No I mean overdrive, cranking the source signal then chopping it off at the top as a form of bandwidth compression. Same thing that give us that classic '80's super-bass drum like in the opening to "In the Air Tonight". aka "the drum sound of '80's pop", just applied to the guitar or other instruments. What little djent I've heard identified as such has that sound. Are the people making fun of it overdoing it to the point that I don't even hear it in Meshuggah's music?
Didn't know that about dhent though, so thanks for the lesson and info. I'm only really used to hearing the term as an object of ridicule.
They might be playing the Djent technique, but at heart they really are speed metal. Like they listened to Lemmy's "See Me Burning" and decided to turn it up to eleven... Mixing in a little Aphex Twin style layering of aharmonant patterns for good measure.
Interesting stuff on your gear setup. As a woodwind player I've got nothing quite so elaborate. Cheap chinese alto sax I swapped out the pads for top of the line with Yamaha mouthpiece and Rovner ligature... sinilarly equipped but older Selmer Tenor I stripped and revarnished myself... and of course my EWI.
It's only a crappy EWI-USB, but I've got my road laptop set up to act as the soft-synth where I also run my backing tracks through a Roland Cube Street (first gen, the 120 watt one) when busking.
The cube is great for park or sidewalk playing with the battery assist, though I ripped out the 11x AA battery bay to make room for nine panasonic 18650's (3300mah) and a charger that takes the 8v DC in the thing usually runs on with the external brick. I keep meaning to put a proper power suppy lin the thing to lose the brick and put a proper 3 prong AC jack on it.
My EWI is getting tired too, it's probably time for a new one. Kind of eying Roland's Aerophone series since Akai for a company for "professionals" really leaves its users high and dry. Hell it's why I made the website about the EWI-USB (that's pretty much now abandonware).
I meant to go out busking this year, but having had covid right at the start before they were even talking about it in the news, I'm still recovering from lung damage. I'm only at about 60% capacity now, which isn't great for a vocalist and woodwind player. Can't go out performing if every three bars I have a choking fit.
I actually had a small group in my late teens that toured New England for a summer. "Frayed Edges" -- We were a cover band of Richard Reiter's "Crossing Point", and actually opened once for Micheal Brecker.
My group (recorded on a crappy handheld tape deck) back in the '80's at Newport. Song is same name as band:
https://cutcodedown.com/music/FrayedEdges_NewportJazzFest_1991_Song4.mp3
And again a cover or Richard Reiter's stuff. Damn I miss my crew. Ex girlfriend / keyboardist moved to the west coast, lead guitar and bassist died in a car crash. No idea what happened with the drummer. Shame we split up just as we were starting to be able to play some Flim and the BB's tunes. Aka 1980's "weather channel" muzak. REALLY wish I still had a copy of our attempt at covering Metallica's Orion as a jazz standard. Had kind of a "postmodern Jukeboxd" vibe 20 years before PMJ was even a thing.
And yes, I botched the entrance on the first solo. Could be worse, I utterly butchered "In Due Time". Switching from tenor to alto and back mid performance isn't actually smart when the two instruments are of different tunings.
But again, if you think I"m harsh on other people, you should hear me critique myself. We're all our own worst critics.
I do most of my own arrangements in MIDI. Used to do work for a company that sold MIDI tracks back in the early '90's, and some studio arranging too. Thus I have an arrangers credit on Jetboy's "Heavy Chevy", which is a bit different sounding than their other songs due to the texas-rock I put into its DNA when mixing that kind of wasn't there when they recorded the track.
It's actually scary how many hair metal and new wave bands didn't even play their own songs in the '80's and instead used MIDI driven synths. The big tell was always how their live performances went.
Thus the joke from one of GTA Vice City's radio stations. "Who needs talent when you've got synthesizers!"
Says the guy now mostly playing the EWI becuase it uses less air.
It's like my biggest selling backing track from when I was doing MIDI transcriptions and karaoke tracks. Mousse T's remix of Tom Jones "Sex Bomb"
https://cutcodedown.com/music/sexBomb_morpheus_demo.mp3
And I REALLY should have used a synth instead of playing the bari sax part myself. It doesn't blend in right. Bad mix on my part. I shoudl dig up the source files and use the EWI with "Mr Sax B" to redo that. It's not like I don't still have them here somewhere. You know us old people, can't throw anything away.
It's kind of funky the amount of stuff I acomplished before I was 30. Even sadder looking back though and realizing so much of that stuff I'm not physically capable of even trying to do now. I'm really hoping my lungs heal up. Even voice lessons aren't helping... even if it's expanding my repertoire into genre's I didn't usually pay attention to.