first song and 100th post....

  • Thread starter Thread starter iravage
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iravage

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Hey, for my 100th post, i decided to post a song that i did. This is the first song that I completed with my new equipment.let me know what you think of the quality,especially the quality of the guitar. let me know if you have any tips or suggestions. Also, just a warning, i can't sing very well, and the lyrics in this song have no meaning, they dont even make sense to me, heh. Let me know what you think...
Thanks
-Andrew

http://www.angelfire.com/rock/nowayout/ts.html

Click on the, New Song, link
 
I took a listen.

I like your guitar sound overall. It's very smooth. What box are you using? I think you did an effective job of layering guitars to make it sound pretty big. The acoustic sounds pretty nice too, especially the high end....although it might be mucky in the midsection. The solo guitar with vocoder or whatever sounds pretty cool.

The vocals need a lot of work. First of all it sounds like I'm listening to a song in the car and the guy next to me is singing loudly in my ear. They are up too loud, and there's nothing on them...so they're way too "in your face." They need to be turned down, they need some compression, they need some air, and they need reverb!

The drums sound too fake. Are you using software or a machine? If you're using software, I can hook you up with samples that are 100X better. The hi-hat doesn't sound too bad though.

Is there a bass guitar? I hear a bassy sound in there somewhere....but it doesn't sound like a bass. I should note that I'm listening with headphones...but I'm very used to them and I don't hear bass.

All in all good job! Congrats on your first post to the cave!

Slackmaster 2000
 
hey slack, thanks for taking a listen!

drums...Im actually using a yamaha dd-50 electronic drum set, im using the aux/headphone out which might be why it sounds bad, it has a midi out which if i bought a midi connector into my comp might help. I have used fruity loops,but i can't really get to far with it because i cant do fills or add to a beat with out totally changing the rythem. so ya, if you have an ideas for better drums, using software, i'd would def. be interested.

Vocals...Yes, i know, i really have a lot of trouble with this. i actaully did, use some reverb on the vocals, and i agree, not enough. about the vocals being so loud... it because when i lower them, some parts tend to be very low and because they seem to get muffled in the mix. Yes, i have used the compressor in cool edit pro, but it really doesnt seem to do too much excpet boost the volume. Maybe i need a real compressor (hardware),(UPDATE - i lowered the voclas and added more reverb, sounds pretty good...)

bass... Nope, no bass but i do want to get one, ive tried using fake ones But as i have heard you say in the past, a real bass is the only way to go.

Guitar...Believe it or not... its a zoom 510 pedal,through an audiobuddy preamp... i do want to upgrade to a j station, or somthing like it though.

Oh and its not my first post hehe its my 100th post....
thanks again for the input,
-Andrew
 
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I use fruity loops for drums. It doesn't like time changes, but for the most part works very well. You can expand the number of beats per measure from like 2 to 64. I think 32 works best because you'll rarely need to play 64th notes. I try to find the best possible analog samples I can off the net. If you want an example of the kind of sounds I get check out my post a few threads down...I think I did those drums with fairly minimal effort and they're at least passing.

Your vocal problems are the reason we have compressors! Compressors don't increase volume, they decrease volume, flattening out dynamics. Most compressors have makeup gain though, and you can increase the level of the compressed signal much higher than the original uncompressed signal...hence they can help make stuff louder. Anyways, there are a lot of ok DX/VST compressors out there...try experimenting with them. I think basic settings to start with for vocals would be like 4:1, 500ms release, and very fast attack....but I pretty much just play until it sounds ok because I'm a novice. Shailat wrote a really great article on compression and posted a link a while back...you might search the forums. I just noticed your update...I'll listen tomorrow when I'm back on a fast connection.

Yeah man, even a cheap 100 dollar crap bass from a pawn shop is better than no bass or computer bass. I got an ugly peavey piece of crap for about 90 bucks or something. Changed the strings, raised the pickups, raised the action...and it seems to work well enough... I'm no les claypool anyhow.

Slackmaster 2000
 
hey, i'll post the new version tommorow (not up yet).you did all those songs with fruity loops?! I must not know how to use, this program very well... the drums in those songs sounded real good...
 
hey, i'll post the new version tommorow (not up yet).you did all those songs with fruity loops?! I must not know how to use, this program very well... the drums in those songs sounded real good, where do you get the analog samples??...
 
Hmmm....is it just me? I tried to get to the "new song" link, but no matter how many times I tried I just got cute "can't find it" pages.
 
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