Is heaviness percieved through good production and tone alone?

[TheMasterplan]

I'm sure it's been asked before but I am interested to see what you guys say.

Today I was listening to some music and after hearing two songs this thought came up. The first was Nevermore's Enemies Of Reality:



I thought to myself: Well sure it's heavy because it's a fast paced seven string tune dropped down a half-step and accompanying some solid riffing is very powerful drumming and singing.

But then this came on right after:



And it didn't hit me until the verse riff, but for a standard hard rock song in Drop D it's got a pretty heavy feel to it and the drumming is pretty minimalistic and frankly so is the riffing.

This made me think, is what people would refer to as 'heaviness' really just perceived from good production and tone?

The main reason I'm asking is because my project finally has a full roster of members and before anyone came along I had an album's worth of material completed but never started recording. Now that I've been going back and listening to what I wrote and teaching it to other people I feel like it's not as aggressive/heavy as I want it to be and I'm not sure why. Then after thinking about it I was wondering if it really is just tone/production.

Edit: God damn widget isn't working. It's the first track at this link: www.soundclick.com/thelucifereffect

Granted it's a rough demo without drums, bass or vocals - I just feel like if it has teeth, they aren't very sharp. Is the music itself enough? Thoughts?

 

[Origin]

I think you're completely right. Production and tone can make a huge difference, as well as just how you place everything; the climax of Meshuggah's song 'Sum' to me is the heaviest piece of music I have ever heard, and it doesn't have much to do with the low guitars.

 

[Stealthdjentstic]

Production is a huge factor, a good example of a band using production as a means of attaining heaviness is Gojira (imo). Their stuff sounds stupidly heavy for what they're tuned to. However, I find death metal bands like Origin, Nile, etc do a ridiculous job of sounding crushing without top notch production.

 

[vampiregenocide]

I've always seen a difference between brutality and heavyness as heavyness being phsyical presence (how well produced it is, tone etc) whereas brutality is how agressive it is. For instance, I see Danza as being brutal, but I think Seether actually sound heavier when you listen to them. So yeah, I think its in teh sound of the actual recording rather than what is being played.

 

[JoshuaLogan]

The arrangement and the mix have a lot to do with it.

 

[Ckackley]

Arrangement to me is where you get heavy. Look at "Master of Puppets" era Metallica. Standard tuned guitars, but heavy as a sack of anvils. If you create the right atmosphere and do some nice contrasting (clean guitars/heavy guitars or a simple riff that explodes into fast aggressive riffing) stuff you can get heavy. "The Battle of Evermore" from Zepplin still sounds heavy to me and it's got mandolin in it.
That's why I get urked when people assume I play a seven because it's "heavy". No , I play a seven for the added range and as a kick ass songwriting tool.

 

[MF_Kitten]

production is what you need to convey actual heavyness. tone and sound is a vital factor of heavyness.

in other words, your band might sound like soul crushingly heavy stuff when playing together in a room, but if you record it with your cellphone, that feeling won´t be translated. with proper production, you manage to convey what you´re trying to do in the rehearsal room. this is why a live dvd can still be amazingly heavy, even though there´s no multitracking or other magic going on.

 

[Harry]

I think you're completely right. Production and tone can make a huge difference, as well as just how you place everything; the climax of Meshuggah's song 'Sum' to me is the heaviest piece of music I have ever heard, and it doesn't have much to do with the low guitars.

To me the climax of Sum isn't so much ultra heaviness (I mean, it's still heavy), as it is more just being ultra emotional.
Whenever I hear that part, it drives me to tears. That riff is one of the darkest, most frightening riffs I've ever heard and it's almost like the sound of the end of the world in heavy metal form.

 

[B36arin]

Yeah, but heavy production depends a lot on tight and aggressive playing unless you're recording note per note. And when recorded note per note, you usually don't get the same raw heaviness as when the music is really played imo. Real heaviness is not only production. It's great playing, writing, arrangement and production. If one of those parts isn't good enough, it won't be as heavy. But out of playing, arrangement, writing and production I'd say that production is the least important(and I'm currently taking an AE degree). Just listen to Black Sabbath. You could probably make 90% of people perceive ANYONE as really heavy if you're a good producer and record note by note, but try convincing geeky sevenstring guitarists about that.

 

[spattergrind]

I am real big on production.

If a band doesn't have good production, I tend to not listen to them...
I know it sounds a little overboard, but it feels like there's no excitement to the music, ya know what I mean?
I don't really listen to the old school death metal bands because there's too much treble and its messy sounding.

I mean if I listen to a band long enough whos production isn't the greatest, maybe it will grow on me.

Idk maybe im picky as hell, but I know good production when I hear it.
Maybe its the time change...if older bands re-recorded, they would sound alot better.




VS



Im not dissing Napalm Death at all, im just making a point and agreeing.

