Does my band suck?

[emomusician]

Hey, I play guitar and sing for a band out of South Ga.. called "Max Kincaide". We are kind of a mesh of punk, southern rock, and hardcore.. all thrown into one. we've been playing for about 9 months and just had our first show, (we drew about 200 kids). Our target audience is teenagers and young adults. We only have 1 song on our site right now, but as soon as my new firestudio gets here (should be here any day now) we will be recording again. I did this with a delta 66, a cheap mxl 990, cheap art tube pre, and sm57's. I'm not so much looking for production comments, as just musical content.

thoughts? what can we do to improve? Who do we sound like?

www.myspace.com/maxkincaide

[cusebassman]

Can't listen to myspace stuff at work as the site is blocked, maybe later.

I have stumbled into the mixing clinic to point out that a person named "emomusician" is asking if his band sucks (verses "What could we stand to improve" - its a glass half-empty kinda thing . Just seems fitting - no personal offense meant to you, good sir.

[emomusician]

lol yeah, I have never bothered to change my name.. I should.. but bleh.

anyhoo..

whats a good site to upload music to that most workplaces don't block?

[NL5]

Originally Posted by emomusician

whats a good site to upload music to that most workplaces don't block?

Depending on how tight the filters are - www.lightningmp3.com is good.

[cusebassman]

Originally Posted by NL5

Depending on how tight the filters are - www.lightningmp3.com is good.

How ironic... I JUST resurrected my "who the Hell runs lightningmp3" thread, because I just discovered that it is blocked at work presumably because it contains the word "mp3". Sigh.

Good site, though, and locally owned by, well... if it isn't obvious, I'm not sayin anything

[emomusician]

i guess it doesn't too much matter then.. everything is gonna be blocked by "someones" work somewhere.

[Myriad_Rocker]

Originally Posted by cusebassman

How ironic... I JUST resurrected my "who the Hell runs lightningmp3" thread, because I just discovered that it is blocked at work presumably because it contains the word "mp3". Sigh.

Good site, though, and locally owned by, well... if it isn't obvious, I'm not sayin anything

Have you tried accessing MySpace via the IP address? They block MySpace at my work, too. But I can get on via the IP address. I can't log on or anything but I can go to profiles and stuff.

http://216.178.39.14/

To find out the IP of any site, use Start > Run > Type "CMD" and hit enter. Then type "ping www.sitename.com"

The flash player they use won't load on my end but it might for you.

[IronFlippy]

Your vocalist sounds exactly like steve aiello from Monty Are I. http://www.myspace.com/montyarei . I thought I loaded the wrong page at first. There's not a lot of creative stuff going on with the song, but it's not boring. It doesn't suck, in my opinion, but it's going to be tough to stand out amongst the countless other bands that have a similar sound. Good luck!

[Greg_L]

Originally Posted by emomusician

Does my band suck?

If you have to ask........

[Polska_77]

I checked out the vid you have on myspace. Yall look like 4 autistic mongoloids. I didn't listen to the music, cause my sound card is fried

[jeffchastain]

I hear nothing but snare and distortion in that video.

And I don't think your band sucks, but I do think it sounds just like every Maylene-influenced, tight pants wearing, "I paid 30 bucks for this haircut but I'll swear it was DIY" band out there.

[emomusician]

Hmm..

I didn't think there were that many bands doing this sort of thing.

unfortunately. its very difficult to be completely original. However I don't think we sound that much like Maylene, at all really. But I do love their music and don't mind taking bits of pieces from them.

I see more as.. we could play with Maylene, than "you guys are a maylene rip off". Hard to be innovators.

[timthetortoise]

Tired genre that should have died years ago. Pleaseeeeeee just write different music

Mix sounds okay. I don't like the song though. As others have said, it sounds like the millions of other songs out there. Impossible to distinguish your music from other people's.

[emomusician]

mind telling me what songs?

I want to go listen. or not even songs, what bands do we sound like? We haven't been able to figure out, and are having a real tough time figuring out "who" to play with. But apparently if we sound just like everyone else.. finding out who that everyone else is.. would help us find where we fit in this mad musical world.

not really out to innovate. Just out to have fun.

[Greg_L]

Originally Posted by emomusician

mind telling me what songs?

