Descend Into Madness

[Tadpui]

Here's a work in progress. I wanted to see if anybody had any input before I go back and start my next round of changes. I'm struggling with the vocals most of all...once things get busy, the vocals get buried. I put some automation in there to try to keep the vocals afloat, and carved out a smidge of 1KHz-4KHz in the guitars and drums but there are still some words that disappear and others that stick out.

Some of the vocal lines don't flow, and the guitar solo needs a little something more, but it's getting pretty close to how I hear it when I hum it in the shower

Lyrics, if you care:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/zvkx7k06vqqdgya/Descend Into Madness - Lyrics.txt

 

[PDP]

The vocal sounds pretty good to me. Could use some harmonies. I'd consider upping the tempo a few bpm it sounds a touch draggy, (but not a deal breaker) The drums and bass tracks are very plain, I'd work on programming some variety to keep it from plodding.

The recording and mix sound quite nice, good singing. I really like the song and the lyrical ideas. With some more work you'll have something quite good.

 

[cakewalkKaKed]

when this started i thought "ooohhh noes" ... really nice work,great track ... i agree with PDP bit more work and you got a winner

 

[Mr Clean]

I really like it. The vocals sound great to me. The only thing I didn't really like like was the bass, the tone is fine but I kept wanting to hear more out of the instrument. A nice melodic bass line would help to carry this tune across the spectrum, in my opinion.

Good mix, good tune. Thanks for sharing

 

[Tadpui]

Thanks fellas! Punching up the drums and bass is on my list of revisions. Hopefully I can come up with something that's more interesting. And fortunately those are both instruments I can rehearse silently since they're recorded direct. So I can actually work on that this week, without waiting for "alone time"

 

[rayc]

What they all said!
Though the bass line is a potential problem - tehe's a fine line between serving the song and showing off or making things a little too busy.
The sustained dirtorted high guitar could be replaced with something less fizzy.
The bass is also a little loud.
This is going to be good - just take your time and work at it.

 

[Tadpui]

What they all said!
Though the bass line is a potential problem - tehe's a fine line between serving the song and showing off or making things a little too busy.
The sustained dirtorted high guitar could be replaced with something less fizzy.
The bass is also a little loud.
This is going to be good - just take your time and work at it.

Thanks for the suggestions, Ray. That's exactly what I'm struggling with: making the drums and bass interesting without making them distracting or showy. I tend towards minimalism, I guess I've listened to too much Spoon in the last several years.

I've been working on the drums when I could over the past week but I still haven't settled on a drum line 100%. If I try to do anything too fancy, it's really sloppy. So I manually edit it, then it feels akward. So I quantize it. Then it sounds robotic. So I've been going in circles for over a week now, trying to find a happy medium that isn't too boring, isn't too sloppy, isn't too akward, and isn't too robotic. Sheesh, it's a wonder that I ever get anything done!

I have a feeling that the bass will be more of the same, but at least I have a little bit of comfort on a stringed instrument as opposed to drums. I just can't seem to get a bass tone that I like. I'll tackle that after I get the drums locked in.

Thanks again!

 

[Tadpui]

I put up a newer mix with the not-quite-so-boring drums. I retracked the drums altogether, because just editing and punching in fills was going nowhere fast. Any suggestions? Going in the right direction, or getting too silly? It's mainly additions of fills and some use of 2 cymbals instead of just the 1. I also dropped the ride cymbal from the intro.

I swapped around the 2 sustained distorted guitars...for some reason the one that's on the left is less present. So when I put the fizzier one over there, it sounds less intrusive to me. Now the smoother one is on the right and the fizzier one is on the left.

I also raised the guitar/keyboard motif in the solo and outro. Too much? I keep going back and forth on how much I want to hear it.

For some reason, I can't edit my original post. I changed the directory structure of my dropbox folder and need to change the links in my OP. Oh, well. Updated links below...

Original version (updated link):

Updated version (5/20/2014):

And lyrics (updated link):
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/wz0zjrkqvakqlw6/Lyrics.txt

Also, is it just me, or does dropbox seem to ever-so-slightly play mp3s back slower and lower pitched? It seems very subtly slower and lower than the version I've been mixing...

 

[dobro]

Really nice work, Tadpui. The only thing I'd tweak is to bring that strummed guitar up a dB or so when the drums kick in - it gets lost in the mix then - it peeks through sometimes, but I think that regular pulse it supplies should be heard. Great arrangement.

 

[rayc]

Remix is cool.

 

[HugoRibeiro.Com]

Song is cool! I like that dirty guitar.. sounds rough and edgy..

 

[Tadpui]

Really nice work, Tadpui. The only thing I'd tweak is to bring that strummed guitar up a dB or so when the drums kick in - it gets lost in the mix then - it peeks through sometimes, but I think that regular pulse it supplies should be heard. Great arrangement.

Thanks Dobro, I really appreciate it. Agreed about the strummed guitar, I'll fiddle with it this weekend and see if I can give it a little more room to be heard as things start layering on.

Remix is cool.

Thanks for the listen Ray. I turned the bass guitar down just a smidge, although I think that in the long run it's going to take some more automation to have the deeper part have the impact I want during the solo. Or maybe my terrible listening environment is fooling me into thinking that it's too quiet in that part.

Song is cool! I like that dirty guitar.. sounds rough and edgy..

Thanks Hugo, I've struggled with my recorded guitar tone lately. After hearing some of the guitar tones in the clinic lately, it's got me to pining for a clearer, more present tone. Still searching...