thanks for all the feedback! you guys have hit on just about every paranoia i have had, haha, but usually for the better.
"pitchiness" haha, that term is harsh, i have never heard it before. let's see, there is a little reverb on the lead vocals. however, when i turned it up it seemed to enrich the mids more than the highs and lows and kind of muddied up the mix. what should the characteristics of good vocal reverb be? Triple M mentioned double tracking. i gave it a shot but i didn't like the effect so much, it actually made the vocal sound less "serious." that's, i'm sure, because i was doing it wrong. when double tracking a vocal, the two tracks are supposed to be panned slightly opposite of each other, right? should they be compressed or does double tracking make compression extraneous?
oh yeah, and the bass. i already tried the 200 hz rolloff, it helps a little. i haven't tried the 5-800 boost, i will give that a shot soon.
the "pacman" noise that drones away during some of the song is
a Roland Juno 60 arpeggiating an Fmaj9 in 3 octaves set on square/saw with lots of superfluous noise (like you asked, haha). the "r2d2 explosion" sound at the end is the same setting, but i was whacking the "octave up/middle octave/octave down" switch back and forth and spinning the pitch bend. someone noticed! woo!
and participant mentioned the amps. both are mesas! a dc-5 and
a dual rectifier, just not too much top end and the gain is really low. don't they have that nice ring to them? they're so useful and unabrasive when you keep the gain down and don't scoop them.
thanks a lot! any more suggestions=highly appreciated