Have a little listen...

[vesica_piscis]

...to some of my tunes. www.myspace.com/bigrichomusic

Recorded at my house on basic gear - I've only just bought a proper vocal mic (was using an Sm57 before) and a proper interface for my computer. All guitars are DI'd because I can't be bothered mic'ing amps - and I have neighbors. The other thing is all the drums and bass are programmed.

If you're gonna be critical then explain yourself - I don't want any "sounds like shit" comments unless you can point out what I'm doin wrong other than the obvious (eg: not mic'ing guitars/get a real drummer&bassist)

[Riff]

I liked "Untitled" What do you program your drums with? DKFH? Groove Agent? You managed to get the drums to sound pretty natural and that's hard work so good job.

[vesica_piscis]

It's DKFH samples with Fruity Loops FL Studio 4.1.
I've tried using Cubase and installing the samples in battery but it takes bloody ages to do it that way - I can work pretty fast in FL STudio so I prefer that.
I recorded into Cool Edit on those recordings but I'm now recording into Cubase cos it has a lot more options that I can use now that I'm getting better at the recording/mixing thing.

[vesica_piscis]

30 Views & 1 comment?

[waurbenyeger]

I liked the "Untitled" song as well. The other two are good, but there is just something about the songs that rubs me the wrong way. I think that it may be the singer's style of singing....just seems kind of a....unoriginal....I don't know. He has a good voice, but it just feels like i've heard that voice thousands of times before, you know? ...Good luck on getting a singer and drummer though, I liked the guitar throughout the songs.

[vesica_piscis]

Cheers dude - that's me on guitar.
I know what ya mean about his voice - I was gonna work with him on that but - he left.
What's more he sent me an email instead of telling me in person - lame.
but anyway - on to broader horizons! Thanks for the responses...

[MypugsAreSmarterThanYou]

Sounds good man.
the vocals aren't really flowin with me in some parts.
SOME parts only.

[theprosperone]

One thing I notice is that the music always goes where I expect it to go. I would recommend sometimes instead of going to those chords to resolve whatever riff or progression you're in..take the natural resolution and don't use that. Try to find different transitions so that it doesn't seem so predictable. Have you ever heard the Beatles Yellow Submarine? They have a song on there that says something like "you may think this song is not right but we just wrote it that way". Ya get what I mean? And yea, I'm not much on the singer myself...but its not really my style of music. Not bad though, it was produced well.

I wish I knew how to use a program like that so I could do custom drums on my computer.

[Mongeese]

Well I really, really, REALLY like the Untitled one, but the other two... Not so much.

[vesica_piscis]

Cheers dude - and comin from someone so south in England too! (I'm a Geordie living in Australia hahahaha)
The untitled one is the newest so that's good -means I'm getting better I think. I'm in the middle of several others and just got my old drummer back (who is fuckin awesome) so I'll post again when I get some new shit!

[lockdown12]

...to some of my tunes. www.myspace.com/bigrichomusic

Recorded at my house on basic gear - I've only just bought a proper vocal mic (was using an Sm57 before) and a proper interface for my computer. All guitars are DI'd because I can't be bothered mic'ing amps - and I have neighbors. The other thing is all the drums and bass are programmed.

If you're gonna be critical then explain yourself - I don't want any "sounds like shit" comments unless you can point out what I'm doin wrong other than the obvious (eg: not mic'ing guitars/get a real drummer&bassist)

i like the direction you're heading with the new song. i didn't think the old singer sounded too bad, but overall the song structure is more original, transitions are more seamless, with the newer song. the guitar tone sounds poopy on the second one in particular. what are you playing through? sounds like you have a DOD Thrash Master pedal or something.

[vesica_piscis]

I'm recording DI straight outa my Boss Gt-6. Not ideal I know but I really only do these as preproduction demos and just to attract people to my band - if I was gonna charge for the music (ie release a cd) I'd go to a proper studio and get a trained engineer. I actually thought the guitar sounded better on the second one than the 3rd? I brought the bass up a touch on the second one cos I found that when I played it on good systems there wasn't enough bottom end. It's funny though - when playing Live I get countless comments from people that my guitars sound awesome... and that's from musos I very much respect in my local area. eg www.myspace.com/karnivool

The new song is actually more like the rest of my material... that I haven't finished yet... the singer I was playing with was a little afraid of odd time sigs, which I love, so with him not really liking them combined with it being really fuckin hard to program drums for long free structured tunes in odd sigs, I haven't really developed them enough. That will all change now. I have a real fuckin drummer! My old drummer has decided to come back... stoked.

Thanks for the response - If you've any ideas how I can make the guitars sound better without mic'ing - feel free...

