My band's "demo" recording - fans of Isis, Mogwai, etc

  • Thread starter Thread starter Adam P
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Adam P

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I recently recorded some songs for my band to use as a demo and get our music out to people and expand our fanbase. We're a three piece instrumental band that might appeal to fans of stuff like Isis, Neurosis, and Mogwai. We've posted our songs on the Internet and I'd appreciate anybody's feedback on both the recording and on the songs themselves. Mixing is one of the things I need to work on the most, so any (constructive) help would be great. Hell, if anyone is interested in remixing the songs I might be up for sending them the tracks.

The songs can be found here: http://www.hxcmp3.com/bands/15298/
One song can be downloaded; the other two may be streamed only, but I believe its a fairly high quality stream. The band is called The Scend, and I'm the bass player.

If anyone's interested on what we used, I'm more than happy to discuss that as well. I might add that the setup was quite minimalist, primarily out of necessity, and that everything was tracked live with no overdubbing.

Thanks!
 
hey im interstead in your music...IM me on AIM Rufiochris581
 
Hey man-

I'm not at all familiar with the bands you mantioned, I work with pop and rock groups...so you may or may not care what I have to say.

First song: It's all kind of sitting on top of each other like there's alot of bleed going on. It sounds almost mono, almost like a single mic was used to record the whole band playing live. The drums are really buried. The guitars are killing everything. I can barely hear what you're doing on your bass.

Second song: Kinda more of the same. This one has clipping, though when the toms are baing played. The snare sounds like it's in a room 50 feet away, or at a live venue outside.

Like I said, maybe that's what you're going for, I really don't know. But maybe it helps, hopefully. Good luck with your music!

H2H
 
Hey, thanks for the response. I actually was in agreement with a few of the things you pointed out from the get-go...

For starters, I think I mixed the bass too low sort of subconsciously because I'm the bassist and am sort of self-conscious of my playing and whatnot. And yeah, something is clipping in the second song but I couldn't figure out what it was.

As for the "mono" sound, as you put it...the guitar and drums were tracked in different rooms, and the bass direct, so in reality there isn't any bleed between instruments. With our style though, we wanted to have a sort of room-y, reverbish sound. The drums were tracked in a room thats probably 60x25 feet with 12 foot ceiling, and the guitar in a room probably 10x15 with an equally high ceiling. Nothing was close miked. And you didn't ask what we used, but I'll tell you anyways...Drums were done with Oktava 012s overhead and a 219 (wrapped with foam to curb resonance) about 4 feet off the ground and 3 feet in front of the kit, angled slightly towards the kit. The guitarist played through two half stacks two get a blend of their tones. Both cabs (a 4x12 Marshall and a 2x12 Randall) were sitting on chairs. I had an AT 4033 behind a pop filter about two feet out that I moved around to a point where I was happy with the tone. Bass was done direct using my Boss overdrive pedal and SansAmp. All mics went through Mackie VLZ preamps (my mixer is a piece of junk so I borrowed the Mackie from my cousin). Overheads had light compression from a Behringer Composer in an attempt to curb our enthusiastic drummer.

In mixing, theres only one track of guitar panned slightly right, bass down the center, and the OHs panned about 3 and 9, respectively, with the mic out front panned straight up the middle as well. I didn't use any effects while mixing except for a bit more reverb on the drum overheads for the last song. Oh yeah, I mixed on Alesis M1 actives, also borrowed from my cousin. I know they're looked down on, but in my situation I take what I can get. It was either those or Bose stereo speakers, which would distort the bass all to hell.

Given the equipment used and the circumstances, I think the individual tracks sound pretty decent. I'm just not that great at mixing, like I said, so I'm totally open to advice, or even if someone would be interested in re-mixing the songs. We were kind of hurried...we wanted to have them in time for a show we were playing but it was cancelled at the last minute. Now we have a little more time.

Sorry to fill your ear with all that, but I appreciate your taking the time to listen and let me know what you thought.
 
Actually, I listened to your last song and it seems alot cleaner than the other two to me. Was there less going on in it or something? Anyways, I could hear distinction better between the drums and the guitar parts, and the drums themselves sounded better seperated.

Like I said, there's not alot wrong with any of it if it's the style you're going for. It's sometimes hard to have a center of refrence when you're used to working with a certian style and then you hear others.

Take care!
H2H
 
In the third song theres just a lot less overdriven guitar than in the other two. That probably helps quite a bit.

Again, thanks for listening!

If you want to hear some of the bands I mentioned, you can hear ISIS here and Mogwai here.
 
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