Friday Update - Messing around with my own Doom Array

Hi Everyone, 

How was the week so far? Mine was pretty busy. First, I was working on some new songs for you and then I went back to the drawing board regarding some new sounds where I try to build my own analog Doom Array. (It´s going on for months)

So this part is musical Sound Design and it is based pretty much on very similar principles that Mick did for Doom 2016/Eternal soundtrack. Maybe some of you saw the GDC conference a couple of years ago where he talked about his approach. The matter of fact is, that he is definitely not the first one utilizing very basic sine waves and white noise to feed boutique pedals and creating all these gnarly and glitchy sounds.  

When you look at Emptyset's Recur Album from 2011 (or was it 2009, can´t remember), you will realize that these guys (but also other artists) experimented with such technique before. In particular, the Recur Album sounds like a predecessor of the experimental stuff from Mick's work for Doom. Probably he took inspiration from there. Not sure about that but there are a lot of similarities.  

I started last year to experiment with my own doom array. However, my first tries really sucked pretty bad. Not gonna lie, musical sound design is relatively new to me and while I do sound design for quite a while also as part of the songs that I write, I never went that far to create complete tracks that are purely based only on Subs/sinewaves / White Noise.

Part of what makes it difficult is, that there is pretty much no recipe and you discover a bottomless pit. Sure, I learned some things: So there are things that work better than others. One very important part is not only to find the right distortions but also the appropriate resonance filters. Good filters are really important for this. 

Next is: When you do not automate the crap out of the composed lines..they start to sound stale, static, and simply boring. So, in other words: A shitload of automation is required to get some interesting sounds and results. And it is really..a lot of trial and error..you can pretty much dump classic songwriting into the dumpster when you do this stuff. For my own Doom Array I used several units as the following:  

1). WMD Geigercounter (Brutal analog Bitcrusher)

2). Godeater (pretty awesome Fuzz Pedal..it is not only for fuzz)

3). Cali 76 TX-L (For mastering and to add some fluttering in the Highend)

4). Axe-Fx 2 Mark 1 (Partly for filtering and Additive Sinewave modulator)

5). Thermionic Culture Vulture (Awesome name and kick ass meaty Distortion unit)

6). Mutron Bi-Phaser ( A great phaser)

I have also ordered a Metasonix TX-3 (iCunt) to incorporate this pedal into my chain. Let´s see. I have also spoken with Eric (Owner of Metasonix) who eventually will produce new Assblasters (The KV-100), however right now..that is just..an idea and since there is so little interest in such units, it is not clear if that will ever happen. But I will keep in contact with him.

Alright, so I have attached for you some sounds that I rendered in the last few days. Bear in mind, that these are not yet tracks/songs, but first ideas and tests. I am not yet sure if I do complete tracks or mix them with my regular metal tracks (which I think could be interesting). 

Also needless to say but the heat the last days was a challenge to work 8 hours on these noises. When your studio heats up to 35 degrees Celcius and there is no AC, then this is not funny. ;0) So, in other words: 8 hours noise + 35 degrees = Hellfire. :D 

Also, there are coming of course new regular groove metal tracks in July and the following months, so don´t worry.  :D

Thanks for reading all of that!

Horns up!

Alexander