Smashing Pumpkin wanna be

  • Thread starter Thread starter Stratomaster
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Stratomaster

Stratomaster

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Yeah so the title says it, I came up with this riff many years ago and let it rot because of the obvious influence. I wanted to record something with distorted guitars so I resurrected it. Not sure of the mix-it doesn't sound BIG, and it should. Maybe my guitar tones aren't too good?? No vocal yet, just threw a few random guitar solo's on it to break it up a bit. Enjoy.

Strat

ReverbNation
 
Well I love the pumpkins and I can hear the influence, but not over the top rip-off, now if ya throw a billy corgan type voice in there then maybe it would be a complete rip off?

I really like the song for whatever thats worth, I didnt expect the solo's, you can shred for sure, if it were me i would keep the solo's simpler, with a big fat humbucker type sound...but having said that I really cant play the guitar so.....whatever.

I say resurrect it.
 
Thanks for listening-when I came up with this on acoustic, it sounds like Hootie and the blowfish. The solo guitar is a paul reed smith, so it is a humbucker-the 2 rhythm guitars are telecasters through a vox ac-15.
 
The second time through you changed the main progression a bit, and I like those changes more. The beginning main riff was too repetative. I like the groove. Solos are solid too. Like the noisey bits at the end. :)

I'd say mix up the main progression with at least one more variation and you have a winner.

As for tone, can't say for sure if it needs to be heavier. Depends on what lyrics/style of vocals you plan on putting to it. In their current form they would be thin for my tastes in heavier stuff, but fine if I was expecting plain rock.
 
The guitars actually sound really good. The main thing holding this mix back from sounding "big" are the drums. The snare drum needs to come forward and needs a bit more compression. Send your snare and rack drums to an aux track and then apply some heavy compression to it with a fast attack and medium release, and then mix that track in to taste. It will help to accentuate the sound of the transient, giving your drums more "smack." Lastly, they need either some verb or some sort of Room Impulse to add a little size. Not a ton, but just something to give the drums some sense of space is all. I'm not generally a fan of super reverby drums like 80's hair metal status or anything, but I'm also not a fan of Rick Rubin style super dry mixes because I feel like they prevent the mix from breathing. But again, that's just me.
 
Can definitely hear the smashing pumpkins on this. Doesn't necessarily sound too small to me, but I agree that if anything does, it's the drums rather than the guitar. The cymbals sound to me like they've got some kind of digital distortion too.

Now you've got the challenge of incorporating a non-Billy Corgan vocal without it sounding incongruous. Hope you manage to make it work.
 
It all seems pretty good to me. I saw the Pumpkins on their 1st Oz tour - not a great live sound.
The solos - well the sustained notes were great but the fast twiddles sounded like fast twiddles rather than solos.
the progression of the progression is quite good.
I'm a big fan of noise sustained endings.
 
The riff has the right SP feel, but as mentioned by someone else here, the drums don't sound much SP.

I'm not an expert whatsoever, but recently I found that I could get easily some early SP hi-gain sounds using the free VST softwares Distorque Face bender (Fuzz Face emulator) through the SimulAnalog Guitar suite JCM 900 simulator.

If you have a chance to try them, I'll be really interested if you could let me know what do you think of this combination for obtaining early SP's hi-gain guitar sound.

The links to the free VST plugins below:
https://sites.google.com/site/distorque/home/vsts/facebender

SimulAnalog Guitar Suite
 
Stratomaster said:
Yeah so the title says it, I came up with this riff many years ago and let it rot because of the obvious influence. I wanted to record something with distorted guitars so I resurrected it. Not sure of the mix-it doesn't sound BIG, and it should. Maybe my guitar tones aren't too good?? No vocal yet, just threw a few random guitar solo's on it to break it up a bit. Enjoy.

Strat

ReverbNation
Click to expand...
Yeah I hear the Smashing Pumpkins influence. :)
The Mix is a bit thin to me, The cymbals and hats seem to take away from the guitars, I would try playing about with the low mids of the guitars and then maybe bring down the cymbals a bit or compress them more.

G
 
I thought it sounded really good to be honest. It didn't sound big, but it reminded me of a 70s rock record and it sounded nice. The guitars sounded great to me. I agree with the person who said bring up the snare. Maybe use some NY compression. With a good vocalist I think it could be a great song.
 
Great guitar groove. I really like the way the bass and guitars do the riff together. I don't know the pumkins music all that well at all, but I know Beatles (and ex-Beatles), and this sort of reminded me of George Harrison's Wah-Wah. I like it!
 
I hear the drums being the weakest sounding element here. Just not seeming on the same page as the rest. Kick is quite heady, without punch. Snare just not doing it for me, yet. It has big potential tho. I really like the groove of the tune.

Send me the tracks, and I will mess around with em, if you wish to get another insight.
 
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