Today’s video is the first of a new series, “Metalize a Song” with our friend, Metal Head, Producer, ‘Magnum’ Bassplayer and Audio Mentor Dennis Ward. Dennis takes on a track I Produced, co wrote and played on, ‘Little Empire’s’ Indie Pop track “Stay New” and recreates it as a Classic Metal track.
This is a full blown overview of the Production Process!
Dennis starts with guitar production, bringing in his friend, world class Rock guitarist, Oliver Hartmann of ‘Hartmann’, ‘Avantasia’ and the Pink Floyd tribute band ‘Pulse’ (formerly known as Echoes) amongst many other projects. Dennis and Oliver take a listen through and talk over their ideas on both the guitar parts but also production changes to the songs original structure and arrangement. As they go through laying down rough idea takes Dennis adds in MIDI drums (minus the cymbals), replacing the original drums to help guide the direction. After taking the track section by section adding the main riff ideas for the verses, choruses, bridge, clean intro and solo they then re-track the final version of these tracks.
With the guitars finalized Dennis then adds in the rest of the drums from a big tom intro, to hi hat groove in the verses to a hard rock Motley Crue type choruses with beefy cymbals.
To solidify the rhythm section Dennis then begins on the bass. Having already worked out his part Dennis lays down his take and then explains his bass parts.
I originally tracked this song layered with many keyboard and synths tracks and Dennis decides to keep the majority of the parts though he is not afraid to modify and mute sections. As for the very happy “christmasy” keys, these did not survive the metalize process! Haha
Keep Or Redo the ‘Happy’ Vocals?
Dennis then moves on to the vocals. Taking time to decide this, Dennis decides the original tracked vocals unfortunately will not entirely fit the metal production and also in his mind they sound too happy! This leads to the decision to retract the vocals and not having the original vocalist around Dennis takes on the challenge and re-tracks the vocals himself.
To finish the track Dennis adds a low octave to his tracked vocals in the choruses to add thickness and uses a lot of the original backing vocals. After a few more tweaks and mixing Dennis presents the final version of Stay New METALIZED!!
Listen Below!
Metalize Indie Pop with Dennis Ward – Stay New
Little Empire – Stay New (Original)
Check out Dennis’ course on Kohle Audio Kult here!