Ha ha ... first "serious" recording
Very nice. The drum debate will probably go on as long as there are musicians (and drummers) left in the world. I thought your programming sounded fine, but definitely some real drums on this thing would kick some serious ass!
Don't fret about your vocals, they sounded good. Maybe they just need to come up a bit.
I agree with the recording of the drums with the other posts on this board, though I did think the programming was well done. We would all like to have the real thing, but for most of us $$ is an issue, what with the microphones needed, stands, etc, etc ...
One thing I have noticed is how the exact same patterns played on real drums (as opposed to the machine) can make such a huge difference. One of my favorite bands of all time, called Jellyfish (they only put out two albums) recorded most of their demos using drum machine programming. When they went into the studio, they of course would use the real thing and the patterns were nearly identical as the demo, except played on the real drums there was 100% difference in the feel and ambiance. It is hard to pinpoint, but I think the human ear picks it up right away.
Anyway, just a side note. I thought this sounded good, just needs a bit of tweaking!