 

[JPhoenix19]

production is what you need to convey actual heavyness. tone and sound is a vital factor of heavyness.

in other words, your band might sound like soul crushingly heavy stuff when playing together in a room, but if you record it with your cellphone, that feeling won´t be translated. with proper production, you manage to convey what you´re trying to do in the rehearsal room. this is why a live dvd can still be amazingly heavy, even though there´s no multitracking or other magic going on.

agreed 100%. I've seen several bands who through the tone of their equipment, presence on stage, and energy/enthusiasm put forth a 'heavier' representation of their music than on their recordings- and vice-versa. Pantera is a great example of this. I like some of their tunes, but I'm not too big on Dime's studio tone. One of their live songs, however, floored me.

Tonal quality, along with the strength and clarity of the low end plays a big part in whether or not I perceive a song to be 'heavy'.

 

[I_infect]

For me, it's a delicate balance of tone(including production) and songwriting. Tone is much easier to achieve than a perfect song. As guitar players we tend to 'overplay' just because we can sometimes, and your example of Godsmack being heavy is imo correct. The technical intensity of Nevermore works for them as well. As a listener, I know I just don't listen to a song, but it becomes my soundscape, atmosphere, my environment. If it's heavy, it completely envelopes me. Bad production can ruin a heavy as hell song, and a bad song can't hide behind great production(i.e. the new attack attack). they each have to complement the other- the sum is greater than the parts. There's a reason bands like AC/DC are still going strong.

 

[anne]

It's all about production. The heaviest passages I've recorded have been on the seventh fret (C#) with a lot of breathing room for the kick and bass, not the zeroeth or first with a flurry of blast beats, overplaying, and other tr00 br00t4l bs.

 

[Explorer]

Although one can get low tone through instrumentation and production, I feel that heaviness can also be effectively created just through good writing. There is a world of music from before 7-strings became common, and the reason parts come through as heavy is because there was *contrast* and *space*.



And, in drop D, dropped a half step to C#...



If there wasn't the space in the writing and arrangement, the heaviness wouldn't stand out, and it would just be ho-hum chugging....

 

[newamerikangospel]

Gojira are massively heavy. I think alot of perceived heavyness is due to the bass guitar. The lower you tune, the more the fundamentals of the bass start bumping below the high pass/kick. Also, Gojira's releases have alot of room sound on the drum kit, which can add alot of perceived depth, which has always sounded "heavier" to me.

And no more tears is awesomely heavy

 

[RawrItsRaptor]

when i think of heavy, it mostly comes to the mix. i have heard people play i standard tuning with some pretty good riffs, but if you have good production skills you make anything possible in music.

and this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6J4Ye7nRT0s&feature=related

 

[RawrItsRaptor]

To me the climax of Sum isn't so much ultra heaviness (I mean, it's still heavy), as it is more just being ultra emotional.
Whenever I hear that part, it drives me to tears. That riff is one of the darkest, most frightening riffs I've ever heard and it's almost like the sound of the end of the world in heavy metal form.

that riff actually scares me, no joke. whenever i here it, i just want to shut off my computer and put in the corner of my room facing the fall so that it makes it seem like it did something bad.

but in all seriousness, the thing that i love about music is that it has the power to provoke emotions. nobody has the same experiences or feelings about everything, therefore when somebody heres something (it could even just be a noise)it triggers their brains to try and relate to it. i once read about a therapy that was being tested it which, patients with mental blocks because of something that happened to them in the past that was so horrific that can't get passed it because they refuse to remember it, were played music in order to hopefully bring it back.

 

[EliNoPants]

production definitely matters, but the writing is far more important, Black Sabbath for example recorded their first two albums on shoestring budgets, there are mistakes all over that shit that luckily worked out in their favor, but they certainly weren't recording with top of the line gear even for the early 70's, but due to the fact that Tony Iommi writes riffs heavier than a lead ship in a tar pit, and Geezer Butler threw the perfect bass work along with it, that shit STILL sounds heavier than most bands today could ever dream of being even with the fanciest amps, the tightest pups, and the most blast beats, breakdowns, or insane shredding you can imagine

another point to consider is whether something is heavy, or hard, which is a tough variation to explain (i'm a wee bit drunk), but i'll use more 70's bands, AC/DC is totally hard rock, but they're not too heavy, Motorhead, hard rockin, ass kickin band, but they don't really crush the same way that Black Sabbath did, or even Zeppelin in their darker moments...hell, even Judas Priest and Iron Maiden were far more hard hitting than they were heavy in my opinion

edit: i forgot to mention pocket, note that James Hetfield pockets the shit out of his hardass riffs on early Metallica albums, i would go as far as to attribute their insanely broad reaching appeal to metalheads of the era to that seemingly insignificant factor, but it made them both heavy and hard, so kids who were into heavy stuff like Sabbath and hard stuff like Maiden were all drawn to them

 

[spattergrind]

Just to add

Lamb of god.
man they can sound heavy for playing in drop D.

Also one that amazes me, is how Winds of Plague sounds so heavy.
That shit is in standard!

 

[Varcolac]

Tuning doesn't make things heavy. Case in point: King Crimson's 21st Century Schizoid Man. It's in standard, and it's got a sodding saxophone playing the melody, but you try telling me this ain't heavy as all hell:



It's all about the arrangement to me. Chugging in the key of Z flat, even with good tone, is not a priori heavy.