Like a lot recording engineers who specialize in aggressive music, I subscribe to video podcasts from Pensado’s Place with begrudgingly. The titular host, Dave Pensado, is certainly a talented mixing engineer, but often the techniques he uses to get that phat Kelly Clarkson sound are…. questionably applicable for anyone reading this website.
But lo and behold, Pensado interviewed a metal guy. Sure I posted about his Ken Andrews interview last week, but Failure were no metal band. He did interview Joe Barresi twice, and I could have sworn there was a Steve Albini episode but Google is disagreeing with me. Yet there’s never been an episode that focused on an engineer from the modern heavy-as-hell spectrum.
You can see why. This episode, featuring Jason Suecof (Black Dahlia Murder, Job For A Cowboy, God Forbid, etc), is hysterical. It borders on Christopher Guest awkwardness at times, like when Dave asks Jason if there’s 16th-note slapback delay on the rhythm guitars, or if there’s supposed to be vocal harmonies on a metal recording. Maybe the best part is when he tries to convince Jason that he recorded the most recent Trivium record, which was actually produced by Disturbed’s Dave Draiman.
Still, if you can get past the slightly patronizing “don’t write these recordings off even though their vocals sound like AAARRRRGGGHJJ!!” vibe, you’ll find scattered nuggets of wisdom from Mr. Suecof.
If you want more on Jason Suecof check out this interview with him among others that we did for Toontrack’s metal month. Oh, and by the way, that Joe Barresi interview that I linked to above has some great guitar micing pointers.
