ahhhhh, now I understand about the processed feel. The guitars are a mixture of live amp and v-amp... most of the rhythm was done with a crate blue voodoo amp - then I layered an almost ac/dc level distortion guitar from the v-amp to thicken the sound. But that processed sound you are talking about is one of the problems I'm having with the mix as well... it needs some reverb I think, but every time I add a little it sounds like crap... but a little bit of punchiness to the mix would certainly liven it up and kill that processed feel. Hopefully.
Vocally, I'm hit or miss. Some days I can get the sound that I'm after, other days I'm all over the map. I'll just keep retrying and refining my technique. I like the basic approach to vocals I have, I just am no fan for the tone that my voice has... it's not really 'cutting' like I would prefer. Of course, a new mic would probably help out tons, so that might be next on the shopping list.
I've listened to a few mercyful fate tracks ages and ages ago... so other than Black Funeral and a few other tracks like that, I'm not really knowledgeable about them. The basic sound I was going for with these songs is a really flowing, natural sound as the songs move into unexpected directions. So rather than having the basic vs/ch/vs/ch/br/solo/ch setup, try for something a little different, but without creating sterile sounding prog rock or metal. This song is a step in the right direction with the idea, imo. Basically it's trying to create a metal sound that people are comfortable with, yet not something where they say "wow, he's definitely a queensryche fan or wow, he's really a metallica fan"... so, like everything else in life, it's a work in progress.
Big influences on me songwriting wise would be Blue Oyster Cult, early Black Sabbath(hence my heavily iomized DustIIDust stuff), Concrete Blonde and Slayer. All very stylized artists.
again, thanks much on the tips and info, I'll work on fixing those things and maybe improve a little.
