Heavier Rock Tune: Come Clean

[Mr. Moon]

If you like heavier melodic rock like Alice in Chains, Sabbath, and Tool (and even if you don't!), please check out our latest tune titled "Come Clean" and let me know what you think. Warning: The intro is kinda long and the lyrical content is rather sinister and dark, but not graphic in nature. It's a tune about a man coming to terms with the fact that he has just committed murder, so you wouldn't really consider it an uplifting happy tune...

Getting the mix to where it is now was truly a pain in the arse!! The drums were not the easiest thing to get to sit in the mix well ...but that's a really long story, too long to go into here. I also wanted to note that *all* tracks were recorded/mixed beginning with Sonar 3.x and then migrated to Sonar 4.x. "Mastering" was done in Soundforge 7.

Come Clean (link)

All feedback appreciated!!

Thanks!

-mr moon

 

[shookiejones]

You might have had a tough time with the drums, but that snare sound was worth the trouble. Very nice. How and with what did you mic that?

I think you could bring up the bass drum up a bit.

The Bass guitar sounds a little bit "blown out" in places...not in a consistent distortion sense but like it may have peaked at some points...could be these so-so speakers I am listening through though.

Maybe come down with the "whisper" layered vocal (underneath the main vocal track) a little bit

Real nice solo and harmony guitar sound too.

Good job

 

[Mr. Moon]

You might have had a tough time with the drums, but that snare sound was worth the trouble. Very nice. How and with what did you mic that?

I think you could bring up the bass drum up a bit.

The Bass guitar sounds a little bit "blown out" in places...not in a consistent distortion sense but like it may have peaked at some points...could be these so-so speakers I am listening through though.

Maybe come down with the "whisper" layered vocal (underneath the main vocal track) a little bit

Real nice solo and harmony guitar sound too.

Good job

Thanks for the feedback!

The snare is the standard SM57 deal. Nothing special, except that we gated the snare mic a ton, added some verb to the track, and EQ the heck out of it to fit. We had to cut a lot on the EQ, as it was really overpowering the mids when we didn't. We also had to bring down the overheads a ton due to the snare sound. Most of the snare's "crack" sound comes from the surrounding mics, not the snare mic.

The kick drum was the biggest pain in the @ss of them all. Total turd. We tried to polish it up as much as possible, but the basic track sounds awful and cannot be polished any more than it is. During the recording session that these drum tracks were from, we recorded 17 tunes worth in 5 hours. Yup, 17 tunes in 5 hours. We learned a lot about mic placement in the aftermath and next time we'll be a bit more careful with micing the kick. The lesson we learned: It matters WHAT you record to tape, you cannot polish a turd, not even a kick drum!!

The guitar solo was recorded backwards, all one take, and was my first attempt at this technique. It took a few takes to get it to sound perfect backwards, but it is one continuous take without any punch-ins! The real pain has been for me to learn to play the solo backwards (in relation to how it was recorded) to play the song like. This is really one solo I can say that I know forwards AND backwards!!

There is no whisper track on the vocal track, just an all-out balls-to-the-wall compressed "quiet" lead vocal. We wanted to keep the breath sounds to add to the overall spooky, unsettled, psychotic feel to the tune, like some guys who's sitting in a dank basement or cellar trying to come to terms with what he's just done. Sounded too "pretty" when we cut them out.

Thanks again!!

-mr moon

 

[ecktronic]

I canny listen to it as my WMP streaming is fecked!

 

[Mr. Moon]

I canny listen to it as my WMP streaming is fecked!

...Any luck now?

Anyone else feel like throwing out some comments?

-mr moon

 

[vangore]

love the intro its amazing, gotta be a pain in the ass to do live tho

does the singer listen to audioslave?

i would turn down the top on the bass and turn up the volume

bit of reverb on the vocals would be in keeping with the dank basement feel

great song, good work man

 

[David]

This just kicks ass moon. I can't find anything that I don't like about this. Vocal work is great great! Drums sound killer, as the guitars. How'd you get that bass sound? Killer tune and mix!

 

[Mr. Moon]

love the intro its amazing, gotta be a pain in the ass to do live tho

does the singer listen to audioslave?

i would turn down the top on the bass and turn up the volume

bit of reverb on the vocals would be in keeping with the dank basement feel

great song, good work man

Thanks for the props! Heh.... Yeah, the intro is a bit less lengthy when we play it live, but it's amazing what kind of noise and volume swells you can make with the right delay settings! Actually, the super-long intro was a last minute idea I threw out to the guys and we all thought that it fit the song perfectly. ...It's actually the end of the song reversed and thrown in front of the song, kinda neat how it worked out!

Freshears: thanks for the props as well. The bass was recorded direct throught a safesoundaudio P1 preamp. Oh yeah, throught a cheap Yamaha bass...

Thanks again!

-mr moon

 

[Freudian Slip]

Sounds very good to me. the only thing that stood out to me in a negative way is the quieter vocals in the verse seemed a bit dark and muddy. I think they need a little high end.

Great song!