comatose

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heatmiser

heatmiser

mr. green christmas
Hey - been a while...

I suddenly got motivated and whipped together a tune over the last week or so. Hearing it now on Soundcloud, it doesn't sounds as good as it did while it was coming together. Maybe I did something wrong in the final stages and messed with it too much. I dunno. Did the bass get away from me on this one? It's starting to sound overwhelming...I'm out of practice. The song itself is kind of silly and doesn't really make sense, but I think there's some cool sounds in there...any thoughts or advice?

Original mix:


02.03.14 mix:


Thanks,
Pete
 
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I also like it. Lyrics are good.

The bass guitar may need to be bumped a little in the mix.

EQ a notch in it at 80-100hz if brining it up causes the kick to vanish.

I find the drum pattern to be repetitive. By time I got to the end it started to annoy me.
 
dobro said:
I like it. It motors. :)
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Thanks.

Pinky said:
I also like it. Lyrics are good.

The bass guitar may need to be bumped a little in the mix.

EQ a notch in it at 80-100hz if brining it up causes the kick to vanish.

I find the drum pattern to be repetitive. By time I got to the end it started to annoy me.
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Sorry about that. Yeah, I tend ot have a high tolerance for repetition, but this track has no business being 5 minutes long. I'm working through in my mind now where I can chop it up and shorten it(probably start by getting rid of those "doo, doo doo's"). Thanks.
 
Awesome tune! The bass don't seem to be too up front to me. Great stuff, very creative. I liked how repetitive the drums were. It sort of just drifted along like a train all the way through. There are no room for drum fills and that kind of stuff in a song like this.

I'm gonna have to listen to it again.
 
Pinky said:
Don't remove any of the leads, I liked those.
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That's good. Thanks for mentioning that. That was a rare instance of turning my little amp up to 10 and recording it at that volume. Sounds pretty quiet now actually...

dainbramage said:
Awesome tune! The bass don't seem to be too up front to me. Great stuff, very creative. I liked how repetitive the drums were. It sort of just drifted along like a train all the way through. There are no room for drum fills and that kind of stuff in a song like this.

I'm gonna have to listen to it again.
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Thank you. I think I'm concerned about rumbly bass throughout rather than the bass guitar itself? I dunno. It sounds fine at times, and obnoxious at others.

The drums are just a 1 second passage from a drum track I played and recorded years ago, looped over and over and over....heavily processed along the way. I think I want more overdrive on them...not sure?
 
Great to hear something new from you Pete. Full of cool sounds and ideas. The bass sound is great - all overdriven and driving. Nice guitar tone too on the lead lines.

The drum idea is kind of interesting. I'm not sure I'm totally sold on it doing that over and over for 5 minutes, but it does give the song something of a unique flavour and keeps the energy level up. Kind of like really old hiphop records where there's more of a DIY ethic and you can hear the joins in the cut n paste. I guess you're limited to what you can do in terms of varying it from what you've said about its origins, so I probably wouldn't worry about it too much. I like what you did with the processing of them.

The length is fine to my ears, I wouldn't chop any sections out. You said you were rusty so I probably need to find more faults. I'll listen some more over the next couple of days and see if anything else comes to me. Glad you've managed to break out of stasis :)
 
robgreen said:
Great to hear something new from you Pete. Full of cool sounds and ideas. The bass sound is great - all overdriven and driving. Nice guitar tone too on the lead lines.

The drum idea is kind of interesting. I'm not sure I'm totally sold on it doing that over and over for 5 minutes, but it does give the song something of a unique flavour and keeps the energy level up. Kind of like really old hiphop records where there's more of a DIY ethic and you can hear the joins in the cut n paste. I guess you're limited to what you can do in terms of varying it from what you've said about its origins, so I probably wouldn't worry about it too much. I like what you did with the processing of them.

The length is fine to my ears, I wouldn't chop any sections out. You said you were rusty so I probably need to find more faults. I'll listen some more over the next couple of days and see if anything else comes to me. Glad you've managed to break out of stasis :)
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Hey - good to hear from you rob. I definitely wanted the beat to sound like an old hip hop record more or less. It sounded really awesome on it's own with the verb and distortion and all...I guess I thought I'd be able to generate enough variation just by dropping them out entirely at that one point, and also by varying the effects. During the verses the drums have a large room verb on them, and during the chorus, I substitute that with a tape echo delay. Once everything is thrown together though...it just kinda sounds the same!
 
I like it. Really good. I'd say bring the leads up some. The rhythms are louder at times out to the sides than the lead. I usually loathe songs that go past 5 minutes, and even with this thing being pretty repetitive I didn't notice the length or repetitiveness at all. Very well done.
 
Greg_L said:
I like it. Really good. I'd say bring the leads up some. The rhythms are louder at times out to the sides than the lead. I usually loathe songs that go past 5 minutes, and even with this thing being pretty repetitive I didn't notice the length or repetitiveness at all. Very well done.
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Hey, thanks for checking it out Greg - that's great. I'm surprised about the lead level thing. I thought maybe that was too up front as it is. I'll fiddle around with it and see though.

I think something's wrong with the verb in my amp. It's normally quite prominent, but it wasn't producing much of anything here. I guess it sounds ok kind of dry like that though.
 
Great song. It is the kind of tune that pulls you in and won't let go until it is finished. I liked the leads, the way they were structured and the way they were articulated. But, to my ears they sounded just a little thin. To be fair though, I listened to this on my T.V. and LCDs, Plasma, etc, have extremely pour sound systems. I will listen again through my stereo and see what kind of difference it makes. I am sure it will make a huge difference.
 
