Hey everyone, I'm Ryyka.
Remember the distorted, old-school black metal
tone from my previous video?
Well this is not the same recording since
I didn't save that one back then.
But who cares?
It's all about the grim tone.
So in this one, we're going to make it sound
more terrible with EQing, along with iZotope
Vinyl and the LoFizer.
Black Metal is known for using the crappiest
sound possibble by using the worst equipment
available, due to this it has a very unique
sound.
Our first method for turning this already
fuzzy guitar tone into some lo-fi goodness
would be using a simple EQ.
Reaper's built in ReaEQ plugin is great, but
now I'll use Pro-Q2 by FabFilter.
Pro-Q has a built-in spectrum analyzer overlay,
and as you can see, we already got rid of
most low and high frequencies.
Now we're going to compensate that.
First, give a boost to the low-end between
50-100 hertz, this will make the sound muddy.
Usually with distorted guitar tones, you should
cut the low-end starting at 100-110 hertz
to avoid bass thumps, but we're non-conformists.
Then boost the highs around 8000 hertz to
brighten up the sound also letting those nasty,
screechy noises shine.
Now let's do a flexible thing.
Put in a point in the middle and start lowering
the gain there.
This is what would be called mid-scooping.
It cleans up the tone, but gives it a muffled
sound.
You can fool around with this, try different
positions to find which point makes the perfect
sound for you.
You can even boost the mids for a more horrendous
tone.
For the second method I use the LoFizer.
This is a free VST.
As I select it you can already hear what it
does.
There are four channels that you can use for
effects.
As a standard, we have Vinylizer, Speaker
Sim, Hum and Hiss.
You can turn these on and off with the big
red switch, select the desired effect for
that channel with the grey buttons and adjust
the perimeters with the knobs.
Vinylizer simulates how the needle would pick
up noises from tiny dust partciles building
up in the grooves of a record as you would
play them on a turntable.
You can set the amount of dust, the level
of the dust noise and the color of the added
sound like a filter.
The vinylizer makes a constant sound independantly
from the input.
Next up we have a speaker simulator.
I think the Subwoofer and Low Cost Audio 2
settings are the best, the Subwoofer being
good especially for some really dark, atmospheric
sound.
Hum is another subtle effect, it's similar
to the sound you'd hear through the walls,
if the neighbours would listen to some bass
heavy music.
You can set the pitch of the hum, the bandwidth
and the gain.
Hiss is electric noise you can often hear
from low-quality speakers.
This is a highly customizable effect, you
can achieve a wide range of sounds by tweaking
the settings.
LoFizer also has a Wow-n-flutter effect ehich
is like a tremolo and a flanger built into
one device, I'd recommend trying it for clean
tones.
It has digital distortion, a bitcrusher, a
Monoizer that you can use to make the sound
wider in stereo space, make it mono or just
to swap the left and right channels, a Vowel
which in my opinion is not too suitable for
black metal, and at last we have GLS which
is a really sweet effect, just listen to it.
And finally we have the iZotope Vinyl.
This plugin was made available for free as
a 64-bit version recently.
This is more professionnal and flexible than
LoFizer.
It can widen the stereo space with this switch
but I'll put it in Mono mode.
Mechanical noise is like Hiss, Hum and Dust
noise mixed together and it's always on.
Wear works like a filter with a bit of distortion.
As you increase Wear the sound will be thin,
tinny and distant.
Electrical noise is like touching the audio
cable connected to a speaker, or to be honest
it reminds me the beginning of Back to the
Future when Marty turns up the knobs to eleven.
Next we have Dust.
It has a small Amount dial, that sets the
number of particles, while the main slider
is for the volume.
Scratch simulates scrathes on the disc, - no
shit - you can choose how many scratches you'd
like and how loud to make them.
Be careful it causes a huge drop in volume
when the scratch hits, like a gate.
Warp simulates an inconsistent playing speed,
causing changing pitch.
There are four available waveforms to choose
from...also there is a spin down option.
With the RPM knob you can set the speed of
the imaginary record, this affects the speed
of the different effects, like if you choose
78 RPM, you'd hear the scratches more often
than on 33.
The year knob contains different EQ settings
for the signed eras.
We've already taken care of EQing so I'm not
dealing with it's details now.
Feel free to use these effects together or
one-by-one.
In the next tutorial we're going to have a
look at a washy atmospheric guitar tone.
If you've found this tutorial useful, please
let me know by hitting the Like button and
subscribe for more videos!
See you in the next one!
