Guitar-based-pop Demo

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mattr

mattr

Resident moody teenager
This is my first time working on a song with lots of electric / synthesized sounds, but its fairly guitar-driven / pop-rocky so still partly falls within my comfort zone in that sense. Currently instrumentals only so might not be that interesting to some people, but I'm more worried about how the real and synthesized instruments work together at the moment, and vocals will be added in due course.


[MP3]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11985454/song1_instrumental_roughmix1.mp3[/MP3]



To cut a long story short I recorded this with two friends on Tuesday, but they're not planning on using the song themselves; its been written for another band they're acquainted with. The vocal lines are a bit out of my friend's range (but appropriate for the singer of the other band) so his vox might end up being quite rough, but we'll see how it goes when they're back to track them next week.

Any comments / criticism on the mix appreciated :) Thanks
 
Sounds good, nice pop groove. Did you edit the stutters or use a program?

Only comment I have is the guitar tone is a little fizzy and thin. I think a fatter tone might work better.
 
Thanks :) Most of the stutters were done using Illformed Glitch - I downloaded it ages ago and had a quick look at using it but never got my head around automating it. Dug it out again for this song and set up two instances (one on each guitar bus) with 3 different patterns that are automated to loop at the correct points. A few of the stutters / glitches, etc (such as on the delay tail after the first chorus), were edited in by hand so they would be exactly right.

I'll take a second look at the guitars. There's only 3 layers in the rhythm part which is unusually sparse for me :p The other guys liked the tone when we tracked it but there's definitely room for a little bit more.
 
The reverb is not matched on all the instuments - something is popping out of the mix a bit. The arrangement is fantastic - very very interesting, well eq'd and kept me captivated for the full length...Good luck with vocals !
 
Yeah, dude... Loved the power of it all. One nit is that when the side-stick kicked in for the 1 or 2 measures there, it was so low in the mix, I'll be few people would even catch it. Bring it up a bit, if you can. The other nit I have would probably be the monotony of the beat. It's well-done, but it's quite robotic, and gets kind of boring. Try to mix things up or humanize a bit more. Other than that, I really liked it. I can hear all sorts of vocal melodies with this one. Would really like to hear it fleshed out with vocals...

Good job, dude.
 
Oh, also.. Acoustic drums might help this out, too... ;-)
 
Overall this is really impressive. My first thought is "bravo!" But you've come for suggestions so here's my 2 cents.

The snare (the whole kit) is reverbed to sound more retro while everything else is right up front and modern. If this is what you have available, then you work with what you got. Old trick you probably know well but get the raw sound as dry as possible and add the color later.
 
sounds really nice. the drums fit well with the song. i'd prefer acoustic drums, but these don't sound bad, and i think most people would prefer these.

now you just need a whiney emo singer to complete the mix. i like it. i'd definitely listen to this kind of music.
 
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