I want to go listen. or not even songs, what bands do we sound like? We haven't been able to figure out, and are having a real tough time figuring out "who" to play with. But apparently if we sound just like everyone else.. finding out who that everyone else is.. would help us find where we fit in this mad musical world.

not really out to innovate. Just out to have fun.

Don't worry about it then. Just play your cliche music better than they do. I live in the south and see bands like yours every week. Everyone claims to mix "the south" with modern rock or punk. If this is what yall naturally come up with, then it is what it is. You can't force something that isn't there. Just play it better than the next guy. Judging from this recording, yall need work. the timing is sloppy and that vocalist is terrible. Just being honest man.

Originally Posted by emomusician

mind telling me what songs?

I want to go listen. or not even songs, what bands do we sound like?

Turn on the radio...or the TV.

If that is your sound then keep playing it, nothing wrong with that. It just doesn't sound distinguishable at all from other music you hear all the time on the radio.

I didn't notice any timing problems or anything but I didn't listen for very long.

[emomusician]

Don't worry about it then. Just play your cliche music better than they do. I live in the south and see bands like yours every week. Everyone claims to mix "the south" with modern rock or punk. If this is what yall naturally come up with, then it is what it is. You can't force something that isn't there. Just play it better than the next guy. Judging from this recording, yall need work. the timing is sloppy and that vocalist is terrible. Just being honest man.

who else is playing it?

like I said.. i don't know of any. if there are, they don't sound like us.
what about the vocals don't you like?

some parts are off key I know. your the first to comment on the vocals being bad. its usually the drums being off that I hear.

[Greg_L]

Originally Posted by emomusician

who else is playing it?

like I said.. i don't know of any. if there are, they don't sound like us.
what about the vocals don't you like?

some parts are off key I know. your the first to comment on the vocals being bad. its usually the drums being off that I hear.

Dude, you guys sound like regular run-of-the-mill modern radio rock. There's umpteen dozen local bands down here in Houston that sound just like you guys. That's not a knock against you, I'm just saying that your sound isn't that unique or even interesting. To think that you are breaking ground and get all defensive over it is wrong on your part. I'm telling you from over a decade of playing live and seeing bands that you sound like everything else. It's no big deal. The way you remedy that is to play BETTER than the rest.

The vocals, strictly my own opinion here, are thin, pitchy, whiny and pretty typical poppy-punk sounding. They sound like any other college-aged pop-punk band. The drums have good playing style, but they sound flat and cheap. Just my 2 cents.

[ecktronic]

The mix is pretty nasty.
The song is up beat, got that catchy emo pop thing going which I don't like, but it sounds good for the style you are going for.

Eck

[ecktronic]

Originally Posted by cusebassman

How ironic... I JUST resurrected my "who the Hell runs lightningmp3" thread, because I just discovered that it is blocked at work presumably because it contains the word "mp3". Sigh.

Good site, though, and locally owned by, well... if it isn't obvious, I'm not sayin anything

No worries. Use a proxy filter.
Heres one at the link below.
Simply put a lightning MP3 URL into the box and you should be able to download mp3s from lightningmp3.com

http://www.howtounblockmyspace.com/

ps. Myspace players dont work with proxy filters unfortunately although myspace still does.

Eck

[ecktronic]

Originally Posted by emomusician

who else is playing it?

like I said.. i don't know of any. if there are, they don't sound like us.
what about the vocals don't you like?

some parts are off key I know. your the first to comment on the vocals being bad. its usually the drums being off that I hear.

I noticed the attack on some of the vocal phrases are nasty. NOt sure if you compressed the vocals far too much and made the compressor kick in heavily and cuase a horrible jump in volume at the start of certain phrases, or if you didnt use compression.

I have to agree I don't think the song itself is that original but it definetly isnt a bad song, but as you said yous are out of have fun rather than be original.

I did notice timing issues also, could be the drummer not used to playing to a click track (if you used one).

Eck

[Nicole_Rose]

the vocals definitely need work.

[timthetortoise]

If you're so curious to get actual bands that your sound is "similar" to, here's a much better band. And in my humble opinion they're terrible. In the mighty words of Greg_L, "If you have to ask..."

[rayc]

The snare timing is off putting for the 1st dozen bars.
Not bad work.
Soundclick is VERY good.
Your bass needs definition.
Overall it's a bit fizzy but mspace doesn't help.
Keep myspace for fans & promo & go to lightning or soundclick for forum stuff.