New demos online - critique needed!

[Lifer]

Have just finished a couple of demos:

[url="http://shipofgold.bandcamp.com"]http://shipofgold.bandcamp.com[/url]

Recorded live in our practise room - drums recorded with 4 SM58s, bass and guitar DI'd (bass through Catalinbread SFT and guitar through POD) and vocals overdubbed with 58s again.

We're hoping to record properly in the new year so just need some input re song structure and backing vocals, this is a dry run really. Will be recording to a click when the time comes (drummer plays to a click in a live post rock band he's in so not worried about losing groove) but I want to know exactly what we need to record so we don't waste any time in the studio. Any comments welcome!

Enjoy

Edited November 5, 2012 by Lifer

[Lifer]

Comments on [i]anything[/i]* welcome! Guitar and bass tones okay? More harmonies needed? Too many BVs?

*to do with the songs!

[wateroftyne]

Just listened to Biting Point - it's great. Is there a bit of early Rush vibe going on?

I'll not critique the mix in any detail 'cos I'm on my laptop. but it sounds fine. Loads of energy. Did the guitarist mix it?

I'll have a listen to the rest later. Well done.

[Lifer]

Thanks! All were mixed by me actually - don't think laptop speakers do justice to the bass

Got to get some gigs before recording and hoping we'll be able to get some good ones with this demo.

Edited November 5, 2012 by Lifer

[Skol303]

Wow! I'm loving this.

[b]Biting Point:[/b] brought back a flood of nostalgia for my youth spent listening to metal. Definitely something of Rush vibe as mentioned above; Iron Maiden too. A real belter of a track.

[b]Mountain Mother:[/b] something's up with the player on this one - it keeps skipping to Saline Fields around the 14 second mark. What I heard sounds nice!

[b]Saline Fields: [/b]same great vibe as Biting Point. I'm getting shades of Zeppelin in this one too. Very nice.

Production-wise, everything sounds tightly played and suitably 'gutsy' which fits the genre well. I'm getting plenty of bass thru my headphones, which sounds great. My only constructive criticisms would be:

- The mix sounds a bit 'muddy', as though the various guitars, bass and drums are all competing in the midrange. Maybe use an EQ to scoop out the offending tracks around the 400-500Hz mark (I find a cut of 4-6db around here works well).

- The mix also sound a bit 'narrow' as though everything is panned down the centre. Maybe try panning some of the track L/R or widening the mix by other means.

…but whatever, for a live session recorded in your practice room this ****ing ROCKS! Nice work

[Lifer]

Hi Skol glad you like! I'll have a look at Mountain Mother when I get home.

Mix - wise I'm not too worried about this time round, I've been lazy on a few things that will be done properly when we record them to a click in the new year. Was just an exercise to make sure the songs worked and to try out backing vocals in the comfort of my bedroom rather than under the judgemental (and amused) gaze of my bandmates.

Thanks for the input.

Edited November 6, 2012 by Lifer

[RockfordStone]

for a live room session these sound really good, id agree with skol about them sounding a bit muddy, and the drums sound a little bit distant, but as i say, for a live room sesson, they have come out not bad at all.

liking the songs themselves too

[51m0n]

Nice songs, good effort!

Some thoughts....

You've got a lot of build up in the low mid/upper bass, basically the bass, kick and bottom of the guitar are all fightinglike mad in that region. Which is then detrimental to the vocal I think.

PAN!!! This is almost mono. A big bit of getting seperation is PAN. Basically you have 3 definite points you can put an instrumetn in, Left, Right or Center. Anything else is kinda washy and indistinct. Thats the nature of stereo.

There is a 'rule' for a good mix, only the kick, snare, bass and vocal should be dead centre. Everything else needs to be panned out of the way. The most important thing is the vocal, whatever most compete with the vocal frequency wise needs panning the furthest you can away.

So in your case your guitar need to be hard left and/or right. To help keep balance multitrack the guitar parts (avoid ADT if at all possible), but dont be afraid to have unbalanced mixes for parts of songs, so drop to just the left guitar for verses, both for choruses or whatever.

I think you could make more of her voice, its rather good, and I feel you haven't presented it as well as it might be, spend a lot more time working on it, eq where necessary (which may well mean cutting space for her out of other instruments she is up against in the same area), she needs a little more presence, and a better sense of a 'space' - currently the space she is in is engulfed in guitar, which though 'good' is really becaus eof the lack of seperation in the mix for her. The reverb treatment on there (when it can be made out) doesnt quite fit for me. This is really tricky stuff, you need the right ambience for her to be in, and at the moment I think it could be better.

Like the BVs, make more of them, they are a tad too buried (that guitar again). Personally I find the non-positional aspect of not panning hard works well for bvs , you can really spread them into the middlle of the stereo field (so half left and out to left, and half right and out to right), and they become 'less', they could be a bit louder, whats the point of bvs if they dont give the arrangement a kick?

Good guitar sound on Biting Point, geting close to Corrosion of Conformity, nice one! Its getting in the way of the vocal a bit (did I mention that), but its very nice

The drums are not bad at all, nothing wrong with 4 dynamics for a drum kit, old school, but a well tuned kit in a decent space can sound good with carefully placed mics (or luckily placed ones) of almost any type IME.

The arrangements are getting there arent they, I reckon some more BVs at the Raging Flood bit at the end of Biting POint to give it another lift would be good. But I love BVs and what they do to a mix.

