In a genre as crowded and oversaturated as metalcore, for those into the scene, what do you think needs to be done to separate from the rest of the bands?
I'm an aspiring musician, and honestly most things in this genre sounds as generic as the last band, and I'm looking for opinions.
Cheers!
Certainly NOT throwing in some electronic features.
>>63656556
There's a clear distinction between "old" metalcore and "new" metalcore. Old being the clear joining of the hardcore and metal genres, where-as nowadays most metalcore is far too overproduced meaning most of the albums released in the genre sound just as bland as all the rest. There's just too much of it, and too many metalcore bands taking influence only from other metalcore bands, so the genre on a base level is kinda imploding (IMO) under its own lack of diversity. Still, some good shit out there. Converge never goes wrong, and to me they kind of epitomise the traditional metalcore sound. All the bands need is some distinction. It's not an inherently bad genre, it's just cannibalising itself
Don't get carried away trying to sound like every other band in your scene and carve your own sound. Have fun doing it and make the most of it while you have the chance, I just got back from a headlining show in a town where people warned us no one would show and we had 100+ up the front, if you do do shows get out there and always put on your best show man, jump around, stomp the floor, get in the crowd, people tend to remember acts who get intense and up close rather than a band who stand on stage and do 0-8-5-7 riffs for 30 minutes.
Also don't try and make your recordings overly polished, some of the greatest recordings of our time have imperfections, so many bands focus on their recordings sounding ridiculously tight by going to such shitty lengths like recording a single note of guitar at a time and editing it to sound tighter which they'll never be able to recreate live. Use the music to sell people to your live show as well, no one wants to buy your local bands demo for $5, give that shit away.
I'm in a nobody band, regardless if we ever actually go anywhere or not I'm making the most of it, that's all you can really do and try your best.
>>63656556
Easy on clean choruses. It will be more interesting to use cleans other way.
Easy on breakdowns, if you want to use it, make it so it has some impact.
Try to steer away from the generic 0-0-0-0-0-0-8-8-8-8-8-8-7-7-7-7-7-10-10-10-10 metalcore riff formula as much as possible.
Not every riff needs and open E string.
Not every song needs a chorus or clean singing.
If you want to use "brutal oneliners" use them so they have some impact.
I recently started listening to metalcore. Does anyone have any good bands? So far i've listened to Northlane, Woe, Is me, and some Dead by April
>>63656556
Look at other genres for inspiration
Don't be afraid to have a different vocal style than most metalcore
Make sure your band doesn't sound like a generic pastiche of the entire genre
Play with time signatures
>>63656769
Protest the Hero, I omega, Apostate, August Burn Red, Oh, Sleeper, Miss may I first album, some As I Lay Dying, Elitist, The Human Abstract, Architecst, Converge, Cave In, Zao, Botch, Poison the Well
Auto tune and shoulder length black hair on mexicans
My advice: don't even try. Metalcore is a pretty introvert genre, it doesn't allow much experimentation. The only really good metalcore albums are Killing with a Smile by Parkway Drive and As Daylight Dies by Killswitch Engage (and Preludes by Climate Control, but they aren't well-known), but that's it, it's a maxed out genre.
>>63656769
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fq1kQZk_XM0
>>63656769
is this bait? go listen to converge some actual metalcore
As a guy who has practiced metalcore style vocals for about 4 years now, and as a person who has been listening to this type of music for just a bit longer, I would say that the reason most metalcore bands sound the same is because there's very little originality in the sound, there's little to no technicality, and everything is very predictable. Some bands try to experiment with synths, and sometimes it's decent, but most of the time it sounds ridiculous. Another thing is that nowadays, a lot of metalcore bands use auto-tune in their clean choruses, which makes it sound like even more of a joke, and more like post-hardcore than metalcore. Metalcore bands care too much about production quality.
>>63656923
This is pretty decent.
All you have to do is
RETRACE THE STEPS
RETRACE THE STEEEEEEPS
>>63659056
Winston <3
>>63656769
Architects is a must, Miss May I should also work.
>>63656556
It's importhamn to separate metalcore from Asking Alexandria-core.
A band I don't see getting recommended much is I Killed The Prom Queen. Their album Music For The Recently Diseased is amazing. A bit hardcore-y and pretty melodic, makes use of clean vocals here and there that works well.
>>63656769
Misery Signals, Dillinger Escape Plan, Wolves at the Gate, Phinehas, the first/most recent For the Fallen Dreams albums are pretty fun.
>>63656556
Make something that sounds "old-school," and people will praise you for "saving metalcore" for the next two years. Don't just make songs that sound like they were written 20 years ago, but also make sure the recording/production quality sounds old.
>>63660799
i honestly can't tell if this is sarcasm, haha
if it isn't, why would older production/recording quality be advantageous? i can understanding going the "old school" route, but lower quality still seems counter-productive even if it is to capture that image
>>63660877
"Old" doesn't mean "low quality," bro. I just has a different sound/feel to it, plus maybe some different ideas overall (such as not compressing the shit out of everything).
Architects is one of, if not the best metalcore band out there, because they don't follow the formula and draw their own influence.
>>63660877
Eh, not perfect or even not great quality can be nice.
