Moctezuma - Silence And The Abyss progressive/classic rock

[WarmJetGuitar]

Been working with a local band called Moctezuma lately,. Great music and great company, check the link below as it will take you and your eardrums to our recording. If you enjoy it half as much as I did I'm a happy slacker.

Silence and the Abyss by moctezuma | Free Listening on SoundCloud

The sessions was lots of fun and hard work, just like it's supposed to be. Pink Floyd, Neil Young and Black Sabbath have been on their stereos but it doesn't keep their own personalities from shining through.

Recently I got increasingly crazy about the classic 70's approach to toms where the bottom heads are taken off. It stops most of the annoying resonance yet still let the tone and impact of the tom hits sit nicely in the mix. The rack toms are as dry 70's recording traditions prescribe recorded with mic'ing from the inside while the floor tom worked better from the top.
The hihat was tracked rather low to keep treble and transients pretty intact.

Lead vocals are my beloved Sennheiser MKH-406 through a GL A 5021 comp to tape, the comp hit lightly and the tape hit moderately.

Been listening a lot to "Mirage" with Fleetwood Mac lately and one of the stand out tracks, "Hold Me" has this "whuuuuush" sound on the vocals. That sound is reverse delay and it reminded me how fascinating this can sound in the right context so it's applied to one of the verses with delay from the old tape Akai machine.

The handclaps and tambourine has acoustic reverb from the concrete corridor. Four people clapping and one playing tambourine standing relatively close to a Sennheiser MKH-406 with no processing and then an Oktava MK-319 on the corridor, compressed to hell and back to enchance the reflections. Done twice and hardpanned to give wide stereo.

Had to change a routine for the sessions... I've grown accustomed to that DI bass to a decent comp and tape hit fairly hard sounds nice. If DI bass was good enough for Motown it's sure good enough for me. However it's been so long since I last recorded a fuzzy bass that I forgot just how off it tends to sound with that. So it was re recorded using a blend of mic'ed and fuzzy and DI'ed and clean. Learned from this and for next session it's back to live bass but with a MD421 on the fuzzy cab and DI on seperate tracks.
The low end on this track was hard to nail as that bass are bloody deep, getting into sub bass area where I normally will let the BD roam freely. This lead me to my first experiment with side chain compression that didn't sound like crap, sp the BD is punching a slight "hole" in the bass. If this sounds obvious to any of you, please let me know as we might revisit mixing this song for an EP or album release.

As always recorded on my Fostex G16C using onboard pre's on the DDA desk on everything except BD and snare. Mixed on the DDA Q to Revox B77 at 15 IPS on AGFA PEM468. The only things digital on this recording are some guitar pedals and then my quick-and-dirty mastering. For a more official release later I'll send them on to a proper ME or work my ass off using analogue gear for everything except surgical EQ.

On Thursday we're at it again and have rented in MD-421's for the bass cab and the floor tom.

 

[Stratomaster]

I like the sound, the mix of a kind of sweet melody over the heavy music. In the first section i thought the drums were kind of buried by the guitars, but once the singing starts i like the way drums and the toms sound-very classic 70's kind of sound. I like the sound of the vocals they are clear and distinct despite the amount of verb which is not so easy to do i've found. I would have maybe verbed the tambo it's kind of upfront for my own taste. Nice job on the recording and i like the song-the chaotic end section is a welcome way to mix things up arrangement wise. Well done!

 

[TripleM]

I like the singer's voice. The toms sound great.

The distorted guitar has gain applied to the point of mushy-ness. It occupies too much space. Fortunately there is some tasteful use of it. But still too much gain.

There is kind of a chaotic craziness when the riff is playing. There are doubled guitars playing it as well as the bass. To me it's just too much. I think I would have one guitar playing it with the other instrument hitting the root note of the chord.

Way too much reverb on the lead vocal.

The bass is very muddy. Some of the guitars are too. Mix overall is muddy in spots.

The clean, jangly guitars sound pretty nice.

 

[Bulls Hit]

If you're channeling Sabbath I'm not sure Bill Ward would be keen on a kick that low in the mix. Agree with Trip, there's too much verb on the vocal. Maybe try a pitch shift effect instead

 

[VomitHatSteve]

I might pull those toms a little closer to center. With the wide panning and the dryness, it sounds like the toms are wrapped around my head.

Bass tone is pretty cool.

 

[Bruthish]

Very Raw...and that's not a bad thing. Agree with what was already said...drums are too far left and right...bring the toms in more, bring kick up to drive the groove, and maybe a little more sizzle in the crashes. The verb(depth) on the vocals was distracting at least at first...but they did grow on me. But still think its too much. The saturation on the guitars is cool and gives it the raw sound but agree its almost too much and takes away some of the definition of the playing.

I thinks its a really cool song though....just nail down the mix and it would be great.

 

[JohnnyAmato]

I pretty much agree with everything already said. Toms are too far panned, they sound good though, tone-wise. Snare definitely reminds me of Floyd.

Tamb does need some verb. Some of the guitars are mushy from too much gain. Kick is a little low. It needs just a tiny bit more click, too, I think.

I think that's the hats all the way left? It needs to come in some too I think.