In Memory of David Gold, Cover of WOODS OF YPRES - FINALITY

Hello everyone,

Last year in December the world lost one of it's best people and most talented musicians, David Gold (front man of Woods of Ypres).

In remembrance of his passing, and as a tribute to his art and him as the great person that he was, I've put together this little humble cover of one of my favorite songs of all time; "FINALITY" which is on the last release from the band Woods of Ypres.

Do check out the cover in the video below:

I met David in Kuwait when he made a work trip down there for a few months. David had previously been in touch with Sajid "Sarj" Masood over the internet (a few years before the whole "work in Kuwait" thing came up). Back then David was in Korea and while looking for metal bands to check out in Korea on Metal Archives, he saw "Kuwait" right next to it and wondered "Kuwait? There are metal bands in Kuwait?"

At that point he found out about Sarj's band "Nocturna" and basically got in touch with him and talked some metal.

A few years down the road, coincidence or not, David got a job opportunity in Kuwait and prior to arriving he got in touch with Sarj once again to meet up and what not while he's there. We met up with David about a week after his arrival in Kuwait, once he got settled into his new apartment and all that transitionary stuff.

We all hung out quite a bit, listened to a whole lot of Rammstein, Katatonia, Opeth, Meshuggah, and all that while driving around town. We even talked about doing a remote band that's along the lines of Rammstein (the working title of the project was "SANDSTEIN"). I actually still have the recorded demos that we did.

David had to cut his stay in Kuwait short once his band Woods of Ypres were signed to Earache Records and they were getting ready to tour in support of Woods 4: The Green Album, in addition to start with writing and recording the album Woods 5: Grey Skies and Electric Light.

After David left, we all kept in touch with each other a whole lot...we talked about a Benevolent and Woods of Ypres tour out here in the Middle East or Europe.

He was a great person, a very deep musician, and though he is no longer amongst us he truly lives in his music.

Carpe Diem.

Hadi Sarieddine

New BENEVOLENT VLOG

Hey guys!

How's everyone doing?

We got a new VLOG up! This one covers our experience from Gulf Bike Week and Mental Issues.

I'll be posting up a full post of our experience at the Mental Issues show this past weekend.

We are working on tons and TONS of things! Really can't wait to share it with you all!

In the mean time, I will leave you with the VLOG.

Speak soon all!
Hadi

The Gulf Bike Fest Experience

Hello everyone!

It's been an absolutely great month for us, on October 18th 2012 we performed live at the Live & Local stage at Gulf Bike Week festival which was HEADLINED BY MEGADETH!

As soon as we were confirmed for the gig the preparation and planning began!

Prasad and Gad's tickets to come down to Dubai were in place, hotels booked, rehearsal space arranged, and we were ready to get to it!

During the weeks leading up to the show, and seeing as we're in different countries, each member of the band prepared for our setlist from the comfort of their own home playing along to the studio recordings of Divided EP (WHICH YOU CAN STILL DOWNLOAD FOR FREE BY CLICK HERE). Also, we decided to play a cover song this time around; the choice was Nemesis by Arch Enemy. So, we all basically just hammered it out in our own space until we got together as a band to rehearse and get it working together.

We had a great time, the guys flew in a couple of hours before the rehearsal was scheduled so we got to have a quick meal and did some fast catching up right before rehearsal time came about. Right after finishing up the rehearsal we packed our gear and went straight to the Gulf Bike Festival venue for setup and soundcheck. It was great that we got to do that at night, we didn't feel like we were racing against the clock to make it in time before people start walking in!

Sound was great! We could hear each other clearly on stage, and the house mix to the crowd was pretty killer too!

Show day came and we were all feeling great! (I am usually the one getting super nervous before a show, but for this one I felt a lot calmer than usual). Unfortunately, a lot of times you get caught up worrying about the sound being right and over-thinking every note that you're about to hit on the guitar; however, this time around I had a serious conversation with myself and convinced me to just enjoy that time on stage, and enjoy the entire day. We were playing the Gulf Bike Festival, at Dubai Festival City, and Megadeth was the headlining act; that's a bunch of awesome things happening and nothing ever beats that feeling of being on stage and sharing your music with a live audience and feeling their reaction to your music as it happens. It worked out! I enjoyed it and had an absolute BLAST! (I guess I can be pretty convincing)

We had a great time at the show, we met some awesome people and made some new friends! I wanna thank Ryan Noronha for being the awesome person that he is and of course none other than Barney Ribeiro for being absolutely epic, booking the show and making this all happen! You guys are awesome!

[IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BOOK BENEVOLENT FOR A CONCERT / TOUR CONTACT OUR BOOKING AGENT BARNEY RIBEIRO AT AAR@SPELLBINDRECORDS.COM]

After the show, we grabbed a few beers, celebrated, and then had a great time seeing our good friends Absolace and then the headliners MEGADETH kill it! (Unfortunately, we missed Sandwash's set because we were packing our gear and what not!)

We've got a few more exciting things coming up so STAY TUNED!

HINT: News about our epic work with IGNITE AMPS and some more juicy stuff is coming!

Thank you for reading!
Hadi

Benevolent Performing on Same Day as Megadeth in Dubai! ZOMGWTFBBQ!

Hello everyone!!!!

