Matthew Brammer (Six Below Zero)
SPB: Can you walk us through your studio or recording set-up to get a glimpse of how a one-man band works for Six Below Zero?
Brammer: Since I don't play live anymore, I'm pretty much 100% "in the box" these days. Especially since a lot of amp sims and digital tools have gotten so good the last few years. I have a small, modest home studio where I pretty much write, record, and mix everything.
My main electric guitar is an Ibanez RGIB21 Iron Label baritone guitar in Drop C (CGCFAD) with custom balanced tension string sets from Stringjoy. My bass is an Ibanez SR600e in Drop C with custom nickel sets from Curt Mangan. I actually use those guitars and that tuning across a wide variety of projects and genres, not just SBZ. It's an incredibly versatile tuning that can be used in anything from hardcore to black metal to acoustic rock, and even though I've experimented with an awful lot of tunings and guitars over the years, I always keep coming back to that.
My main acoustic is a Martin GPC-X2E (with Stringjoy strings), and I have a full-sized digital piano (Yamaha DGX-660)...but obviously those aren't used much (or at all) in SBZ stuff. They see a ton of use in my other projects though.
One thing I'm super picky about....no pun intended...is my guitar picks. I use Dunlop Tortex picks...2mm for leads/solos and faster/more technical stuff, 1mm for most of my electric guitars and picked bass work, and .60s for most studio acoustic stuff (which is a recent change...I used to use .38 nylons for acoustic, but was looking for a better sound and a less harsh attack for studio work).
Due to time, financial, and space constraints, I program drums. I recently switched to Krimh Drums (Bogren Digital), and also use some third-party samples such as the Kristian Kohle Drumshotz. I use a variety of amp sims across my projects, mostly Bogren Digital stuff, but for Six Below Zero I was going for a very specific sound and I found it early on. So the last several SBZ releases have been all MLSoundLabs Amped ML800 on the guitars; it's the best-sounding, most authentic Marshall sim that's out there in my opinion. Originally I used Bogren Digital's Bassknob on bass (and still do in other projects), but on the last SBZ release I switched to AurouraDSP's Mammoth and will probably stick with that.
Since so much of my stuff is ITB, I don't have or need a huge microphone arsenal. I mainly just use a Rode NT2A condenser and some Shure dynamics for vocals and acoustic guitars, though I have some dirt cheap Behringer condensers as well that for some reason I still hang on to, haha.
I have experience across a number of different DAWs, but to this point I have stuck with Cakewalk as my primary (have been using them since 2004ish). I am, however, seriously contemplating a move to Cubase or Reaper in 2025. I still use an older Focusrite audio interface, and a variety of monitoring systems. Nothing fancy or high end obviously; metal and hardcore doesn't exactly afford the average dude a million-dollar studio setup. There's always a ton of stuff on the wish list, but that's where I'm at right now, haha.
