jeffrey
Well-known member
I've just returned from Nashville where we were mastering and mixing our upcoming first release! It was fun, tiring and exciting all at the same time.
The songs are about 95% finalized, there's some small tweaks here and there, but I figured I'd post links if anyone was interested.
The first seven tunes are going on our freshmen effort, which still doesn't have a title actually although we are throwing a few names around. We need to decide, however, as our CD release show will be soon! The last two songs are songs that will be on our second release. We've already got 3-4 songs written for it and 3-4 new ones in the makings. The newer stuff seems to be a lot more aggressive for some reason, go figure.
Here's the breakdowns of each tune with a small synopsis:
1. Peeling Skin: This tune is just a syncopated, punched up groove driven tune. Neat middle section.
2. Mindset: A bit more formulaic with a somewhat catchy chorus and a nifty solo. Props to Petrucci for the wah bit in the middle, he totally inspired that part. Thanks John! The entire solo is double-tracked; one track hard left, one hard right. Actually, almost all my solos are except for the subtle ones. Rythym tracks are also doubled and panned hard left/hard right.
3. Victim: If we had a radio song, this would be it. It's actually getting regular airplay here on KISS 99.5.
4. Breathe: This tune has a neat string-skipped double-picked groove over the double bass with a somewhat catchy chorus. It's real popular live.
5. No Halo: I love this song, lots of fun to play and lots of melody. It's a great solo to play live as it's simple and real emotional for me. Mix-wise the clean tracks in the chorus are too low and the vocals are a tad loud. All this nitpicky stuff will be fixed shortly.
6. Holy Lies: Fun song, kind of Sabbath-y. Lots of single notes (I don't do a lot of power chords at all really; mostly singles, add9's or 1st/2nd inversions). The vocals in the chorus kind of remind me of old Soundgarden.
7. Falling Down: This is a great song live and we usually close with it. It gets a little tiring as the majority of the tune goes from the 10th to 1st fret repeatedly while I have to scream backups (scream is right, I cannot sing to save my life).
These next two songs are the most recent and will appear on our second release:
8. Stand: Southern-fried sludge metal at it's best. This was a fun song to record and play live. The solo came out really good and was a riot to double. As an aside, I don't use the tremolo at all in the entire solo except for the very last note. That's all left hand vibrato.
9. Venom of God: This tune for me is just amazingly fun and challenging to play. It's rough on the right and left hands and I have a tough solo to do and I sing backups throughout most of it. I love it, but man it's rough sometimes! The solo is in two parts basically; the first wah section is a single stereo track, it's completely legato until the very end, I think my first actual pickstroke was on the 7th or 8th to last note. The second half is full of pickstrokes and doubled left/right. It was a lot of fun to play.
Well, if any of you took the time to listen, I really appreciate it! I'd also appreciate any comments or feedback.
For the tech geeks out there, like me, we recorded this ourselves in our bandroom on two different units: the first 7 songs on my Roland VS2000CD, the last two on my drummer's VS2480CD. He liked mine so much he bought the big brother. It was all mixed and mastered (although we aren't quite finished with that process yet) by Bob Oakman at Bob Oakman Productions (www.bobsbus.com). He is an amazingly patient and wise individual that "got" the point of our music right away. And utter pleasure to work with and a hell of a guitarist himself!
My rig is a Rivera TBR-1SL, 2 x Mesa Boogie recto traditional 4x12 straight fronts, TC Electronics G-Force and M-One, and some MIDI stuff for continuous control. A litle Alligator volume and a Bad Horsie 1 wah. All guitar effects were done to track, none were done in post. Guitars were my trusty JP7's. Mic was a Shure KMS32SL.
All of the songs were tracked the same: 2 rythym tracks, one hard left, one hard right. Solos were all doubled unless it just felt better as a single stereo track. All the clean sections were also doubled.
Thanks and hope you guys enjoy it.
The songs are about 95% finalized, there's some small tweaks here and there, but I figured I'd post links if anyone was interested.
The first seven tunes are going on our freshmen effort, which still doesn't have a title actually although we are throwing a few names around. We need to decide, however, as our CD release show will be soon! The last two songs are songs that will be on our second release. We've already got 3-4 songs written for it and 3-4 new ones in the makings. The newer stuff seems to be a lot more aggressive for some reason, go figure.
Here's the breakdowns of each tune with a small synopsis:
1. Peeling Skin: This tune is just a syncopated, punched up groove driven tune. Neat middle section.
2. Mindset: A bit more formulaic with a somewhat catchy chorus and a nifty solo. Props to Petrucci for the wah bit in the middle, he totally inspired that part. Thanks John!
The entire solo is double-tracked; one track hard left, one hard right. Actually, almost all my solos are except for the subtle ones. Rythym tracks are also doubled and panned hard left/hard right.3. Victim: If we had a radio song, this would be it. It's actually getting regular airplay here on KISS 99.5.
4. Breathe: This tune has a neat string-skipped double-picked groove over the double bass with a somewhat catchy chorus. It's real popular live.
5. No Halo: I love this song, lots of fun to play and lots of melody. It's a great solo to play live as it's simple and real emotional for me.
Mix-wise the clean tracks in the chorus are too low and the vocals are a tad loud. All this nitpicky stuff will be fixed shortly.6. Holy Lies: Fun song, kind of Sabbath-y. Lots of single notes (I don't do a lot of power chords at all really; mostly singles, add9's or 1st/2nd inversions). The vocals in the chorus kind of remind me of old Soundgarden.
7. Falling Down: This is a great song live and we usually close with it. It gets a little tiring as the majority of the tune goes from the 10th to 1st fret repeatedly while I have to scream backups (scream is right, I cannot sing to save my life).
These next two songs are the most recent and will appear on our second release:
8. Stand: Southern-fried sludge metal at it's best. This was a fun song to record and play live. The solo came out really good and was a riot to double. As an aside, I don't use the tremolo at all in the entire solo except for the very last note. That's all left hand vibrato.
9. Venom of God: This tune for me is just amazingly fun and challenging to play. It's rough on the right and left hands and I have a tough solo to do and I sing backups throughout most of it. I love it, but man it's rough sometimes!
The solo is in two parts basically; the first wah section is a single stereo track, it's completely legato until the very end, I think my first actual pickstroke was on the 7th or 8th to last note. The second half is full of pickstrokes and doubled left/right. It was a lot of fun to play. Well, if any of you took the time to listen, I really appreciate it! I'd also appreciate any comments or feedback.
For the tech geeks out there, like me
, we recorded this ourselves in our bandroom on two different units: the first 7 songs on my Roland VS2000CD, the last two on my drummer's VS2480CD. He liked mine so much he bought the big brother. It was all mixed and mastered (although we aren't quite finished with that process yet) by Bob Oakman at Bob Oakman Productions (www.bobsbus.com). He is an amazingly patient and wise individual that "got" the point of our music right away. And utter pleasure to work with and a hell of a guitarist himself! My rig is a Rivera TBR-1SL, 2 x Mesa Boogie recto traditional 4x12 straight fronts, TC Electronics G-Force and M-One, and some MIDI stuff for continuous control. A litle Alligator volume and a Bad Horsie 1 wah. All guitar effects were done to track, none were done in post. Guitars were my trusty JP7's. Mic was a Shure KMS32SL.
All of the songs were tracked the same: 2 rythym tracks, one hard left, one hard right. Solos were all doubled unless it just felt better as a single stereo track. All the clean sections were also doubled.
Thanks and hope you guys enjoy it.