This post carries with it some REALLY special news! We have been confirmed for GULF BIKE WEEK 2012 and will be performing LIVE at the Live & Local Stage on October 18th, which is the same day that MEGADETH are performing!

Check out our profile on the official Gulf Bike Week website HERE

This is pretty effing crazy! We are really psyched and we absolutely CAN'T WAIT for it to go down.

This is me stopping by real quick to share the news with you all. I'll be back in a few days with more posts relating to this.

Don't forget to check out our two VLOG videos from our previous show out here in Dubai:

HELL FREAKING YES!

Speak soon!
Hadi

NEW BENEVOLENT LOGO / EMBLEM

Hey guys!

So we got some REALLY exciting things coming from the Benevolent camp in Dubai, we'll be revealing things one at a time as they come to life. The first cool thing to share with you guys is our new band Logo and Emblem.

HAVE A LOOK

The Emblem (circular thingy) has more to it than just being the sexy design that it is. The circles and rectangles that are spread around the main circle basically represent letters in Morse Code. The letters spell out the word "Benevolent", how cool is that?

Check out the breakdown of the letters below:

B: _ . . .
E: .
N: _ .
E: .
V: . . . _
O: _ _ _ 
L: . _ . .
E: .
N: _ . 
T: _

We are toying around with this whole Morse Code thing on a couple of more things which we'll be sharing with the coming of our upcoming album (featuring ANDOLS HERRICK on the drums).

Stay tuned for some more updates on our cool new toys coming in from IGNITE AMPS in Italy and more REALLY awesome things.

ALSO, DON'T FORGET TO GIVE US A LIKE ON FACEBOOK

We are psyched as hell!

Hadi

Line 6 POD Farm / POD X3 Live Rhythm Tone DOWNLOAD

Hey guys!

So if you've checked out the video entry I did for the Kevin Talley Guitar Contest, I was quite happy with the rhythm tone I crafted for that specific song / shindig. So I thought I'd share the settings that I used on POD Farm and upload the tone for you to download off of the official Line 6 Custom Tone website.

DOWNLOAD THE TONE HERE

THE SIGNAL CHAIN

The overall signal chain of the patch is a basic Noise Gate - Drive Pedal - Amp - Compressor - Chorus.

THE NOISE GATE

The settings on the Noise Gate are a bit loose, that's mostly because I like to keep the tone sounding like it's "breathing" rather than being choked out and sliced.

THE DRIVE PEDAL

For the Drive Pedal, I used the Boost + EQ model, which I find that I always resort to for all rhythm tones, and even to drive clean channels too sometimes. It just allows further frequency control with the Bass, Treble, Mids, and Mid Frequency knobs in addition to have a crunchy / liquified character about it. I've also pushed the Gain over the mid point to give things a bit more umph (I like to experiment a lot between increasing / decreasing gain levels between the drive pedals and the amp's gain and compare results).

THE AMP

Next in line is the Cali Diamond Plate amp, which is a Mesa Boogie Triple Rectifier model. This is hands down one of my favorite models on POD Farm. I've pushed the Mids, Treble, and Presence while rolling off the Bass to below the center. The settings may seem a bit extreme, but I like to craft tones with my ears rather than my eyes.

THE COMPRESSOR

Next I've placed a Compressor unit in the signal chain, this works the attack and spank so the picking really comes out.

THE CHORUS PEDAL

And finally, my favorite part of the signal chain: the Analog Chorus pedal. I really really really dig placing chorus pedals at the end of the signal chain of rhythm patch and roll out the mix so it's almost not noticeable that there's a chorus pedal in there, but the sound just gets richer, precise, and liquified. Something about the sound of a very subtle chorus effect in the chain really gives me the chills!

And there we have it! You can download the tone by click on the below link.

DOWNLOAD THE TONE HERE

Cheers!
Hadi

Line 6 POD HD500 Warm Clean Tone

Hey guys!

So I spent the night toying with my Line 6 POD HD500 in pursuit of a warm clean tone (something along the lines of what Opeth were beautifully tormenting our senses with on their album Damnation).

I plugged the POD right into my MacBook Pro via USB, opened up the POD HD500 Edit software (which is a ridiculously simple and comfortable way to craft your tones, it's just fascinating). I tried a few amps looking for the texture I was looking for and the Hiwatt amp model immediately felt like home.

I got a nice clean and round tone with just about everything at flat settings on the Hiwatt amp model, with the default cab/mic settings as well. From there on I basically started toying around with different compressors before the amp to give the roundedness a warm attack and definition. That worked out well! I ended up adding another compressor after the amp in the signal chain to in-turn give stronger definition to the "processed" tone coming out of the amp.

To emphasize depth and give the tone a certain liquidity, I added a chorus pedal (this was placed as the compressor following the amp in the signal chain). When I add those chorus pedals to tones that don't require that extra wobbly tone, I just set the mix down to a very minimum level where the listener may not necessarily hear that the chorus effect is in there BUT it's adding to the tone's richness and liquifying it.

Last but not least, the cherry on the cake: the Ping Pong Delay pedal. I dropped the Mix to about 30% and gave the Feedback a notch up. AND VOILA!

Give it a listen and make sure you DOWNLOAD THE TONE if you own a POD HD500.

Best!
Hadi