Jihad Joe - An original that might get me beheaded

ido1957 said:
The thing I like the most is that it has several "parts" all very different rhythmically but flow together well.
And if Obama would make this his theme song now...think of the shit that would cause
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Lol. Thanks for checking it ido. Obama doesn't have the balls to get with this song. He's the least hung black man on the planet. :eatpopcorn:

Bubba po said:
It's got more than a little NoFX sound to my ears, Greg. :D Only not insanely quick like most of their stuff. Very funny song. :D
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Thanks Bubba. I do like NOFX a lot. After I did the vocals, I was like "shit this sounds too much like NOFX". But fuck it. It wasn't intentional and I suppose could do worse.....like sound like the foo fighters or something. Ugh.

RAMI said:
Awesome, man. Love the slight ring you have on the snare that I noticed mostly in the intro. Everything sounds great. Great timing changes. This tune's got everything, even pick slides!!!!

I wouldn't worry about offending anyone with the lyrics, whether it be Americans, Arabs, or anyone else. All this beheading shit is fake bullshit, just like 9/11 was fake....just like 99% of what we see on the "news" (HAHAHA!) is fake. But that's a whole 'nother story.

Great stuff, man.
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Thanks a lot Rami. I'm glad you and a couple others specifically commented on the snare as being good. I'm tuning it lower than I normally do, and like I mentioned in your thread, this has some bottom mic blended in, also different from my usual snare track. I personally thought the snare is pretty cool in this one, but I wasn't sure if I was just fooling myself. When I first tracked it, it had pop, ring, body, and some sizzle, and I was like whoa, that's pretty nice. I'm glad it worked.

Yeah I'm not worried about offending anyone, I just don't want anyone to get the wrong idea about the lyrics or my intentions.
 
Greg_L said:
it had pop, ring, body, and some sizzle, and I was like whoa, that's pretty nice.
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That's what I liked about it. It really had everything you want in a snare sound. How did you treat the bottom mic? EQ,etc.....Did you flip the phase, or line it up, or neither? Also, just out of curiosity, what do you do with your top snare mic in general. I think I remember you saying you used to line it up but don't any more? Or was it that you don't even flip the phase any more?
 
Greg_L said:
I wasn't gonna post this, but fuck it. I just realized a little while ago that it's 9/11 today. Seems strangely appropriate? I don't know. This is not a pro-america song though. I write cheesy songs, but not that cheesy. :yawn:

Jihad Joe


I didn't consider this mix finished, but I listened and it seems mostly okay to me. See what you think. :drunk:

Any comments, even if you hate it, especially if you hate it, are welcome and appreciated.
Thanks,
Greg :guitar:

Jihad Joe
We march through the hills
Tally up our kills
Enforce sharia law
Hear us singing praise be to allah!

Tough guys in a dress
Our hair and beards - a mess
Be careful where you tread
Cuz we'll cut off your head

Go! Go! Go! Jihad Joe!
Go Go Jihad Joe!

Our life is so swell
Killing infidels
We fight for our cause
Here us shouting praise be to Allah!

We rule the middle east
With an iron fist of peace
Cash in a million sins
For seventy-two virgins


Go! Go! Go! Jihad Joe!
Go Go Jihad Joe!

Christians and Athiests
Jews and all Buddhists
Jehova's Witness
Scientologists
Communists and fascists
White supremacists
No one on this list
Is as fucked as a Jihadist

Go! Go! Go! Jihad Joe!
Go Go Jihad Joe!
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Here's what's really good about this one:

* You fucking nailed it. It's anti-Jihadist without being anti-Islam.

* The paired guitars. That guitar sound is delicious.

* The machine gun drum hits.

* The tempo change.

* The Allah Allah A la la la la la is magic.

* You're really good at the kind of lyrics you do

* The bass run

* The mix just s-o-u-n-d-s good.



What I'd like tweaked about this one:

* Nothing

Damn, you're good at this stuff. Honest, I think this is easily commercial level. I really like it.
 
TripleM said:
My only suggestion is it seems the guitars are a little too heavy sounding and the bass is a little too light sounding. They sound fine the way they are. But if it were me, I'd give a little more of the low end to the bass and a little less to the guitars.
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I get that. I went back and listened another couple times when I read your post. You're right. But you're also right when you say it sounds fine the way it is. It's mixed inside acceptable balance parameters.
 
Greg, is it sharEYEah or sharEEah?
Down here I think it's the latter - it's also how Strummer pronounced in on Rock the Casbah.
Maybe there's a Texan twang added.
You'll def. not be popular with the oversensitive extremist demographic what ever religion they extrapolate from.
Snare is very cool.
Bass tone - in the solo - great. In the main song - great - though in a couple of spots it gets buried for a second.
Guitars - some people reach for a pedal or a sim to differentiate their tracks. You reach for another Marshall - that's insane AND it works.I really enjoyed the axe grinding - particularly the sustained chords over the intro.
NOYCE!
 
