Cover of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" (without vocals, once more)

  • Thread starter Thread starter Schwarzenyaeger
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Schwarzenyaeger

Schwarzenyaeger

Formerly "Dog-In-Door"
Newest version here.

Brian sang the vocals on this.

 
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Crunch Guitar and bass sound real good. Drums sound good too. Real clear cymbals (without being too sizzly).

Gonna need vocals for a true critique. But so far, it sounds good.
 
Thanks mayne

I've started to hoard covers that have no vocals.
 
Ahhh...a true classic! Normally I don't go for people covering iconic tunes, but for some reason I always like hearing people covering this one.

You've done well. I assume you're not going for a carbon copy while at the same time you didn't take too many liberties with it, so it's hard to judge.

I think the guitar tone here is tremendous. You really did nail that part of it (the most important part?) I think. Would you elaborate on the set up used for that please? :) Bass playing is great too, and the tone is nice, but I think you should bring it down just a bit, at least when you do some of those runs and it kind of takes over the mix. I thought the bass was a little boomy too and could use some judicious cuts in the very low end somewhere.

I didn't think the drums measured up to the guitar and bass though. They aren't really bad or anything, just off sounding to me. I think the snare is too loose and has too much room or verb on it. It should smack more and be more in yer face. Not like in a modern metal way, but not so laid back sounding as you have it here. It might drive the tune more? The cymbals do sound nice and clean, almost too much so for this number. I'd like to hear them a bit dirtier or rougher sounding myself. Some of the drum fills were understandably simplified quite a bit, and sometimes the timing seemed just a bit off, but really overall you did well. I don't mean to sound like there are tons of issues or anything, I just happen to know this tune very well, which is not often the case with covers in here.

I've always wanted to record this tune and I suspect you've done a much better job than I could. Thanks for sharing it! :)
 
Thanks for listen

You're gonna laugh but it's an Epiphone Les Paul going DI into Pro Tools. I'm using the low budget version of the Eleven Rack plug-in as an amp sim. It's nice to hear that I might have had you fooled otherwise ;) Otherwise it has some EQ to get rid of some mids, an HPF up to about 110Hz at 12db/Oct and I'm using a 1176 compressor simulator.
I've been hesitant about the bass since in the original, it gets hard panned, so it's always really present. I think I'll turn it down a bit in the regions where it pops out.

The drums are literally just a MIDI file I imported from a Guitar Pro tab of the song. The samples are Superior Drummer. I tried to "un-quantize" them a little bit. Maybe I went too far?
I decided purposefully against a stronger snare smack since these old mixes never have any low end. Then again, the other sounds are more modern so I might as well use a better sample.

I've been thinking about adding a bit of distortion to the drums for the tape roughness.
 
Can't listen till tomorrow, but I suspect the mix is in decent shape based on comments. I used to cover War Pigs with my band years ago and would be thrilled to lay vocals down for you, if you're interested.
 
Really great guitar sound...you nailed it. I don't know why but I think the guitars at the beginning sound too "distant". Also, it sounds like you may have trimmed the guitars tracks a little too much during the verses when they hit. It sounds too clean, unless that's how you played it. Also, snare sounds too far away...but this is all just my opinion.....BUT this song ROCKS! Great job.
 
Really nice job on a very difficult song to recreate. This is one of those songs that any decent band can play live, but actually recreating it in the studio is awfully difficult. I also agree that the snare is too distant or weak in most of the song, and some of the bass runs get a little overpowering. But apart from that, this is a very solid cover.
 
Thanks for the listens.

I was going for a mono guitar for the intro so that the stereo guitars seem more powerful when the first "Ba-duh!" hits.
Those are just the way I played them. They are cut inbetween but there wasn't anything there anyhow :P

UPLOADED a new version.


I used a different snare and made the toms easier to hear as well as adding a subtle distortion plug-in to the drums. I took out some low end on the bass and quieted it down during some of the runs.
I also added R/L guitars during the end sequence so that the stereo feel of the song wouldn't disappear.



Brian, I've enabled downloads on the track so you can download it as a backing track.
 
The snare is a definite improvement :). To my memory it's a pretty faithful cover. But maybe it's just my memory playing tricks: I thought there were some nice bends on the bass in the beginning?
 
This sounds bitching. Can't wait to work on it. May not get to it till next week unfortunately. I'm on the road finishing up a leg of tour.
 
Gotta say I love when both guitars kick in for the full sound at the verses. Again, great job
 
Okay, I took a shot at it. Added a pitch double and some pulverizing to make is sound a bit like the era...

I didn't used to have troubles with my voice cracking when singing this stuff 20 years ago...
 
Can't believe how much the doubler shows off my pitchiness :D
Guess I won't be using that much :rolleyes:
 
Definitely a mix done by a singer, haha!

Not bad at all. I liked the effect you put on it. What's a "pitch double" exactly?
 
The effect itself is called Polar from propellerhead.se. It does everything from chorus to vocal doubling to stereo widening to pitch control to tape stop effects to ??? It does a lot of stuff. I was just playing with the dual shifters to see if I could widen and double without having to do two tracks or use a blah old chorus...worked, but like I said, it really highlights pitchiness on long notes!
 
You hit the high notes really well in the verse, I think it's the lower notes that are getting you!
 
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