80's metal ballad - updated

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antichef

antichef

pornk rock
I posted an earlier version of this a while back, to show some recording with the ACM mics. Here's a more recent mix, with all amp models replaced with real amps. The story is that I got back in contact with the bass player from the metal band I was in in the '80s and we decided to retrack our old original songs (he lives in LA and I live in Houston, so we were going to work remotely). I worked on it some and he got busy with other things, so I went ahead and added a bass track. There never were any vocals on this one - there were gonna be, but that's another unfinished project :).

Guitars are a Gibson SG Supreme (left channel), an Antoniotsai SG clone with P-94 pickups (mostly right channel, sometimes center), and my old Ibanez RG-550 for the solo. All clean guitars recorded (reamped) with a Gibson Skylark Crestline amp using the ACM-3 with a Lundahl transformer. All distorted guitars are recorded (reamped, except the solo) with a Marshall JCM-800 50 watt half stack with the ACM-2 with an Edcor transformer. Very happy with the mics.

I used a Black Lion Audio modded MOTU traveler (with their clock) for all mic preamps and A/D, and Logic Express 8 as the DAW. I ran the bass through an old Ashly preamp. The drums are midi (sampled Tama Star Classic set from Wizoosounds), triggered by me using a Korg PadKontrol - the playing sucks (but has its moments, IMHO), apologies. Everything else is also midi.

We had a few more songs to do, but since he's busy, I'll probably get back to my knitting (which is the island-inspired songs with my baby daughter, and some faux-country/folk stuff I've been doing in the last few years)

This finally sounds pretty good in my environment, which is not well controlled, like many of yours. Any comments on the mix are appreciated.

 
Whats the hissing noise? Its all through the quiet stuff.

Sounds good overall. Some timing issues with the drums, or rather people not being together. The hissing noise really needs addressed.
 
DavidK said:
The hissing noise really needs addressed.
Click to expand...
:o Right you are, sir! :o Too many years of standing next to a crash cymbal created a weak spot for me in that range, and when combined with ear/brain fatigue, it can apparently get away from me. Easy enough to fix - it was coming from two sources - 1: amp hiss from the little amp - eq'ed that out. 2: (the major source) - a Crystal synth pad I was using to try to approximate a Mellotron flute in the first part -- making it go polyphonic turned it into a hiss monster - back to single notes and it's much better (at least *I* think - for what that's worth now :) ):



I'll pick at the drums some more -- there are parts where the "people" (representing my split personality residuals from band memories, channeled through my skill/lack thereof at fake percussion) are pulling at each other
 
Howdy fellow Texan...

The guitar playing is stellar. I'm not liking the drums as well. They sound pretty compressed to me. Overall gooooood!

Hissing? what hissing? uh oh... I've got the same problem with HF hearing.:D
 
The drums are a bit crispy - and there's an abundance of that open hihat which I think I would take down. Other than that the piece is great - there's a lot of different textures going on with the various sections. Personally I like the tone of the SG the best - nice and fat....

:D:cool::D:cool:
 
Thanks everyone -- I feel like I've got a clear path to finishing this off now (that is, until the vocals part comes, but that could be another 20 years). I'll dampen the hi-hat -- does it also make sense to run all the drums through a little shared reverb? I really just put the drum track in as a place holder until I got a real drummer to track it, but now I'm wanting to make the fake tracks good.

What was that Steve? :) Did anyone ever suggest ear protection to you? I never even thought of it.
 
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