ZiX in Las Vegas: Metal Strike

We saved the main event for last: Metal Strike. The track took **almost a full mixing day**. To get an idea of how we got here and who everyone is, I recommend reading the first two parts: ZiX in Las Vegas: the chronicle and ZiX in Las Vegas: the mix.

I was lucky enough to work with Steve and Bobby on Metal Strike, the **all-stars song** featuring legends like Tony Martin of Black Sabbath, Ronny Munroe of Metal Church, and the two ex-Iron Maiden singers Blaze Bayley and Paul Di'Anno among many others. I'll publish the full guest list when the song officially drops.

The session, like all the others, I'd built back in Buenos Aires, so I knew it well — and this one in particular was untamable. Lots (LOTS) of tracks because of all the guests; to give you an idea, there were **about 25 vocal tracks alone**. Ryan and I worked very hard to put together something we could actually work with afterward.

What we did, on Steve's recommendation, was build a lead-vocal track, combining fragments from each singer. Then we picked out the ones with the most similar ranges and harmonic structures to **group and process them together**. Another whole headache was the umpteen choir tracks for the chorus, but Ryan handled aligning those, so I didn't suffer too much there.

When we finished that, Bobby took care of processing each of the two "voices" we'd assembled by range. The idea was to get **the best out of each take**, since they were all wildly different — every guest recorded on their own in a different place, and the jumps in quality were enormous, from the room reverb of the take to the spectral makeup.

As for the guitars — which is what's *truly* important here (?) — there were no major issues. After a brief debate, we decided to drop an arrangement I'd made over the chorus because it ended up competing with the vocals. Then we had to fight a bit with excess high end on one of the guest solos, and that was it.

The result was phenomenal, and the finished track came out great — you'll hear it. In the meantime you can **listen to the original version** here, watch the solo here, or browse the trip photos in this Facebook album.

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