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[iapetus]

Recorded a few tracks at tonight's practice with the good old shitty single-mike-pointed-at-the-ceiling setup. Band has a new drummer and a new singer, after the one moved to Wales and the other decided that gigging with a taurine allergy was the musical equivalent of Russian roulette.

Here's the least worst track:

Gone [1.3MB]

Constructive criticism and/or record deals welcome.

 

[nitewulf]

how many members and what instruments do they play?
i liked the structure of the song, but the recording is terrible so its difficult to comment.
the vocalist's style during the verses was very monotonous (but perhaps its a stylistic decision), may be she could sing with a bit more passion.
the overall sound needs to be more filled out, ambiance is lacking...again this is what i'd preffer, a wall of sound based on twin melodious guitars, but it might not be what you are looking to sound like. drums needs to be clean and heavy.
harsher guitars during the chorus and tell her to go crazy.
couldnt hear the bass either.

 

[Megafoo Chavez]

demon hunter - heatstrings come undone

 

[thom]

how many members and what instruments do they play?
i liked the structure of the song, but the recording is terrible so its difficult to comment.
the vocalist's style during the verses was very monotonous (but perhaps its a stylistic decision), may be she could sing with a bit more passion.
the overall sound needs to be more filled out, ambiance is lacking...again this is what i'd preffer, a wall of sound based on twin melodious guitars, but it might not be what you are looking to sound like. drums needs to be clean and heavy.
harsher guitars during the chorus and tell her to go crazy.
couldnt hear the bass either.

I agree with everything Nitewulf said AND I'll add that I liked the song and would like to

hear a cleaner cut of it when it's available.

 

[iapetus]

Thanks.

Wednesday night we're either heading into a recording studio or a pub, so there might be a decent recording there.

Edit: Five members. Singer, drums, bassist, two guitars.

 

[Leon]

As expected, drums are drowning out the voice, the guitar, and the bass. Next time, get that straightened out before you attempt to record anything.

PS : How old is the singer?

 

[iapetus]

Leon: any suggestions for how to do that? We've only got two mikes to work with, one of which is pretty much required to be for the singer alone, which gives us almost nothing we can do other than get the stringed instruments to turn up (risking fatal ear damage and noise abatement orders) or point the second mike more directly at the amps, which we've already done.

Besides, there's a certain charm to the hi-hat that sounds like smashing dinner plates.

As for the singer, I don't know how old she is. That's not the sort of question a gentleman asks.

 

[Cooter]

I'd like to hear a nice guitar solo in there somewhere.

 

[iapetus]

For thom, there's a somewhat cleaner cut, along with three other songs, at:

http://www.veryshortpier.com

For Cooter, I'm afraid there aren't any nice guitar solos, mostly because I suck at playing the guitar. There's a slightly cheesy one on Special Time, and a simplistic and slightly odd one on Voice. There's a mildly nice one on Ideal Man, but we haven't recorded that with this setup (yet).

 

[tt_deeb]

I've only heard the new version on the site so I can't comment on the variety between "Gone" previously and now but it's a decent song - not really my style, a bit retro I guess. The music on "Girl In The Corner" is good. Nice opening bass line, everything goes together well, catchy guitar riff. Again, a little retro but I liked it as a whole. Vocals improved compard to "Gone"

"Special Time" has a decent opening guitar riff (which sounds familiar...) but overall the song sounds too same soundy compared to another song I've heard, can't put my finger on it. Not bad despite that. Vocals seem to be low on all tracks but that's not really your fault considering what you must be using - vocalist has potential if she works on it more. "Voices" is alright, nothing else to really add - sounds like B-52s. "Girl In The Corner" is the only song I really enjoyed but the others aren't bad either.

 

[iapetus]

Special Time certainly ought to sound a little familiar. We originally set out to be an incredibly derivative 3-chord power punk outfit, then screwed up by putting four chords in the intro to our first song. About half a year in I sat down to write a genuine 3-chord CFG song just like all the other ones out there - Special Time is that song. Not sure how close it gets to any other specific songs, but when you've got C, F and G to work with there aren't that many combinations.

The bassist tried to add an Am to the bridge, but we managed to restrain him...

 

[NLB2]

The introduction is a good tempo. It makes some good contrast with the faster section.
However, it is quite evident that your percusionist doesn't know what the fuck he's doing. In the intro tell him to chill. I'm not talking about volume, I don't know what it really sounds like do to the shitty recording, however he's putting far too much emphasis on beats 2 and 4 for the style. If he wants to hit the snare drum so badly in a section like that, he should use brushes. Also in the beggining section when the singer is holding the word day, the percusionist speeds up dramatically only to fall back in to tempo. What's the point of that? It sounds really stupid. If you want to make that long note more interesting, add a small melodic line to the lead guitar, or just fuck around with the chord changes for a little variety over that section.

 

[iapetus]

I don't know what it really sounds like do to the shitty recording, however he's putting far too much emphasis on beats 2 and 4 for the style.

One of the drawbacks of single-mike recording. The snare's nothing like that piercing in real life. Sounds like the MP3 encoding has made it even harsher, too - perhaps I need to re-encode.

Also in the beggining section when the singer is holding the word day, the percusionist speeds up dramatically only to fall back in to tempo. What's the point of that? It sounds really stupid.

Yup. It's not a deliberate thing - the whole thing's recorded live in one take, and we just screwed up there, I guess.