"Two Hours On"

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Track Rat

Track Rat

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This is a long story I feel is worth telling. The drummer in the band I'm currently in is an ex-Marine who was in Viet Nam in the mid 60's. He participates in a group at the VA where some of the vets get together and try to work through issues that followed them home. We were talking about it one day and he was telling me that a few of the guys were trying to put their thoughts down on paper as poetry about their experiences that still haunt them. To make a long story short, I got involved with them in an attempt to facilitate taking their words and setting them into music. Out of this ongoing project, I've wrote some tunes and shoe horned their words into them and recorded the tunes. The "band" consists of myself, my drummer and another Marine on bass (most of the vets who contributed the words aren't musicians). Weve done about 8 tunes so far and is an ongoing project. I just wanted to share some of it. I know it's not world changing stuff but it makes me feel pretty good to see the effect it's had on these guys who gave so much and payed a great price still to this day. Thanks ahead of time to anyone who wants to give it a listen.
This tune is titled "Two Hours On".

Mike Greenup - N o W h e r e R a d i o . c o m
 
Like the overall sound of this tune. It has some depth. The hi-hat jumped out at me though, could come down some. It seems like the snare is a little tight sounding. No real thunk or snap in the 2-3k range? Sounds kind of 'scooped'. Nice meandering bluesy groove. Watch the timing of those drums! It slips a bit here and there. Not really hearing any crash cymbals, they are lost in the mix if they are there somewhere.
 
I thank you for the listen. The drums are pretty much what they are. It was more or less done on the fly. One mono overhead (KM-184), snare was a MD-441 and a D-112 on the kick. No compression. Every time the drummer hits the the snare, hits the rim at the same time which gives it that "pinched" sound. It's just his style. His sticks look like a beaver made a snack out of them. The bass player (who I only know as "Wild Bill") doesn't play in any bands, he just knows how to play a bit and I wanted to include any of these guys I could in the project. After all, they were the guys who were there, ya know what I mean? They were all "in country" between 65 and 69. This project was more about therapy than perfection but I still want it to sound good.
 
I love the snare sound. Harmonies sound good. Levels all well balanced.

The highhat jumped out at me in the intro, but after that it seemed fine.

The mix seemed just slightly lopsided to the left.

Bass might be a little too strong. Maybe a little cut somewhere around 100-120 or so?
 
I think the mix is pretty even. Idk about the bass, I can see what TripleM is talking about, but somehow for me it fits the song, kinda like that Bon Jovi "Wanted" sound.
 
I really liked it. Love the 60s fuzz tone lead and slow hand melody playin. Nice way to honor your friends service time too.

Nice job!

Pete

P.S. I thought the mix was a little left heavy too. May wanna check all your tracks/faders etc.
 
I think it sounds great. The lyrics are really good and you did a great job "shoe horning" them in there.

I'm not wild about the snare sound being so tight for such a slow number, but you've already explained the drum dealio, and I think generally they sound quite good given the set up.

I agree with Trip about the bass. I like it prominent like that, but the actual sound of it seems a bit boomy to me.

The lead guitar tone is pretty awesome. Cool.
 
I think it sounds pretty good. Timings a little rough. The downbeats are off here and there. I think a little more guitar in the verses would be good. I'm not crazy about the over-the-top lead tones, but that's personal preference. Spectral balance seems real good. Bass, kick, snare, fullness of guitars is all there. Well done.
 
I really appriciate the comments. All are fair criticisms. The writing (of the tunes) and recordings were all pretty spontainious sessions so there are warts for sure but I've kind fallen in love with them, for better or worse. The slide and lead parts are triple tracked which in hind sight may have been a little over the top. The electric rhythm part was played through a leslie. I normally just use a single dynamic mic for that but at the time I wanted some "stereo" going on so I used two 57's and that MAY be the lop sided sound some have pointed out. I'll have to look at that. Again, thanks for the comments. They're extremely helpfull.
 
Hmmmm. On closer examination, the mix is a little left heavy. Damn. Not sure what the hell I did. I think I'm gonna check the system and remix.
 
Harmonies and lead guitar really stand out, or shine as I would say. The rest is a solid backdrop too - don't want to lessen their impact. The drum set up sounds pretty good with one overhead. Lyrics are great, story comes through really well....
 
If you can get away with that much bass in the mix, then you ease my mind about what I'm doing in my own stuff. :) I like this slowcore stuff - nice. How about bringing the bv up to match, or almost match, the main one? That's about the only thing I'd do. That, and send it to the ME. I l-o-v-e the drum sound. You're getting awfully, awfully good at this. Where'd you get the foley stuff?
 
Thanks a lot Dobro. The foley stuff is just that. I put together a studio for the "other" Yellow Pages (Old Heritage Advertising) about 12 years ago and I got them a 30 CD Foley collection through Markertech. I made some copies.
 
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