There are some fairly obvious compression artifacts going on, have you pushed this through a brickwall limiter to get level? Careful....

Question for you, why the need to record with a click, you guys groove hard, why not be organic and let the tempo breathe a bit??

Edited November 6, 2012 by 51m0n

[garethfriend]

no comments on the sound but mountain mother was my favourite I reckon.

[Lifer]

Thanks for more of the comments, all useful stuff.

Skol303 - Mountain Mother works for me and no-one else has reported issues, does it play for you now?

51m0n - lots of stuff to have a look at there! I'll have a play around with them tomorrow night with your suggestions in mind, makes sense to have a dry run on the mix too.

I've gone back and forth between recording it live or using a click two or three times now, the rest of the band are easy either way which doesn't help!

[51m0n]

I think you carry it off really well without a click.

If you arent in to editing the result (and even if you are, not having a click never stopped me editing if it was necessary) and nothing is running off midi, then as long as you convey the emotion of the song to the listenr think hard about [i]needing[/i] a click track.

If you are off the groove as a band then anything that can help is a good thing, but thats at all not what I thought listening to the tracks here.

Biting Point is my favourite, such a nice guitar sound, and a great riff (stringest one there for me), good arrangement, sounding fine. The killer fo ryou is to make that guitar let more through and get out of the awy without damaging that lovely tone. It can be done, but you are going to have to be really careful.

I'd also like to say this is an excellent, excellent process to put yourselves through, the whole 'proper' preproduction, recording the songs to polish them up will do wonders for your final production. Well done!

[Lifer]

Never done the whole pre-production before and it has really helped, would recommend it to anyone. Would have saved me time and money in the past on various projects! Was inspired by the Mastodon 'making of' DVDs that they do with their albums, and they definitely get it right in the studio! Makes so much sense nowadays where I can turn up at practise with my Macbook and 828 and it's instantly a recording session.

Click wise it's the little bits like the intro to Mountain Mother where there's a slight stumble from the guitarist (my little bro!) and the bass break in Biting Point which is a bit wonky that annoy the balls off me every time I hear them. As I said our drummer is in another band where he plays live to a click and when I talked to him about recording he said 'hate playing to a click but love the end result'. What I think I'll do is get a click/guide done for these three and do a dry run with just the drums before we head to the studio, if it sounds too rigid we can do it live.

[51m0n]

What I would suggest then (and feel free to shoot it down in flames), is try taking the set of tracks yuowish to record, get a cheap old drum machine or use your mac book, plug it nto the PA and set up a really nice hand clap on 2 and 4 and a rimclick on 1 and 3 to practice the entire band against it..

Go through the songs three times all together locking on to this click, then record one without it straight afterwards. The improvements I've had like this in bands have always been nothing short of spectacular, all the feel and none of the timing oddities....

Edited November 7, 2012 by 51m0n

[Lifer]

That sounds good to me, used to practise to a click in a metal band I was in years ago, set a PA speaker on fire once!

[redstriper]

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1352295007' post='1861179']
What I would suggest then (and feel free to shoot it down in flames), is try taking the set of tracks yuowish to record, get a cheap old drum machine or use your mac book, plug it nto the PA and set up a really nice hand clap on 2 and 4 and a rimclick on 1 and 3 to practice the entire band against it..

Go through the songs three times all together locking on to this click, then record one without it straight afterwards. The improvements I've had like this in bands have always been nothing short of spectacular, all the feel and none of the timing oddities....
[/quote]

That is a great idea and so obvious, I don't know why I've never thought of it.
I will try it on our next recording session.

[51m0n]

[quote name='Lifer' timestamp='1352304536' post='1861346']
That sounds good to me, used to practise to a click in a metal band I was in years ago, set a PA speaker on fire once!
[/quote]

The rimshot and handclap are kinda important here.

The handclap will 'disappear' into the snare if the volumes are all set right, and everyone is playing tight; its never a harsh sound, and it has some duration, which lends a sense of weight to the back beat.

The rimshot is usually a far shorter sound, though again not being a nasty electronic blip it doesnt hurt your eears so much at war volume, and should sit right on the kick attack when everything is just grooving along....


[quote name='redstriper' timestamp='1352305239' post='1861360']
That is a great idea and so obvious, I don't know why I've never thought of it.
I will try it on our next recording session.
[/quote]

Its a simplification of a system used by Doug Whimbish a lot when he was working with Will Calhoun in Living Colour. I kid you not, every funk band I've ever been in I've got to try this out, invariably it replaces loose tight wanna be funky with tight as a gnats butt super funky in a few weeks of rehearsal. The results are so profound its scary, its like everyine suddenly starts to hear the groove and time the same way, you all get your concept of the swing dialed into each other with a much greater sense of exactly, and precisely where the one is. How you then push and pull against that point in the beat is what makes the funk/groove happen, but if everyone hears that point slightly differently it tends to lead to a less well honed groove IME.

Getting guitarists and drummers to try it can take a little convincing, get them to play the song once without, three times with and once more without. Thats all it takes to hear the difference....

Edited November 7, 2012 by 51m0n

[redstriper]

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1352305933' post='1861368']
Getting guitarists and drummers to try it can take a little convincing, get them to play the song once without, three times with and once more without. Thats all it takes to hear the difference....
[/quote]

Great advice Si, I'm definitely going to try it, as soon as I figure out how to use the drum machine in Cubase

No worries with the guitarist or drummer - I rule this band with an iron fist