My ska/rock band

  • Thread starter Thread starter mrhotapples
  • Start date Start date
M

mrhotapples

New member
Open-Ended Lines

This is my band. We've practiced four times now and we're working on the arrangement of three other songs aside from this so we can record a demo at year's end and start playing shows. We're still working on this song and this is just a "tool" to help us arrange vocals. The other guitarist has to record the second verse and chorus or we have to come to an agreement on who's singing the whole thing. I'm looking for critique on everything...But give me some slack on the mix, I'm fried...I know there isn't enough snare but I'm not going to work on it any longer.

Let 'er rip!
 
Horrrrrrrnnnnnnnsssss.

Yall need horns, reminds me of a band i used to listen to in high school, i think it was mad caddies. (I don't know if that's a compliment) Sounds pretty good, a bit lenghty, but that's tastes. Mix wise i'm on shitty speakers so cant comment. Overall it ain't bad!
 
Let Gwen Stefani sing it!




Just kidding. I'm not too big on the whole ska-punk think, but this sounds pretty good. About right for the style. Some horns would definitely set it off.
 
It isn't a style I listen to, but I found it to be a pretty listable tune. Lots of catchy breaks and transitions and cleaver arrangement work. Clean and tight performances from all the players. The vocal work isn't what I look for in a song, but my tastes are arguably dated. This sounds pretty consistant with stuff I hears these days.

I think it's pretty cool.

Daren

MySpace
 
Nice playing, cool song, but very thin mix.
Sounds kinda live in a way.
One of the weakest kicks Ive heard.
Bass guitar sounds like a great source tone but needs to be mixed better.

Good stuff.
Eck
 
I'm not crazy about the vocals, but beside that I think it sounds like a pretty cool song.
 
It's good

Very similar to a lot of bands I used to play with, if you added horns. I gotta say though I'm not a huge fan of horns. I also think the minute you add horns you're style becomes less your style and more "generic ska". Maybe it's your thing to NOT have horns or to have something else to set you apart.

Overall the tune was good, the performances solid, and it was well written. I like it. I'm listening on terrible speakers so no comments about mix.
 
Dang, was that puffy metronome a kick? Seriously, that thing has to be replaced.
Other than that, not bad at all
 
The beginning is ska anyway - the change is USskarockpop really.
The lead line - I don't think it's quite on the money to smooth & nice.
Sounds more like the Bosstones than Selecter, The Beat or the Specials.
You end up relying on the rock more than the ska - kind of like The Police doing codreggae verses & pop choruses - it can work but you're too rock.
The bass drum does need some work though.
Bass tone is good as are its lines & I like it up in the mix.
As to skapoprock: Beware - it spits.
 
Thanks for the replies everybody. I'm gonna get around to changing some of these things mix-wise, as I am in total agreement with the puffy kick, wimpy bass, thin sounding mix conclusion. I need to stop working so much though! I mixed this with one of the distorted guitars insanely high and the other way too low and definitely didn't work on the bass at all. It IS a very nice source tone - It's a fairly new jazz bass with brand new steel strings, probably one of the nicest basses I've heard in a while.

As for ska influence, this is turning out to be more pop than anything. We've got another that combines a really good dance feel with a kind of progressive rock sounding chorus, but relying on the ska element for most of the song. The idea of the band is to try and integrate some kind of ska-element into the music but not to force any kind of genre out. It seems to me a lot of young musicians are afraid to play from their hearts and are too eager to fit into a specific genre instead of just writing music and playing it.

Horns though...We're auditioning a trumpet player...But not to play ska, just to have a trumpet player!
 
Decent take on ska. The whoa-ohs need some more energy and/or more people singing it. Be careful with ska! For every good band, there's about 3 billion imitators. I should know, I'm in one of them :o. It's good you're not limiting yourself, that's what makes the best bands. Cool song, hope to hear more from you guys.
 
Im kinda lazy to type everything but the kick drum....it sounds like im flicking my speaker cone. Fix that.
 
ecktronic said:
Nice playing, cool song, but very thin mix.
Sounds kinda live in a way.
One of the weakest kicks Ive heard.
Bass guitar sounds like a great source tone but needs to be mixed better.

Good stuff.
Eck
Click to expand...

You're not kidding. This style of music needs drive; it has got to thump. I agree with the previous suggestion; add horns (trumpet, trombone), get it thumping, crank it up and what have you got.....Reel Big Fish. :D
 
lol. I'm definitely not a fan of Reel Big Fish. The rest of the guys are into ska/punk and joke ska bands like The Aquabats, Catch 22, The Planet Smashers...All these new bands. I'm into more traditional stuff so I don't see a horn section as defining ska. It's all about the rhythm. I'm not even a big second-wave fan. I'll take some Maytals or some Desmond Dekker over any second or third-wave band, ANY day. I'm more interested in getting a keyboardist than a trumpet player, but thankfully the guy we're gonna try out plays both! I think we'll do okay because I'm very minimalist about arrangement and focused more on being able to play well together, and this was done live except for the vocals and the distorted guitars. I'm a huge '60s ska fan and I still listen to and appreciate (sometimes more) say, grindcore...So I have a perspective of playing music and not a GENRE of music.

We're gonna re-track this a few months down the line when we have four-five songs done for an EP. I'd like to say about the kick, I personally like it (kinda reminds me of the kick in Michael Jackson's "Beat It" but that's a completely different genre so...)it's tuned really high and there's no hole in the batter head so I can't do much about the sound but replace it with a sample, which I am not too into. I'm gonna make sure our drummer cuts a hole or gets a new reso head before then, heh.
 
lol. I'll make sure that I figure out how to make it sound less irritating before we release a demo.
 
Okay. I worked on this a bit despite not really wanting to, upon request of the band. I guess they want to put it on the internet and not wait until we can record better prepared. OWELZ. It's pretty much night and day. Drumagog on the kick and snare just very minimally to beef things up, and the bass is much more 'there'. I also actually worked on the reverb programs. I think I want something smoother on the vocals. A round of parallel compression on the drums and guitars and vocals...Yadda...It's Vintagewarmer'd too! Mmm, Vintagewarmer. The other guitarist also sang his part for the second verse and I'm trying to figure out how to break it to him that his timing is awful. We're gonna finish the vocal parts today...Harmony and extra bgv. Yummy.

Open-Ended Lines mix 2
 
there's a sick sounding frequency in the midrange of the kick, and there's too much click.
 
You need some serious horns... If I get my trombone back soon (hopefully it wasn't stolen) I'd lay down some hornage for ya...
 
i'd say thicken up that kick a bit.... and definitely look for some horns! awesome performances from everyone as well! definite potential.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top