Hard-Rock/Metal MP3 Vol. II (WIP)

DoorKnobHandle · Sun 26/02/2006 21:31:41

Hey guys,

I am working on a new song, it's pretty heavy, but has an emotional part. It's still in work, right now, there's just an intro, a chorus and a bridge (the clean part). It misses a verse and a solo (maybe more)...

Anyways, DOWNLOAD HERE! and make sure to leave a comment/suggestion/whatever.

I wrote, performed, recorded and mixed all of it myself here, so please do not only judge the music itself, but maybe also the patches and overall recording quality.

EDIT: Oh, this thread is called "Vol. II", because I used to have a similar thread months ago. I hope I made progress since then!

Helm · Sun 26/02/2006 22:03:22

Hello. I listened to your song. First of all the guitar sound is very fuzzed out in a bad way. Second, it's too up on the mix, let the drums breathe. The drum programming is minimal right now, do you plan to mix it up any? The distorted part is simple and not interesting to my ears but that's a matter of taste.

The emotional part, dude, where's the speed? SPEED EQUALS EMOTION!

Jokes aside, I prefer this part of the song a lot. Then the distorted guitar comes back and all I can think is modern 'nu' metal... again, no accounting for tastes.

There's a million things you're going to learn on your own about mixing guitar and home recording, but if I can hurry you on the way, cool. Aquire, or 'aquire' Native Instruments Guitar Rig. Buy a very good distortion pedal. Go from distortion into Guitar rig and tweak until the full sound works. This takes a lot of tweaking but you can get pretty warm and realistic guitar distortion that way. Don't trust GR to do it on it's own though, you'll need the distortion pedal still. Maybe next version of GR it'll have realistic distortion on it's own. Read up on equalizing guitar signal. you don't need a lot of middle frequences, and you have to shave off both treble and bass to make room in the mix for other instruments. It's important to realize that guitars are tonally very flat instruments that generally suck without equalizing. A guitar is only part of the mix, there's going to be other stuff in there too so it not only matters that the guitar sounds good on it's own, it matters how it sounds in context. This is also very much a matter of levels. Too quiet guitars and they wash out and sound feeble, too loud and they overpower the whole mix and while as a guitarist you might go 'YEAH AWESOME! GUITAR SOLO!!!' you'll later realize this isn't really a good idea.

A guitar, or rhythm guitar combo, without bass for support, will ALWAYS sound weak unless some sound engineer does studio magic. The bass still has a place in the mix. Either record stuff on guitar and transpose them 12 semitones down, or get a bass as well. You will never hear your guitars as you envision them without the bass for support. Same goes for the kickdrum. Every metal band you've heard which you love, every 'crushing' guitar palm mute is coupled in the bass and in the kickdrum, it's no accident, it's tried and true.

DoorKnobHandle · Sun 26/02/2006 22:09:22

Wow, thanks a lot for all this helpful insight, Helm! I'll try to follow your help and improve my stuff. Thanks again.

ManicMatt · Sun 26/02/2006 22:40:45

Argh! I HATE that website! It says I will have to wait 32 minutes before it lets me download.

Nikolas · Sun 26/02/2006 22:54:26

Track No.48?

WOW you have 48 tracks already???

Well, mostly I'm here to say to listen to Helm. He doesn't need me to back him up, but still everything is true...

An alternative to NI Guitar Rig is Waves GTR. Pretty good as well (maybe better, judging from the reviews). Just check it out... Note: I have no idea boaut guitars...

On the track itself:

Drums are empty and week. Compress them (a lot probably).
Put a bass somehow. I think that it could benefit even from a "synth" bass, with the right EQ.
Sync a little better your playing.

Very well, indeed.

DoorKnobHandle · Sun 26/02/2006 23:00:48

Thank you to you, too, Nikolas. I probably won't go through the hazzle of re-recording all the tracks for that song, it's not really worth it. But I will make sure to follow your advice when I produce my next songs.

Quote from: Nikolas on Sun 26/02/2006 22:54:26
Track No.48? WOW you have 48 tracks already???

Actually I have far more than 48 songs produced, but they are not all done to the end (and some of the first ones are plain crap).

Right now, I use a Behringer V-Amp 2 Multieffects-processor for effects. The patch I used for the dist. gtr. in my track wasn't the best. It sounds real good played through a real speaker/cabinet though! I recently played with the thought to buy an ENGL Powerball 100W Head amplifier, but I need the money for other purposes and this bitch is 1500$ (and that's only the head, I'd also need a cab).

Anyways, I'll probably stick to clean stuff, because that always seems to sound better somehow with my equipment.

If you want to check out some more (and different stuff), feel free to check my myspace: www.myspace.com/subrockspace.

Helm · Sun 26/02/2006 23:07:58

Do not buy a $1500 cabinet.

DoorKnobHandle · Sun 26/02/2006 23:12:27

Heh, I was talking about a 1500$ head. The cab would be <500$. Still, I won't buy it, because (although I have the money), I'd rather spend it on a car and a house and everything later. I just decided this two days ago...