José Herring
Lost in Cyberspace
Are there any present day death or heavy metal bands that don't use power chords or does that define the genre?
Are there any present day death or heavy metal bands that don't use power chords or does that define the genre?
Maybe explain what you're trying to learn a bit better,
because as with most things, the rabbit hole goes deep... What are you trying to do/learn?
You mentioned 2 styles that are very different and lumped them together as 'a genre'.
I guarantee you there can be a world between them;
different styles, different writing, different fans, different art, etc. etc.
Mostly it's a combination of power chords & single riffs as mentioned, or a combination (2 guitar players usually!). It reads better in a mix, and is easier than full harmony.
Typically solo's are supported using simple chord progressions (think 80's Metallica),
these are usually powerchords.
Death metal tends to be tuned (much) lower, be less melodious, has deeper/lower vocals and different/faster drumbeats, pick your poison..
There's really nothing complicated about any of it,
Lots of good (great even) musicians within the genre's though... YouTube definitely accelerated the learning process, but has not resulted in better or more interesting music (quite the opposite).
Yeah, that's my problem. I'm doing this cue for a demo for a TV show and I need some fairly dark guitar stuff along with synth bass ect... I'm trying to add harmony to it but when I do anything but a 5th it gets overly distorted and sounds dissonant because of the distortion on the guitars. Even a fourth sounds like crap. I had a nice little progression going and it was sounding nice and musical then I add the distortion and all harmony goes out the window.
I'm about to get Titan from Alex Pfeffer but I don't want the guitar to just do power chords.
As I write this though, I don't think that power chords as the basses and 5th of the harmony is so bad if I can put a arpeggiated guitar part to fill out the harmony. Then put some melodic instruments on top of that. I like it. So the problem is with my orchestration. If I want guitars down low they almost have to be doing power chords as you mentioned. Works out better than full harmonies.
Death metal in particular is very simplistic, there is no real harmony, it’s just about raw aggression, don’t expect it to be very complicated, but if you want tips on how to get a great metal tone that plays well with synths and orchestral elements:
1. Use high end pickups that have good string separation and note clarity, like Bare Knuckle or Lundgren
2. Dial back the gain and use an overdrive pedal with the drive all the way down to boost the amp, this will drastically clean up the low end flub you get from a high gain amp and give you a tighter yet more aggressive sound
3. You don’t have to tune super low to sound heavy, drop c isn’t that low and you can make it sound huge and brutal
4. Listen to Periphery
5. ^ Do what #4 says
if you're looking for some kind of link between death metal and orchestral music Luc Lemay is one:
2. Dial back the gain and use an overdrive pedal with the drive all the way down to boost the amp, this will drastically clean up the low end flub you get from a high gain amp and give you a tighter yet more aggressive sound