Really good. As usual. Tight performances all around.

I think I might either nudge up the vocal just a bit or compress it harder. There are words here and there that get buried. Not real bad at all tho.

Like the tone on just about everything. The only exception is the bass is a little "cold" sounding. Maybe add some low mid - like in the 200-250hz range. Just a personal preference.

These are all incredibly nitpicky things. It sounded good.

Edit - one more thing...

Maybe lower the level of one of the vocal double tracks. See what it sounds like. I love doubled vocals, and I wouldn't do away with it entirely. Just lower the level a could db's.
 
You could cut down the intro a bit- does it need to be 45 seconds long?

I agree about the repetitiveness of the drums. A little breakdown or a few stops every once in a while wouldn't hurt.

Love your guitar leads. They completely make the song. Who needs a catchy chorus when you have those crazy squealing little bastards.

Rumbly- as opposed to louder- bass is a valid concern. I imagine you already rolled off as much low end as possible? Sometimes the compressor settings you use can add extra bass rumble. If you try tweaking your compression a little bit it may fix the rumble. Or you could just roll off more low end.

Wow, it ended. Okay that wasn't so bad length-wise after all.

JJ.
 
Illsidgus said:
Great song. It is the kind of tune that pulls you in and won't let go until it is finished. I liked the leads, the way they were structured and the way they were articulated. But, to my ears they sounded just a little thin. To be fair though, I listened to this on my T.V. and LCDs, Plasma, etc, have extremely pour sound systems. I will listen again through my stereo and see what kind of difference it makes. I am sure it will make a huge difference.
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Hey thanks - glad you liked it. Yes, I get that comment fairly often about lead guitar tracks. Particularly when I use the bridge PU on my guitar. I like the bite and the sort of squawk that it produces, but it does tend to sound thin. I didn't do any EQ or comp on that track, so maybe there's some adjustments to be made...thanks.
 
TripleM said:
Really good. As usual. Tight performances all around.

I think I might either nudge up the vocal just a bit or compress it harder. There are words here and there that get buried. Not real bad at all tho.

Like the tone on just about everything. The only exception is the bass is a little "cold" sounding. Maybe add some low mid - like in the 200-250hz range. Just a personal preference.

These are all incredibly nitpicky things. It sounded good.

Edit - one more thing...

Maybe lower the level of one of the vocal double tracks. See what it sounds like. I love doubled vocals, and I wouldn't do away with it entirely. Just lower the level a could db's.
Click to expand...

Thanks for checking it out MMM. Yeah, on the bass...I don't know. I used to get mid-rangey, warm and full sounding bass tracks that I was proud of. Lately, they've all been kind of rumbly and distant sounding by comparison. I wonder where I went wrong? I wish I could remember what I used to do. I gotta write this shit down. No, wait. That would suck having to write stuff down. Anyway, thanks for the EQ advice. I 'll try it. I think so far I compressed it and cut some around 100k.

I didn't actually double track the verse vocals. I tried something I hadn't done in many years...I ran the mic through an analog guitar delay pedal and sent the dry and the effect outputs of that to 2 separate tracks and panned them about 30% apart. Sort of cheating? Like copy/pan/shift? I dunno...I think it can sound really cool, but I may not have the right levels, panning or overdrive sorted out yet. Thanks for giving me stuff to think about.
 
joejohnstun said:
You could cut down the intro a bit- does it need to be 45 seconds long?

I agree about the repetitiveness of the drums. A little breakdown or a few stops every once in a while wouldn't hurt.

Love your guitar leads. They completely make the song. Who needs a catchy chorus when you have those crazy squealing little bastards.

Rumbly- as opposed to louder- bass is a valid concern. I imagine you already rolled off as much low end as possible? Sometimes the compressor settings you use can add extra bass rumble. If you try tweaking your compression a little bit it may fix the rumble. Or you could just roll off more low end.

Wow, it ended. Okay that wasn't so bad length-wise after all.

JJ.
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Thanks for the ideas joe. No, the intro doesn't need to be that long. Just poor planning on my part. The way I put this together it might be difficult to deconstruct, but I'm considering it.
And yeah, about those drums....they do cut out entirely once at about 3:30 and I thought that was pretty cool. Especially when they come back in it gives one an excuse to gradually bring in the bass and/or rhythm guitars. I love that kind of shit. I guess I thought once was enough. I love the beat myself (best 1 seconds of drumming I ever did!), but it is incessant.
Thanks for the advice on the bass. That's one instrument I almost always apply comp to, but I don't really know what I'm doing, so maybe that has something to do with it.
 
heatmiser said:
I didn't actually double track the verse vocals. I tried something I hadn't done in many years...I ran the mic through an analog guitar delay pedal and sent the dry and the effect outputs of that to 2 separate tracks and panned them about 30% apart. Sort of cheating? Like copy/pan/shift? I dunno...I think it can sound really cool, but I may not have the right levels, panning or overdrive sorted out yet. Thanks for giving me stuff to think about.
Click to expand...

That's kind of cool. I'd just dry up the delay signal a wee bit. If it sounds worse that way, put it back to where it was. :)
 
Great to hear a tune from you again Heat. Missed you. I always like your lyrics, they're thoughtful and like taking a walk through my own brain. As for the drums, I love them. I like the wailing lyrics in the chorus a lot. There's always something that sets your tunes away from everything else I hear. There's an originality and it hits the right spot. I don't have a problem with the length. Could have gone on for longer as far as I'm concerned. Enable download for a while on Soundcloud so I can hear it without my connection crapping out. :) Please.
 
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