Slow and heavy mix test with the Blackstar, and no damned djent.

[Fred]

Doomy Mix Test by fredbaty on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

Just got back to my recording set-up today, and stumbled across a new tuning (B-Gb-B-Gb-B-Db) which resulted in this riff. Figured I'd fire up the Blackstar and try and record it, which led to this mix test.

Everything's a first take and written on the spot, so hardly the tightest playing, and was recorded at significantly lower levels than I'd like, for the sake of my neighbours. Still, hope you enjoy! Made some significant tweaks to my S2.0 mix to try and get a slightly less pristine and more realistic vibe. Still sounds like S2.0, but I guess there's not a lot I can do about that!

 

[Raayl]

I've got the same amp. One of the best I've ever owned...definitely a blackstar freak now.

Your tone is killer.

 

[jarnozz]

mother of god, nice sound Love my blackstar as well

 

[Fred]

Cheers fellas! Definitely an awesome amp, and so much more fun than all of the modellers that I'm used to.

(Forgot to say in the OP, it's a Blackstar HT Club 40.)

 

[Acme]

I like it, cograts to the composition and to the amp!

 

[VBCheeseGrater]

Sounds really really good man. I've been trying to use the emu out on the HT20 but it's too fizzy. This is exactly what i'm shooting for, good stuff.

 

[Fred]

Thanks! @vbshredder, the emulated output is seriously disappointing. I just found out the other day, though, that you can actually get a pretty serviceable recorded tone from the Blackstar whilst completely silent.

Basically, turn your amp on as normal, but leave it in standby mode. What I mean by normal is do not disconnect the speaker cable. Can't stress that enough! Just turn it on as though you were going to let it warm up a bit before switching it out of standby mode.

Then, run a lead from the send of the FX Loop into your audio interface. This enables you to record the tone of the amp after it's been through the pre-amp stage, meaning that you can use it with impulses in exactly the same way you would if you were using a VST amp sim. It certainly doesn't sound identical to mic'ing the amp, but for demos it's pretty damn useful!

If you're not familiar with impulses, have a Google, or otherwise I'm fairly sure there's a tutorial thread kicking around on the forums somewhere. Oh, and let me re-iterate; do not disconnect the speaker!

 

[Splinterhead]

Killer tone! Damn Nice drums sounds as well, the tweaks were worth it.

 

[JamesM]

Fucking killer.

 

[EmpulseOrange]

nnniiiiiiccee! Really like the feel on this one!

 

[VBCheeseGrater]

Thanks! @vbshredder, the emulated output is seriously disappointing. I just found out the other day, though, that you can actually get a pretty serviceable recorded tone from the Blackstar whilst completely silent.

Basically, turn your amp on as normal, but leave it in standby mode. What I mean by normal is do not disconnect the speaker cable. Can't stress that enough! Just turn it on as though you were going to let it warm up a bit before switching it out of standby mode.

Then, run a lead from the send output of the FX Loop into your audio interface. This enables you to record the tone of the amp after it's been through the pre-amp stage, meaning that you can use it with impulses in exactly the same way you would if you were using a VST amp sim. It certainly doesn't sound identical to mic'ing the amp, but for demos it's pretty damn useful!

If you're not familiar with impulses, have a Google, or otherwise I'm fairly sure there's a tutorial thread kicking around on the forums somewhere. Oh, and let me re-iterate; do not disconnect the speaker!

Thanks! Gotcha on the speaker cable...Unfortunately i'm working with m-powered protools SE at the moment...guess i need to move on - no plug ins allowed. Still will try the send trick though, thanks for the tips!

 

[Electric Wizard]

Wow that sounded great. I'll have to keep the Club 40 in mind whenever I decide to upgrade from my HT-5. I wish I'd find more doomy stuff done on blackstars, because I think that they really excel at it.

 

[Fred]

Killer tone! Damn Nice drums sounds as well, the tweaks were worth it.

Cheers! I actually wasn't at all happy with the drum sound, but more on that in a sec...

Fucking killer.

nnniiiiiiccee! Really like the feel on this one!

Thanks!

Thanks! Gotcha on the speaker cable...Unfortunately i'm working with m-powered protools SE at the moment...guess i need to move on - no plug ins allowed. Still will try the send trick though, thanks for the tips!

Ah-ha, fair enough. Might be worth giving REAPER a shot if you're after a decent DAW without wanting to spend too much. It's not what I use on a daily basis, but I've found it very useful in the past and it's pretty incredible value for money.

Wow that sounded great. I'll have to keep the Club 40 in mind whenever I decide to upgrade from my HT-5. I wish I'd find more doomy stuff done on blackstars, because I think that they really excel at it.

Thanks man, I highly approve of your username. And yeah, Blackstars are definitely good at the doomy kind of tone; there's an inherent darkness to the rhythm channel which I absolutely love - especially when the ISF is set more to the Marshall side of things, and the voice switch is in the out position.

I actually wasn't best pleased with several aspects of this mix, but particularly the drum tones that I ended up with. As a result of that I decided to have another stab at it. Have changed the drum sounds quite significantly and generally done a lot of work on filling the mix out and gluing it together. It's still not perfect (and there is a distinct possibility I might have overdone things on the bass-y side of the spectrum), but I'm much happier with how it's sounding at the moment.

Link to the new version: Doom II: Hell on Earth by fredbaty on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free