Blood Mother Moutain

[Hippofish]

Here is my first commissioned recording in my new studio I self built in my garage. I used Logic Pro and my assortment of microphones. I think it turned out nice for being in such a rush. We recorded the whole thing with overdubs in one week. That's actually three nights of about five hours each so a total of 15 hours or so. It took me a while to mix it down though. I tried not to crush the recording at all, so the compression is minimal, at least compared to todays music you hear on the radio.

I know the drummer and he's really good, his drums took only about three takes with the bass player and the Les Paul guitar panned to the left all recorded at the same time. I used the Glyn Johns drums recording method and it seemed to work pretty well. I like to use my one good large condenser vocal mic for a great room sound I can mix in with the drums, it gives them a great large room sound I can play with.

The band was under a time frame and we only had three weeks to record 4-5 songs, this is the first one we did. I will post the others as I finish them. One is already recorded and another is half done. I just have to mix the one down this weekend and see what it sounds like.

Bash away!

[redbak1]

Mate pretty good and this is getting there, I must say I don't listen too much of this type of music but do like it, for me I would have the vocals come in much sooner 1.30 or so to me is to late, the drums are ok can hear plenty of snare and cyb but not too much of the rest of the kit although it does get better inparts at around the 5 min mark, bass can't hear it? I also think 7.04 way too long if the blokes intend to have it played on radio people's attention span just is not that long.
Anyway mate keep up the good work.
Cheers
Redbak1

[Rockerdude]

Sounds pretty good.It sounds like a mic fell off a tom at 3.35 or 3.36.The vocal efx are a little much.The bass guitar is thin and the bridge tom fill thing should be huge like a disturbed or godsmack tune(Voodo).I think the drums need help.They need more punch and fullness they are distant sounding.The guitars are buzzy here and there and sound out of sync in the beg of the song,nudge one in time with the other.Overall not a bad recording and mix but It still needs to open up and get a little bigger.It sounds like an early Rush or metal church production.Bring the drums and bass upfront then work the rest around that.Just my .02............

[adorian]

Overall love the drums and vocal sounds. THe left guitar is fine but the right channel guitar is a bit too fizzy for my taste. Actually both guitars are a bit fizzy for my taste, I'd have preferred to hear them with a bit less distortion. Your drum sound slays though.

[gradgt]

Everything sounds good to me except the guitars! I like the vocalist. He's good! The vocal sound is good to me too. I think it may be a bit loud at times but everyone has their own preference on vocal loudness.

But I have to be honest, the guitars are not good at all! It sounds like they were recorded from the amps FX loop output. I'd be willing to bet that putting a good impulse on them would make them sound worlds better without even having to re-track... however whatever you're doing during tracking definitely needs help!

[jamie78]

I think this is sounding pretty good. I agree with most of what the others here are saying. The guitar panned to the right is a little buzzy. Sounds like the mic was placed pointed to much toward the cone of the speaker or something like that. Overall, I like the drum sounds. I think that for this genre though, you should be aiming more for the close mic sound.

What is this Glyn Johns recording method you speak of ... this is something I have never heard of before.....


I like the vocals alot. They sound full and where they sound be in the mix.

Great job!

[dhawbery]

Enjoyed this one quite a lot - took a little while to get started but once it did, it was cool.

I lvoed the cymbal sounds, particularly the ride/bell work - very clear and resonant to my ears. Also like he vocals - some have said the effect could be turned down but I think it gives it a cool Mars Volta type sound.

As for things to change, the left-hand guitar (Les Paul?) playing the treble part in the second verse got drowned out a little by the bottom-end. What doesn't make sense given that I've said that now is that the bass overall seemed like it could do with being fattened out a little.

The rolls in the breakdown section were a little to dead for me - I couldn't tell if it was tom or kick initially, so some resonance there would be a good way to lift it.

Depending on the sound required, it could possibly be a little fuller in sound. While I like the rawness of it, it could kick in a little harder at the end.

Hope that all makes sense!

[brandondrury]

The guitars are very FIZZY. It's making them sound kind of small and anemic. I'd want WAY more body in them. You can really hear it when they alternate back and forth.

Man, this song is really dragging. I wish it would have been recorded about 10 bpm faster. Maybe 20 bpm!!

The vocal sound is very good.

The bass is okay, but could probably be bigger, louder, and meaner.

Brandon

[ZippoTragedy]

Liked this quite a bit - small changes and this could be outstanding. More thump, bit quicker on the tempo 10-20bpm; bass drum needs punch; vocals are great but need to be mixed back a bit; overall outstanding bit of work given your environment and time frame.

[jimmy jam]

i liked the gtr sound,,i didnt like trhe heavy effect on the vocal,,unless you were going for a trippy dreamy feel on this particular song,,the drums are so busy i think it needs more distenction,,,but i like the song

[Hippofish]

Sorry for all the delay. I have been working pretty hard on this 5 song EP demo for this band the past few weeks. It's all done now and I have sent them on their merry way. They love it and I got paid so it's all in the can now. I am not sure I will keep it for a portfolio or anything, but the experience was well worth it.

Thanks for all the input. For the time frame in which I was working I think it turned out better than I even expected. It was the demo they needed to send to the record company to get them into a REAL studio.

As far as the guitars sounding fuzzy...well the amps sounded fuzzy. Shit in, shit out I guess. I tried to tell them to fix the sound, but they liked it so I had to record it. If you heard the guitar amps while I was recording, you would surely say, SPOT ON MATE. They sound just like they did in the room. Well that's because they did. LOL.

