.

 

[Knossos]

Diminished (that 1 fret, 2 frets, 1 fret 2 frets thing) and Phrygian Dominant.

Those 2 scales make up about 80% of Behemoth songs.

But If you just want to hammer your audience to shit, just play whatever sounds cool.

LIKE A BOSS

 

[guitarplayerone]

Diminished, phrygian, phrygian dominant, minor, harmonic minor.

even, lets say cannibal corpse and hate eternal... which i think most people agree are quite atonal, could be interpreted as using these scales. (not that i think its necessarily intentional). but these are the pattern of notes that simply sound... for lack of a better way to put it... metal and evil as fuck.

i challenge anyone to tell me that necrophagist isn't 99% harmonic minor/phrygian/ phrygian dominant/diminished

 

[etiam]

This guy knows what it's about

Ehh, I don't know.

I mean, obviously there are guys who do that, and some have been pretty successful at it.

But if he's going for a Necrophagist sound, playing atonally isn't really going to give him the best results. Muhammed's extremely mechanical in his writing and doesn't wank at random. If he did, I think those albums would have a lot less magic.

EDIT: For specificity's sake, I mean there are guys who play whatever notes they want, wherever.

 

[groph]

phrygian dominant and harmonic minor, also look up oscilation cycles by ron jarzombek on youtube to see an explanation of how to apply chromaticism

I neg-repped you for posting a long and mechanical video released by a person who doesn't even play death metal.

I actually found that video really helpful when I saw it for the first time in another thread. If I'm stuck and can't really produce a passable riff, I take every note and arrange them in some random pattern. Doesn't work? Do it again. It's like a random riff generator that will eventually produce a good riff.

It really doesn't matter if the musician doesn't play death metal if it's just a theory video.

Rather than wondering what scales to use, I'd listen around for some rhythms rather than note choice. A chromatic line or a diminished run isn't likely to be all that memorable (I'm not trying to say that these scale patterns are incapable of producing good riffs and everyone's advice is useless). In death metal, at least to me, it's how those notes are played and to what rhythm, it's what gives the song it's feel, which is critical. You really can play whatever notes you want, but naturally you'll want to make them sound as brutal as possible, and some intervals lend themselves to a darker sound of course.

For example, Suffocation tends to grind it out in the low register a lot, doing mostly palm muting and then they go into some messed up depressing sounding mood, at least in their newer stuff. Listen to Mental Hemhorrage off of their latest album.

Deeds of Flesh seem to punctuate their tremolo picked lines with palm muted power chords, Medical Murder off of Crown of Souls is a good example of their general style.

Brutal death bands like Disgorge (US) are basically all about the rhythm since most of it is palm muted. Comparing a listen to The Black Dahlia Murder and Disgorge would be like comparing a written poem to a paragraph composed entirely of punctuation marks, if that makes any sense at all.

Just listen to a ton of different death metal bands.


EDIT: I'm aware that the red rocket was not the one who was neg-repped

 

[Trev]

Morbid Angel have pretty much never used the diminished scale...It has never been a big part of most death metal up until bands like Decapitated or Necrophagist.

What about Cannibal Corpse?

Anyway regarding the scale issue, Diminished, Augmented, and Phrygian Dominant/Harmonic Minor are the typically popular ones along with chromaticism and atonality occasionally.

 

[Stealthdjentstic]

Listen to alot of death metal, start learning some songs, and you'll be pumping out riffs in no time. Start off with some Bloodbath as they're relatively easy to cover...

 

[MrMcSick]

I always loved the augmented harmonies used by Morbid Angel.