[vesica_piscis]

.

[Riff]

You should try out ToonTracks EZ Drummer dude if you got DKFH. It's HELLA good! Check it out www.ezdrummer.com

Oh and I checked the songs at www.myspace.com/karnivool , cool stuff man, I'm impressed.

[vesica_piscis]

Yeah I saw your post on it last week. I looked it up . Can you program your own beats on it or is it just the midi ones that come with it?

[Chanesaw]

I really like the music, but of course the singer is a problem. For me it just sounds like he didn't actually feel what he was singing, just going through the motions and could have really put more emotion into it, it would have been much more fitting for the emotional side of the music. Basically its a great job of mixing the music for sure, when you find the right singer, could be something special.

[Riff]

Yeah I saw your post on it last week. I looked it up . Can you program your own beats on it or is it just the midi ones that come with it?

Yeah well you can make your own beats going in editing an existing drum map pattern, or just start from scratch putting one beat at a time u know.

When I work with it , I just go through the midi beats and patterns I want, drag n drop them to Cubase and then If i wanna add a crash or a ride or change the velocity or whatever - I just go in and edit it.

[vesica_piscis]

That sounds pretty good ay... might give it a shot.

[vesica_piscis]

Riff: I just got BFD, which is a similar thing to that EZ Drumer, so I'm trying that out at the moment, sounds really cool. I like humanize feature - saves me having to put them in by hand. It's a little random though like it effects the hats a little too much making them sound a bit sloppy but I dunno if that'll come across in a mix, will have to see.

[leftfootblue]

sounds good, I like untitled. Very good for a simple set up actually. Why not try and do the vocals yourself?

[vesica_piscis]

I'd sing if I could but I'm really shit! singing takes bigger balls than what I've got - I think I'll just sit back and play guitar and tell a real singer what to do!!

[leftfootblue]

yeah, I'm the same way, been trying to sing for years. Nothing i'd ever play for anyone though, I usually delete it. I'd love to take some voice lessons whenever I get some extra cash. What recording software do you use? I used to use Acid, but I found that I like Sonar alot better. Fl Studio is alot of fun too. Sounds like you have a very similar set up to me. For bass I just use my guitar; I turn down mids and treble and put the bass all the way up and play the top strings as though I were playing a bass. Sounds better than synth bass in my opinion.

[vesica_piscis]

I'm gonna give Sonar a shot I think - I tried Cubase with the hope that I could combine the midi writing and the recording into one prgram so I could edit my drums and and the guitars all in one spot but Cubase is so fuckin awkward.
Is the midi side of Sonar easy? Cos the way I'm doin it now (in Fl studio) I can copy a drum riff then make an edit of it (say insert a fill or something) and then just paste that along the line in the song mode. So it will play like 3 bars the same then play the edited one with the fill for example - which means I can construct a song fairly quickly and if it changes I can just edit it in small sections. Then I just paste the exported wav file into Cool Edit or Cubase and play the guitars over that.
Will Sonar do that all in the one program?

[leftfootblue]

I'm gonna give Sonar a shot I think - I tried Cubase with the hope that I could combine the midi writing and the recording into one prgram so I could edit my drums and and the guitars all in one spot but Cubase is so fuckin awkward.
Is the midi side of Sonar easy? Cos the way I'm doin it now (in Fl studio) I can copy a drum riff then make an edit of it (say insert a fill or something) and then just paste that along the line in the song mode. So it will play like 3 bars the same then play the edited one with the fill for example - which means I can construct a song fairly quickly and if it changes I can just edit it in small sections. Then I just paste the exported wav file into Cool Edit or Cubase and play the guitars over that.
Will Sonar do that all in the one program?

I haven't messed around with that aspect of it, but I'm pretty sure there is an Fl plugin. I usually just do stuff in Fl then rip it to a wav and import it into Sonar, but that's just b/c I'm too lazy to figure it all out. Sonar is really intuitive for editing though. You can copy/ past tracks, fade in/ out and add a bunch of different effects and all that fairly easy.

[Riff]

Riff: I just got BFD, which is a similar thing to that EZ Drumer, so I'm trying that out at the moment, sounds really cool. I like humanize feature - saves me having to put them in by hand. It's a little random though like it effects the hats a little too much making them sound a bit sloppy but I dunno if that'll come across in a mix, will have to see.

That's cool, I haven't tried BFD myself but I know a lot of ppl use it. About the sloppy sounding hi-hat - can you change the velocity by hand? I don't know but in Cubase you can do that. You just mark the beat and then you get all the info about that certain beat/hit or whatever and you can change the velocity on it

It would take lot of time doing each hi-hat hit of course but at least it's an option.