RAMI said:
That's what I liked about it. It really had everything you want in a snare sound. How did you treat the bottom mic? EQ,etc.....Did you flip the phase, or line it up, or neither? Also, just out of curiosity, what do you do with your top snare mic in general. I think I remember you saying you used to line it up but don't any more? Or was it that you don't even flip the phase any more?
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The only thing I did to the bottom mic is shelf a couple db out of the lows from like 200hz down to get some of the kick boom out of it. It's just barely in the mix though so I didn't do anything else to it. You can hear it rattle around in the verses, but it pretty much goes away in the upbeat parts. The top snare mic got some EQ and compression. Believe it or not, the stock ReaEQ plug in Reaper has a pretty nice snare preset called "rock snare". I pulled that up and tweaked it a little to work for me, but that preset is actually a pretty good baseline. I know, presets suck! Yeah they usually do, but this one gets it pretty close IMO. Then I hit it with a compressor. Medium attack and release to preserve the attack but tighten up the rest. Not too much though or it brings out hat bleed. I really hate hat bleed in the snare mic. I go to great lengths to position the top snare mic so it's asshole points at the hats. This keeps the hats 180 degrees behind the capsule and I get minimal hat bleed like that. There's still some bleed obviously, but it's totally manageable. Then I flipped the phase on both tracks in relation to the overheads. You gave me that idea a long time ago, and hot damn it's one of the best things in the world. I don't have any rhyme or reason for doing it. I just try it and if it's good, it stays. I don't line up any tracks anymore. I got away from that a long time ago. It was okay for me when I was using a different overhead setup, but with spaced pair it doesn't do me any good.
dobro said:
Here's what's really good about this one:

* You fucking nailed it. It's anti-Jihadist without being anti-Islam.

* The paired guitars. That guitar sound is delicious.

* The machine gun drum hits.

* The tempo change.

* The Allah Allah A la la la la la is magic.

* You're really good at the kind of lyrics you do

* The bass run

* The mix just s-o-u-n-d-s good.



What I'd like tweaked about this one:

* Nothing

Damn, you're good at this stuff. Honest, I think this is easily commercial level. I really like it.
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dobro said:
I get that. I went back and listened another couple times when I read your post. You're right. But you're also right when you say it sounds fine the way it is. It's mixed inside acceptable balance parameters.
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Thanks for all that dobronie. I appreciate the kind words. I don't know, I respect yall's opinions and you hear what you hear, but I'm just not really getting it. I like the meat and crunch chunk of the rhythm guitars, particularly during the verses. I actually think these are some of the best guitar tracks I've ever done. They're mildly overdriven without sounding like 80s buttrock or corny metal. That's about as good as it gets to me. I've never been a really thumpy low end bass kind of guy. I treat bass like another guitar. They all gotta have lows, mids, and highs.

rayc said:
Greg, is it sharEYEah or sharEEah?
Down here I think it's the latter - it's also how Strummer pronounced in on Rock the Casbah.
Maybe there's a Texan twang added.
You'll def. not be popular with the oversensitive extremist demographic what ever religion they extrapolate from.
Snare is very cool.
Bass tone - in the solo - great. In the main song - great - though in a couple of spots it gets buried for a second.
Guitars - some people reach for a pedal or a sim to differentiate their tracks. You reach for another Marshall - that's insane AND it works.I really enjoyed the axe grinding - particularly the sustained chords over the intro.
NOYCE!
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Thanks a lot Ray. Yeah it's a nice problem to have these days - which guitar, amp, cab, should I use for what. I'm lucky to be able to do it like that, and be loud as hell while doing it. Amp GAS is my mid-life crisis. My wife is a saint. This one got two guitars, two heads, same cab/speaker for everything. I've always heard it as Sha-rye-yuh. Maybe that's wrong, I don't know. We don't speak much of sharia law down here in the US south. A little mispronunciation never done hurt nobody! Joe Strummer aint saying "sharia" though. He's saying "shareef". The Shareef don't like it - rock the casbah. I think a shareef was like some kind of muslim boss. Eh, whatever. Dirka dirka!
 
Had another listen on headphones just now to see if I could pick out the issues with low end on the guitars others have mentioned. Still sounds great to me - I've no issue with the mix as it is. One small niggle - you spelled 'atheists' wrong in the lyrics (that's all I could come up with :p).
 
