Studio Recording of Metal Song

I'll be booking a studio shortly with a plan to flush out the tone of the guitar and drums for a new metal song coming up. The idea behind this metal song originated with the animation project Knight Fight, but has deviated from that project so I decided to make it a stand alone project. This song will now have no connection to the animation project but will still live to reinforce my ability of composition and also skill on the instrument.

What I want from this project is to have a very powerful metal tone on the guitar similar to Lamb of God. The drums too need to be tight and powerful, just like lamb of god or many other metal songs.

The drums however I will be also doing a little experimentation for the Knight Fight animation, involving tighter/looser drum heads, but also a selection of microphones to test on the toms. I've only used 57s on my previous drum recordings, but I'll be looking at layering a condenser mic in with a dynamic in order to see if I can make a better sounding tom, most likely sennheiser md421 and c414. I'm looking for samples of pounding toms and cracking rim shots, and also some wooden shots to layer in. The wood will help to make the rimshots sound more period correct.

There will be no overheads in this recording session, the overheads will be used in the metal song recording but for this test purpose I think finding the right way to close mic the toms and snares will be the key. These sounds will add to the "period fighting" drum kit sample pack that I'll be making this trimester.

The goal of this session will also be to have a practise session playing together, since this will be the first time we will have played together. Making sure that the band is comfortable playing together is also an important part of this project working out.