A Musical Journey

TexRoadkill

TexRoadkill

Audio Bum
Here are some hopefully final masters and mixes (but probably not, lol) for an album we've been working on for the last year or so. We rented a crazy dome house and tracked for the last 4 months. You can see the pics here http://www.homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=242640

Here is a 4 song pre-release demo we're putting out until the full album is ready. http://www.nowhereradio.com/texroadkill/singles

Any technical or artistic comments are greatly appreciated. I'm curious if anyone actually gets through the whole thing too. Thanks to everyone who contributed mix suggestions on these tunes over the last couple months.

I gave this the full Pink Floyd sound effect treatment and it's meant to be listened to as one long piece. Have a drink or a toke or both, sit back and enjoy. Best on headphones, lots of binaural stuff, but should rock on speakers too.

My goal was to hopefully not sound like a typical commercial release but still be able to compete with them. Did I accomplish that?
 
I am almost done. Overall excellent, a couple things:

1. It is slightly high-endy i.e. too much treble, not enough low frequencies. I am listening on phones so that might not be accurate.

2. Lots of special effects in this. Make sure that they come across as what they are and not mistakes.:D I think that means make them louder. Make the listener 100% sure that every noise is intentional. To youze guys, you have heard the effects so many times that you know what they are. To the new listener it can be confusing, so I suggest boosting them and making them more prominent in the mix.

My goal was to hopefully not sound like a typical commercial release but still be able to compete with them. Did I accomplish that?
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It will hopefully have a niche market. Its very good and sounds like it was a very big effort. Older people will probably relate to it more, we grew up with this style. The question is whether oldsters actually buy CDs anymore.:D

Done. Its a good listen, all 19 minutes. Lots of stuff in here, if I am ambitious I will listen to it again tomorrow.:)
 
I just finished listening to it all. I thought it was really good, and I don't mean in a "its good for some home recorder from a forum" kind of way. The only part I didn't like was the last song, just not my cup of tea, not that I think its a bad piece.
 
I can't stream an 18MB song, so I am downloading it....


Let you know when I get there what I thought.
 
Very nice, but I thought the vocals were a bit buried and maybe a little hard to understand? I know you had some effects on them, but maybe if they come up a bit more in the mix...
Look who's talking, right? The original vocal bury-master.... :o

The overall execution was pretty cool and you do have that Pink Floyd 'The Wall'/ Queensryche 'Operation: Mindcrime' vibe going on.

I'd buy it when it hits the stores...
 
I'm digging it (at about 4 minutes now). I plan to steal a few ideas from ya for some songs I'm currently dicking around with. :D

yeah I like the whole thing. I tend to agree with DavidK that some of the effects are more distracting/confusing than cool. Some fo the really low end effects (I can't describe them better than that) sound just like off-time noise. But I like it all, really. Pretty cool, original sound. Unique sounding vocals, too. That's a bonus.
 
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Thanks for listening guys, I appreciate it.

David - I'm still battling with the mastering. I might try an analog mastering house to see if I like the high end better. The FX weren't in the mastered version so I'm probably assuming everyone will be listening as loud as I do and am mixing them too low in comparison to the mastered songs. I appreciate your opinion, thanks.

Bunk- Thanks man, that last song is for the chicks anyway, lol.

Rokket - I've been battling with the best way of presenting the singer's unique voice. I think we need more backing vocals to thicken things up.

Andy - I guess we do need to revisit the sound fx mix. Thanks!
 
Only just started listening, I agree with the comments about the vocals seeing buried. I like this first song so far - I'll let you know more when I'm done.
 
Ok, got there in the end :) I really like that first song, it's a great opener, and the transition into the second song works really well. I like the bassline in that second song as well, it's really simple but it works really well, the guitars and drums just seem to drift around it. Really cool. I'm not as keen on the ending of the second song, though. It seems a little unfinished. Maybe just me being picky.

Third song is more my kinda thing, as much as I liked the first two. Very cool. And a nice solo there as well. Fourth song was a nice chilled ender but it didn't seem to have much to it to be honest.

I like the sound effects in the background, I don't think they need to be any louder. I like sitting there thinking "Did I just hear a dog bark?" That might just be me though, I like finding things like that. Especially when they're not obvious:)

Overall, though, I really liked it. It's a great recording, and I'd definitely pay for something of that quality. I've paid for much worse. Two thumbs up.
 
I'm actually quite addicted to the 2nd song, the judas song. Ill be interested in buying a copy once you get it all said and done.
 
I'm about 6 minutes into it, and it is improving. The first three minutes were too monotonous(SP?) for me. And the vocals were buried badly. There are a lot of cool effects in this , and they all sound good. definately something that you have to listen to a few times to get it i think. I think you have nailed the pink floyd/ beatles vibe.
JasonBird
 
Thanks Pangalactic.

Thanks again Bunk, that's one of my favorites too.

Thanks Jason, but monotonous? The music changes every 30 seconds and we have jets and explosions. What's a brutha got to do??? :p
 
(First song) The song has a full sound to it, which i enjoyed. I also think the vocals are too buried. It seemed to me that the music out-weighed the vocals. IMO, it should be opposite, since the vocals are what I relate with.

(Second) Alright, now i can better hear the vocals in this song. A nice easier-going song in my ears. Again, you guys have a full sound to your music that is pleasing to me. I think you guys did a good job with the dynamics in this song. The constant cresendo to decresendo with the violin (or violin synth) leading to the break (around 8:00), and then the build in afterwards with the same instrument was excellent. I really enjoy what you did with the synths / effects, mixed in with the guitars.

(Third) Great build into the song, i liked the sounds. In the beginning of the song, i felt teased; light singing with the music building on and off, it really made me crave the melody to rock out. Well you did it, the guitars and dynamics kicked in and I grinned. This is definately my favorite song thus far.

(Fourth)In the chorus, i felt like the vocals were outweighed by the music.

Your music is definately not pop-rock/pop-hard rock like. You have your own style, and that alone is a plus, and difficult to pull off, IMO. Thanks for the 18 minutes of music!
 
Thanks Snakeyez, I appreciate the detailed response. We've been adding some backing vocals and making some mix adjustments so one of these days I'll have an almost final mix. Then it's time for the surround sound dvd :D
 
Holy awesome. Great stuff, very entertaining. I only got to 7 min so I'll have to check the rest later but its got me glued.

The lofi- ish shroud makes it seem most appropriate (along with the content somewhat) for a movie soundtrack.
 
VSpaceBoy said:
Holy awesome. Great stuff, very entertaining. I only got to 7 min so I'll have to check the rest later but its got me glued.

The lofi- ish shroud makes it seem most appropriate (along with the content somewhat) for a movie soundtrack.
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Thanks man. The term lofi-ish term did cause me to cringe a bit but I guess it's the other way of describing what I was going for which was hi-fi, old school. I guess it's a glass half empty/full type of thing.

One thing I've been trying to do in fixing up the mixes is brightening things up a touch which I think is helping. I've actually been mixing this whole thing on a laptop with Klipsch Pro-Media speakers in a corner in my untreated, square office, lol. I have to do a lot of trial and error mix checking.

Thanks again.
 
Lt. Bob said:
I downloaded it so i can listen on my way to Daytona for my beach gig. Get back to ya' later.
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Let me know what you think. The songs and album are definately being designed as something to listen to on a journey. I've noticed that everyone who listens to it in a casual environment seems to dismiss it pretty quickly. It's definately not party music.

We have been talking about doing a listening party but the only way to do the project justice would be to load everyone in a car and hit the road.
 
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