MysticNetherlan said:
That was awesome, in every way, mix, performance, lyrics, energy, wow.
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Fantastic, thank you. That is the goal.

jonny deep said:
Had another listen on headphones just now to see if I could pick out the issues with low end on the guitars others have mentioned. Still sounds great to me - I've no issue with the mix as it is. One small niggle - you spelled 'atheists' wrong in the lyrics (that's all I could come up with :p).
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Thanks for checking it again. Yup, so I did spell it wrong. Good, they can get offended too. :D
 
Listening to it the first time, I got the impression that the last 5 seconds just "didn't belong there". Maybe replace the cymbal roll with a "rock style version" of that "ba-da crash" you hear after a joke gets told in the old comedy clubs -- or similar.

It was a freakin' great song, very well played.

The political statement of it just makes it even better.
 
So TIGHT as always! Do you compress the drum hits into those tight stabs or is there something more you do that makes them so present without stepping on anything? I really like that tom sound that hits you in the gut, same for your guitar. Like Jimi, I loved the allah-la-la-la, too funny. Listening to your stuff I get the feeling I could send you the worst piece of shit I ever wrote to record and it would come out sounding great.

I doubt there's any sleeper cells in satan's butthole so you should be safe.
 
As a drummer struggling to get tight tracks out of the gate, I am really jealous! You are really tight, and listening makes me want to go practice... What kind of mics you using on the drums? What kind of cymbals? Decent overheads? I'm new to the forum, but a long time engineer trying to get back into home recording after selling my project studio (to have kids) years ago...
 
BxD said:
Listening to it the first time, I got the impression that the last 5 seconds just "didn't belong there". Maybe replace the cymbal roll with a "rock style version" of that "ba-da crash" you hear after a joke gets told in the old comedy clubs -- or similar.

It was a freakin' great song, very well played.

The political statement of it just makes it even better.
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Thanks a lot. That's a good idea on the ending, one I agree with, but I'm not gonna re-track just for that part. I could punch it in, but my drums are already tore back down. It wouldn't match up.

rpm61 said:
So TIGHT as always! Do you compress the drum hits into those tight stabs or is there something more you do that makes them so present without stepping on anything? I really like that tom sound that hits you in the gut, same for your guitar. Like Jimi, I loved the allah-la-la-la, too funny. Listening to your stuff I get the feeling I could send you the worst piece of shit I ever wrote to record and it would come out sounding great.

I doubt there's any sleeper cells in satan's butthole so you should be safe.
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Haha, thanks man. Um, the drums, I don't know, I just play that way. I'm a hard hitter. And really, they just sound pretty dang good. This shit is petty easy when you have good sounds to begin with. It seems too simple a concept, and I probably type it out in here a hundred times a week, but hell, start with good sounds and the rest takes care of itself. I do use some compression on my drums, but it's pretty gentle and it's more like a "glue" then any kind of tool to enhance the performance. It actually makes them less punchy. The guitar tracks are just a speaker moving some air and slamming soundwaves into a mic at volumes that could cause ear damage. You want big drums and guitars? Record them that way.

rock2dawn said:
As a drummer struggling to get tight tracks out of the gate, I am really jealous! You are really tight, and listening makes me want to go practice... What kind of mics you using on the drums? What kind of cymbals? Decent overheads? I'm new to the forum, but a long time engineer trying to get back into home recording after selling my project studio (to have kids) years ago...
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Cool man, thanks for listening and welcome.

I'm using the Audix DP-7 mic pack. It's just a pile of their D series kick and tom mics, an i5 standard cardioid dynamic, and whatever pencil condenser overheads come with it. I don't even know what they are off the top of my head. They're pretty nice. I'm really not to well versed on SDC mics. I'm not using the included i5 on the snare. I'm using SM57s for that. I love that i5 on guitar cabs though.

My cymbals are all Paiste 2002. 15" Sound Edge hats. 16, 18, 20" medium crashes. 22" Power Ride. And a 20" RUDE crash/ride. That thing is a manhole cover. These cymbals are a little much for this room, but fuck it. They're so awesome live. I've considered buying a "recording" set of cymbals, but it's not that important to me. These are fine.
 
Great song! I can't think of anything I would want changed. Let's upload it on pimped out drones and play it all over the middle east! Lol!

Seriously, makes me envy your talent.

That's all.
 
dverno said:
Great song! I can't think of anything I would want changed. Let's upload it on pimped out drones and play it all over the middle east! Lol!

Seriously, makes me envy your talent.

That's all.
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Thanks dude. My song from drones? Neat idea. That might be too cruel though, even for war.
 
Bubba po said:
War is hell. :D
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These IS fuckers are the internet trolls of the world. They supposedly sawed off another dude's head yesterday. Supposedly. I'm not 100% convinced they are actually beheading these people, but they want us to think that, so fuck them anyway.

I hope their 72 virgins are all dudes.
 
This sounds damn good. I pretty much share dobro's view of highs - the panned guitars are really cool, the mix is really crisp and the "allah la la..." line is a great idea. Nice one greg :)
 
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