Alternative/Middle Easternish song

[thebigcheese]

Did I get your attention yet? Anyway, the song is up on my band's myspace, which is not going to be the best quality of mp3, but hopefully it's enough to get some useful feedback. Like the title says, it's sort of a middle-eastern sounding song. There are vocals, which you can hear in the second version, but I'm more concerned about the mix of the first for right now:

http://www.myspace.com/nightlightmusic

It's called "Shells", but listed as "shells drums demo". My setup for this was as follows:

Drums: Gretsch Renown Maple with Zildian As. Glyn Johns technique, no additional mics (just the OHs, snare, and the kick on the beater side)

Acoustic: SM57 pointed at about the 12th fret and a second track coming from the pickups.

Electric: Gibson Les Paul Studio into Boss Delay pedal and Fender 100watt amp. SM57 (I think) about a foot or two from the amp, pointed between the two speakers. Earthworks mic inside of a glass cookie jar with the opening about 3 feet away from the amp (mic pointed away from the opening, opening pointed at the amp).

Distorted electric: Gibson "The Paul" into Distortion Factory. Out of the pedal into a Crate 65watt amp and also direct out of the mixer output. Miced about a foot away with one of the Nady mics from the 7-mic drum pack. Another one of those stuck in the glass jar about 3 or 4 feet away.

Obviously, the electric is a little out of tune for part of it. We're rerecording that and will be recording vocals later as well. Other than that, the only thing I don't like right now is that the toms aren't as tommy as would like, so when I get a chance I will probably rerecord with mics on each of the toms.

I'm doing most of the playing, by the way. Everything except the out-of-tune electric . Any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks!

[DavidK]

Nice. If you want it to sound more mideastern, add a C# here and there. Try it and you will see what I am talking about.

[thebigcheese]

Yeah, this song involves maybe 5 different notes. Most are variations of D. I don't know if we were necessarily going for a middle eastern sound, but that's how it came out. It plays in well to the theme of the lyrics, I guess. I'll try it out and see what happens.

[NightFlight]

Cool song. I love the way the Gretsch sounds. Have you tried to increase the lows on the OH's to bring up the toms?

[thebigcheese]

I have not, but it might work. The mics I used for the kit are also from the Nady 7 pack and they have terrible low-end response, so I don't know how much it'll help. Worth a shot, though.