seekin criticism for the first tracks recorded in my garage studio

R

rasdestroyer

New member
hi all..
i haven't posted on the boards in a while; been totally consumed by tryin to transform the detached garage behind my house into a little studio space. after five or six months of work, we're mostly done. last week, the band i play drums (badly) put the room to a little stress test and tried to record some of our newest tracks.. i uploaded the tediously mixed results (i am finally starting to get a hang of subtractive EQ) to soundclick and was wondering if you all could shoot me some constructive crit...

thanks so much for any help yall can provide!

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=594669

is the "band page".. the songs we recorded in the new space are

"Anti Torture Song"
"Free Palestine" (these are my crappy placedholder names)
"1984"
"Don't Snitch"

as a frame reference, i should note that we're goin for a pretty dirty, churning guitar /bass sound and fairly transparent/restrained drumming.. i'm pretty happy with the current incarnation of the mix.. it's not super heavy or anything, but i think it conveys a satisfying level of punch and grit

take care
bryin
 
Sweet, gotta dig the garage studio. Definitely an in your face raw mix. Synth here and there is a nice addition. Cool ending too. Pretty cool, I'm a sucker for the raw punk sound... so if you're going for a raw old school punk in your face rawk sound here then you got it.. not too much to add from me... rock on :D
 
Any song that intellegently & amusingly refers to 1984, Winston Smith & Eric Blair in general is CCCCCOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLL.
There was a punk band in Sydney 1977 - 80 that were called the Thought Criminals - did heaps of '84 songs obvioulsy with wit & wisdom too. Look up their web site - lots of free downloads of the recently & finally issued on CD stuff + vids - beware - there's a pommy band by that name too & they aren't much chop.
Good punky feel & executing - keyboard works REALLY well. Keep it up - I'm downloading this NOW!!! The balance & mix are just right for the style & topic - my only real suggestion would be to thin the effects on the guitar/s so more guitar shines through - much more of the punk ethos that way.
 
thanks for all the feedback!

thank all of yall for the feedback! i'm glad to hear that, for the most part, the mix seems to fit the genre... i totally agree that the woman who plays the microkorg has brought a lot of color and life to our stuff.. up until a few months ago she was using a crappy old casio keyboard , so she's been goin wild with her new gear and writing all kinds of awesome breakdowns and stuff..

regarding bringin up the snare: unfortunately, i am not a drummer by trade (i mostly do the guitar) , and i havent quite worked out hitting the snare really hard when it counts and layin off the hi hat.. as a result, there was a LOT of hi hat bleed on the snare mic (beyer m201), so when i crank the snare channel i really just seem to boost piercing cymbal sounds.. i'll try to work something out; it's been one of my major dilemmas with this project, and my own damn fault!

the only effect on the guitars is a little bit of stereo reverb, but yall are totally right that it's probably not gritty enough. i wish i could get the gits a little brighter and more abrasive, but no matter how i mess with EQ they don't seem to quite pop out of the mix the way i'd hoped.. i'm not sure if it's the source signal or something else in the mix interfering.. the guitars are pretty much flat up to about 1-2khz and then boosted 2-4dB in the high end.. only other sounds occupying that space are cymbals and a little bit of keys..

1984ish references are pretty abundant in our stuff! most of the band self-identifies with some kind of anti-capitalist anarcho-this or that community, and the fellow who writes the lyrics is great at producing really vitriolic condemnations of pretty much ever state apparatus in site.. i don't always entirely agree with the way he states his case (a bit harsh sometimes!), but i think the whole growly pre-apocalyptic tone suits the songs pretty well...

anyhow, thank you all again, i'd love to get more criticism! the four songs i uploaded are the first part of our new record.. we've got 4-6 more tunes that we're gonna get on tape in the next month or so (more epic than ever!) , so i'll try to post some of those when they're ready..

take care everybody!
bryin
 
Listened to "1984"....not much to add that hasn't been said in the previous post...I really dig the "in your face" mix...especially like the music around 2:30 bass and keyboards sound cool....cool ending as well...great job!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top