Humanity’s Last Breath: Mixing Their Brutally Insane Vocals

Let's be honest, the vocals from Humanity's Last Breath are absolutely monstrous. They're guttural, they're intense, and they sit in their chaotic mixes with a terrifying presence. Ever wondered how Buster Odeholm, the mastermind behind their sound (and also of Vildhjarta fame), wrangles these demonic performances into shape? We dove into a breakdown where Buster himself spilled the beans on his vocal mixing process, and it’s a goldmine of techniques you can apply to your own heavy tracks. Forget simple presets; this is about a meticulous chain designed for maximum impact.

The Foundation: Capturing the Raw Performance

Before any fancy plugins, getting a solid raw vocal is key. Interestingly, the path to capturing these specific Humanity's Last Breath vocals had a modern twist.

Mic Choice & The Modern Recording Setup

You might expect a boutique, unobtanium microphone for vocals this critical, but practicality won the day. After an expensive mic decided to tap out early in the sessions, they switched to the trusty Shure SM7B. Buster even tone-matched the SM7B to the frequency response of the pricier mic and couldn't hear a difference. Chalk one up for the workhorse SM7B!

Adding to the modern workflow, everything was recorded via Audio Movers, allowing for remote collaboration. This meant Buster could mix and monitor from his own studio while the vocalist performed elsewhere. Latency, you ask? Of course, there was a ton of it. The solution was smart routing: the vocalist heard a zero-latency direct feed of themselves, while Buster simply nudged the recorded takes into time and edited on the fly.

The raw vocal, apart from the initial tone-matching EQ, is exactly that – raw. This gives a clean starting point for the processing onslaught to come.

Sculpting the Core Tone: Individual Track Processing

With a solid take, the real shaping begins. Buster employs a series of plugins on the individual vocal tracks to control, enhance, and add character.

Initial EQ & Low-End Taming

First up, after the initial mic tone-matching EQ, some crucial control is applied, particularly for those low-end "puff" sounds that can muddy up extreme vocals. Buster uses FabFilter Pro-Q for this, but with a slightly different approach. Instead of his usual 150Hz target for such issues, he’s dipping a bit lower, using a 12dB proactive (dynamic) cut rather than a steeper 18dB one. This suggests he's aiming to retain some of that low-end weight while still taming the problematic plosives and proximity effect.

The Gullfoss Factor

Next in the chain is a plugin Buster calls a "favorite": Gullfoss by Soundtheory. This intelligent EQ is renowned for its ability to identify and resolve frequency masking issues. For these vocals, Gullfoss essentially "takes out anything exceeding its threshold," which usually targets undesirable resonances or harshness, cleaning up the signal significantly.

Interestingly, Buster mentions his approach with Gullfoss has evolved. In this particular mix, the chain was "compressor -> Gullfoss -> compressor." Nowadays, he often opts for just "Gullfoss for gain reduction and no more compression" on the track level, letting Gullfoss do more of the heavy lifting dynamically.

Surgical and Character EQ

Following Gullfoss, more traditional EQ moves come into play. This includes cuts around 400Hz and 800Hz to carve out space and remove potential muddiness or boxiness. To add that aggressive edge and clarity, he then applies EQ that brings a "crispy" quality, reminiscent of the forward character you might get from classic analog gear. For more insights into how to approach these kinds of EQ decisions in metal, check out our EQ Strategies for Mixing Modern Metal hub page.

Adding Grit with Decapitator

For that signature metal vocal saturation, Soundtoys Decapitator is brought in. This plugin is a go-to for adding harmonic richness, aggression, and distortion, helping the vocals cut through a dense instrumental mix.

Taming Sibilance with Pro-DS

To control any harsh 's' sounds or sibilance, FabFilter Pro-DS is employed. Here’s a pro tip from Buster: he finds the default setting on Pro-DS is often "by far the best setting." Sometimes, you don't need to overthink it!

Adding Dimension & Impact: Vocal FX & Layering

Beyond the core tone, Buster uses clever layering and effects to make certain phrases stand out and to give the vocals a larger-than-life feel.

Beefing Up Key Phrases

To make specific words or lines hit harder, Buster copies them to a separate effects channel. This isn't just a simple send; the copied audio is heavily processed. It's pitched down, the formants are shifted down (for that demonic, guttural quality), it gets extra distortion, and a doubler is applied to create a wide, stereo, low-octave "dub." This layer is then blended underneath the main vocal, adding serious weight and impact to chosen moments.

