Devil music!

N

NotThatBright

New member
This is a cover of Danzig's "Left Hand Black", abridged to suit my attention span. I basically did part of the intro and then the three verses right in a row. In the spirit of all things evil, I used a lot of reverb on the vocal. The high part of the vocal in the chorus ("Challenge the heavens...") was hard as hell and I eventually gave up and went with what's here.

Any comments are appreciated. My playing is never perfect, so I'll stipulate that your first comment will be about the drumming or guitar playing having some bad spots. In particular I'd like to hear if the kick level is ok, if the 18" tom that's played throughout the first verse is at a good level (is it breaking up?), and if there is too much reverb. I usually use so little reverb I'm not sure if it's even noticeable, but as I mentioned, we're going for evil here. Thanks!

https://soundcloud.com/user92696274096/left-hand-black/s-gyKIR

UPDATE:

I redid the high vocal parts I was having trouble with so they sound slightly more evil.
For the floor tom: I had the EQ at +4 at 80Hz; I reduced that to +3 to reduce the ring.
I was trying to figure out what might cause it to sound overcompressed... I had the snare track EQ at +1 db at 175Hz to give it body; I reduced the +1 to zero. I also had the overall recording level set so that it was redlining most of the song; I reduced it a little so that it's only redlining about half of the song.

https://soundcloud.com/user92696274096/left-hand-black2/s-v91ey
 
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I think that compression is choking this one, I can hear it pumping a bit in the intro. That floor tom sounds good, although it's ringing some in the low frequencies. That could be my room though. Not too much reverb to me, but I've been soaked in reverb tonight trying to find the right one for a work-in-progress. So everything is sounding dry to me tonight.

Nice guitars on this one, they're kicking some ass.
 
The kick level seemed ok to me, certainly wouldn't go any lower.

Didn't notice any 'break up' on the tom tom, but it was loud.

Vocal verb sounded good to me, there were a few spots and the end of some of the phrases where i could hear the tails. Nothing really distracting though, and i was listening specifically for flaws so i was probably bound to hear them.

Don't take this the wrong way, but you don't sound evil.....;)
 
Tadpui said:
I think that compression is choking this one, I can hear it pumping a bit in the intro. That floor tom sounds good, although it's ringing some in the low frequencies. That could be my room though. Not too much reverb to me, but I've been soaked in reverb tonight trying to find the right one for a work-in-progress. So everything is sounding dry to me tonight.

Nice guitars on this one, they're kicking some ass.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the comments. The only thing I use compression on in what I would consider a somewhat significant quantity is the bass guitar, as I've found it's easier to hear that way. I use just a little on the overheads, the kick, the snare, the guitar and the vocal, and then when it's all done I click a button and put the whole thing through a mastering process that I have saved, which compresses at a 3.0:1 ratio. I can't describe how much compression is on the individual tracks I mentioned because I use the guitar effects function on the Tascam DP-24 to do it and it's measured in a weird way. Can you say if you hear an individual instrument or drum that you think is overcompressed?

Thank you for the guitar comment. This was the first time I ever played a six-string chord in a song. It wasn't so hard! I've been giving you guys too much credit. :)

Anders Erisian said:
Don't take this the wrong way, but you don't sound evil.....
Click to expand...

Jesus Christ! I couldn't even get that right? :)

Thanks for the comments.
 
It doesn't sound right if the soft vocal is too loud. I didn't even know a lot of the lyrics to that part in the original because I could never hear them clearly. I believe much of the evilness comes from the contrast between the softness of the first part and the loudness of the chorus.
 
I thought the guitars sounded really good. I thought the drums sounded pretty good too.

The bass is a little indistinct. About the right level tho.

The vocal is the weak part of the song. The energy level needs to be kicked up a notch. There are sections where there is some good energy there. But the "calmer" sections are kind of bland. I also think if you double tracked them, it'd be an improvement.
 
What a difference a decent guitar amp makes, NTB! This sounds great overall - makes me think that the guitar tone has been at the root of your problems all along!

The guitars are too loud for me on the second mix. You can have too much of a good thing, you know.
 
Playing is fine . . . all the right musical ingredients are there.

Tom sounds fine.

But . . . I'll continue with my pet peeve . . . the guitars need to go down a bit. They are so strong that they overwhelm the rest. Get the drums and bass working together first.

Reverb on vocal is fine, but vocals can come up a bit. Maybe someone's comment abut them needing more energy is because they are swamped by the guitars.
 
The guitar(s) sound out of tune a hair to me. That repetitive triplet? on the snare is meh. That first lead on the left is a tiny bit too loud - it's louder than the vocals. The rest is right on for me. The song and the singing are A1 though - loved this all the way through.
 
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