I know the vocals were kind of heavy on the song but that was the sound I was going for. The song to me was also lagging, but in this was my first of hopefully many recording commissions, I didn't feel the need to step in and tell them how to change their song up. I just recorded what they wanted to portray. Next time when I get them in here, which is going to be soon, they said they might take some more money and record a self published album through me if the record company thing doesn't work out, I am going to help them with polishing up these songs. I think for the most part, aside from one song, they have a good 3-4 tunes here that are pretty interesting.

As for the drummer being too busy, well that is one band member I managed to reign in a little bit actually. He was all over the place even more than what you hear. He's fucking phenomenal on the drums. He was a rock. I had to tell him not to flourish things up too much cause he was so full of fills and rolls, it was hard to find the main beat in the song.

Again thanks for all the input and I will upload the final and third song onto the forum here soon. The fourth song is a acoustic demo which turned out pretty crappy and a song which isn't really good enough to display up here. It's got this weird Jamaican type sound to it. Not really good enough to upload. As far as sound quality on that one, the basic tracks were recorded the same day as this one so all the basic sounds will be the same, just with a crappier song...lol.

Michael

[brandondrury]

As far as the guitars sounding fuzzy...well the amps sounded fuzzy. Shit in, shit out I guess. I tried to tell them to fix the sound, but they liked it so I had to record it.

Do they REALLY like it? In other words does slapping a mic right in front of the amp give them EXACTLY what they are looking for in the recording? It should be very close.

Brandon

[Hippofish]

Well I did a few things to make it sound like their amps, but it was mostly that their amps sounded pretty crappy. If this would have been for an actual record I would MADE them use my Marshall Amp for a GOOD sound, but since it was for a demo to take to the record company I thought I would just go with what they WANTED. And what they wanted was that sound, give or take. Actually it was worse before what you are hearing. They were MUCH thinner sounding, especially the guy with the telecaster, his amp sounded like it had a 8 inch speaker in it and wasn't even turned up at all. I changed that without telling them.

I could have easily gotten away with just jamming a microphone in front of the amps and just hitting record and they would have been fine with that. I think they were just star struck with actually being recorded. I know it sounds like I wasn't interested in making their recordings sound as good as they could, but it was more like fighting against them and extending the time frame of the recording beyond what they wanted to spend and getting a sound that they wanted.

One of my mottos for recording is getting the sound the BAND wants, not what I want. I would have wanted the guitars to sound MUCH MUCH thicker and more out front, but that wasn't an option with these guys. They had a very specific sound they wanted to capture and it was my job to capture that.

To say that I just jammed a microphone in front of their amps is a little insulting to me actually. I worked on that sound a lot to get what was coming out in the room. Do I wish they would have had Messa Boogie Dual Rectifiers and 4x12 cabinets, hell yeah I do, but that's not realistic when the one guy with the strat had a Fender Twin Reverb and the other some crate 2x10 that he had muddy as hell and I had to go over when they weren't looking and turn the treble and mid up on so I could get a decent sound from it with SOME definition.

As far as recording these songs, I think that overall the recordings sounded true to their visions, this being nearly a direct quote from the band members.

Thanks for the input though.

Michael

[brandondrury]

One of my mottos for recording is getting the sound the BAND wants, not what I want.

I'm with you, but there is a fine line between art and dog shit.

While you never want to cripple an artist for creating something mega cool (even if it is unconventional) at the same time we are paid for a reason. If you don't have an opinion as an engineer, what's the point of hiring you? Then again, sometimes you are just the "Pro Tools operator" or whatever.

The downside is if you are doing for cash, you have a reputation. If this recording is going to ever be heard by any potential client, it will impact whether they work with you.

I've gotten away from this "demo" junk simply because of it even if it means I get to do 15 projects per year instead of 30.

[Hippofish]

Okay well on the flip side of that I am not fucking Alan Parsons and neither are you and if the band wants it to sound a certain way, what should I have done, turned them away and said no I would rather not have your money? As far as letting others hear this recording, I am not sure it would be detrimental at all. to a trained ear, at least from my point of view, you can tell it's the amps that sound like ass and not the recording or the engineer. However some might say that it's the engineers responsibility to fix the problem and show the band the right path to enlightenment, but in this case when I tried to show them how shitty things sounded they gave me a resounding "hell no, we won't go that way!" type of attitude. It's hard to argue my point across when I am a nobody in a studio garage getting paid to record a band that thinks they know everything, when to you and I they clearly don't but who am I to step in and tell them they are wrong?

Once I get a little more established as a recording engineer and a few more recordings under my belt I will be able to tell someone, even a band that thinks their shit don't stink, to get a grip and update their sound. But at this point in my very very young, commissioned based recording career I don't have the clout to have told these punks their amps sounded like feces. I wish I could have...that would make for a much better sound.

Thanks for the input and next time I am going to be able to show my new client this recording and tell them they need to listen to me otherwise the amps are going to sound like pure trash.

Michael

[brandondrury]

Once I get a little more established as a recording engineer and a few more recordings under my belt I will be able to tell someone, even a band that thinks their shit don't stink, to get a grip and update their sound. But at this point in my very very young, commissioned based recording career I don't have the clout to have told these punks their amps sounded like feces. I wish I could have...that would make for a much better sound.

That's one good thing that comes with experience (in contrast to the expanding gut, bitterness, lack of patience, and general disdain for planet Earth). When you get better, people tend to demote you to "Computer operator" less and therefor you at least have a say in how your reputation ultimately turns out.

Brandon

[midKnight]

Love the vocals man.