Strategic Panning & Bus Architecture

The routing for these vocals is also quite specific. There are dedicated "pan tracks" – typically panned hard left, hard right, and another left, with occasional overlaps requiring a fourth. These pan tracks are sent to a "pan bus." This pan bus has its own compressor to keep the panned elements consistent and controlled before they feed into the main "screen bus" (the main vocal group).

However, there's also a set of "loud" pan tracks. These are for vocals that need to be exceptionally prominent, perhaps when a panned vocal is replacing a central take or just needs to be super aggressive. These "loud" pan tracks bypass the pan bus compressor, hitting the screen bus directly for maximum impact.

Gluing It All Together: The Vocal Bus Chain (The "Screen Bus")

All the main vocal tracks and their associated panned layers eventually converge on the "screen bus," where final group processing takes place.

Bus Compression & Further Low-End Control

First on the screen bus is a compressor. This helps to glue all the vocal elements together and provide a more consistent overall level. You can dive deeper into how metal pros use compression on our Metal Compression Secrets hub page. Following the compressor, there's more low-end control, likely another instance of Pro-Q, to meticulously hunt down and attenuate any remaining problematic resonances that have built up across the tracks.

EQ, Distortion, and Multiband Dynamics

The bus processing continues with more EQ to shape the overall vocal character. Then, FabFilter Saturn is introduced for another layer of distortion and saturation, adding further aggression and vibe to the combined vocal sound.
To keep things dynamically even and well-balanced across the frequency spectrum, FabFilter Pro-MB (multiband compressor) is used, with Buster mentioning he sticks to fairly standard attack and release settings. And if that wasn't enough, there’s another distortion plugin on the bus, which is automated to come in and out for extra intensity on specific sections.

Width and Leveling

An automated doubler effect adds width to the overall vocal group, also being turned on and off strategically. Finally, a Waves Vocal Rider is on the bus. While Buster notes it ideally should have a sidechain feed from the instrumental stems, in this case, it was likely used to help maintain a consistent vocal level against the music, or he was manually riding the fader while referencing it.

Creative Ear Candy & Automation Mastery

The final touches involve creative effects and a heavy dose of automation to bring the vocal performance to life and ensure it serves the song dynamically.

Unique Effects & Buster's Own Vocals

Among the effects is a "weird panning effect," which, when cranked, makes the vocals sound significantly more intense. Buster also incorporates his own screamed backing vocals. His vocal chain is similar to the main one, though he specifically EQs out some 900Hz and 3kHz from his own voice. These are routed to the same screen bus but kept on a separate channel for individual control before hitting the group processing.

Automation is King

Automation plays a huge role in this vocal mix. Mutes are used to create super quiet, intimate moments before the sonic onslaught returns. The doubler effect is automated off for sections that need to be "super in your face" and mono, then slammed back on when the full wall of sound hits. Delay throws are automated, with the delay's note values changing to match the song's rhythm or create specific effects. Reverb levels are automated up for big impacts or tails. There are even manual delay fades and classic reverse reverb/swell effects. This meticulous automation ensures the vocals are constantly evolving and hitting with maximum impact exactly when needed.

The Takeaway: Complexity for Colossal Sound

Mixing vocals for a band as extreme as Humanity's Last Breath is no simple task. Buster Odeholm's approach showcases a deep, multi-layered process involving careful gain staging, surgical and characterful EQ, multiple stages of saturation and distortion, strategic bussing, and a ton of creative automation. It's this attention to detail that allows such brutal vocals to sound clear, powerful, and utterly devastating.

Imagine seeing Buster Odeholm himself break down this entire vocal chain, track by track, explaining every decision in real-time. That's exactly what you get with Nail The Mix. In his exclusive session, Buster dives deep into the Vildhjarta mix, which features these insane Humanity's Last Breath vocals. You can get access to the raw multitracks and learn directly from the source. Check out the Humanity's Last Breath NTM session here to see it all unfold.

And if you're ready to take your metal mixes beyond presets and truly unlock your sound, Nail The Mix is where it's at. Don't just read about it; see exactly how these killer vocals were crafted in the full Humanity's Last Breath session on Nail The Mix.