Terror Firma

Surprisingly, this wasn’t the first time I’d worked with Osiah. I’d previously mixed the single “Ti; Visions”, and although I joined the band around February 2015, I didn’t contribute any writing to Terror Firma. We later released “Dethronment of Gods” independently as a single from the album. The record was eventually picked up by Siege Records, which also introduced us to Jamie Graham, someone who would go on to become a lifelong friend of the band.

Terror Firma was written throughout 2014, with the recording process beginning in 2015 after I had joined Osiah earlier that year. As with a lot of the band’s early releases, the record came together across different locations rather than one traditional studio session. Roper recorded his vocals himself at a rehearsal space, while guitars and bass were tracked at Keepin’s house in the small studio setup he had at the time. We tracked through a Kemper for monitoring and reference, but also captured clean DI signals so the final guitar tone could be rebuilt later during mixing.

My role covered recording and editing across the project. The guitar setup included an ESP EC-407 with EMG 707 pickups for the G# material, and an Ibanez RGIR27BFE 7-string with EMG 81-7 pickups for the Drop F and Double Drop D material. Bass was tracked with a Fender 5-string Jazz Bass tuned to Drop G#, then pitch-shifted for the Drop F and D material. The drums were built from a combination of libraries and samples, with tom shells and overheads from Superior Drummer 2 Metal Foundry and layered samples used for the kick and snare. As far as i'm aware, vocals were just an SM7B into a Focusrite Scarlett interface.

The mixing process took place across 2015 and 2016 while I was travelling between the North East and Floodgate Audio HQ in London. For the final guitar sound I moved away from the Kemper tones used during tracking and rebuilt the guitars with TSE X50 on its EL34 setting, using a Mesa Oversized cabinet impulse and a Maxon 808-style boost in front. A big part of the mix was making the very low-tuned material feel aggressive and wide without losing definition, so I spent a lot of time balancing the relationship between kick, bass and guitars, shaping the programmed drums to feel more convincing, and keeping the vocals and smaller production details clear through the densest sections. Meyrick De La Fuente helped guide a number of those decisions and played an important role in shaping the final sound before handling the mastering.

Terror Firma was the result of a huge amount of work from everyone involved in the band at the time: myself, Roper, Keepin and Rownan. It was also an important record for me personally, marking my return to this kind of recording and mixing work after a long gap and helping rebuild the confidence and workflow I carried into later Osiah releases.