Outro Track for a Metal Project

[Test Cut]

Just getting back into recording. New to this place so thought i may as well introduce myself by jumping into the firing line.

My computer decided it was no longer interested in this song about a year and a half ago. In other words, at around 2:40 when everything kicks in it ate absolute shit. The P4 chip and HD couldn't handle all the sound files, and Drumkit From Hell was eating up all the memory. Having a new comp' made up at the moment so will hopefully be able to get back in and finish this thing soon.

As stated, this was supposed to be an outro, so was trying to keep it simple with limited keyboards and no vocals. Known problems: guitars are a bit muddy at the end. Kick dies at the end. Will probably load up a second kit just for that when i get the new machine. Bass needs some tweeking with the fader. Any other problems people notice with the mix?

As for the actual song, this actually came out the way i was intending. Really thought it expressed the mood i was in when i wrote it. One of the reasons i didn't see any need for vocals. Listening to it now i'm wondering if it's a bit too minimal. Is tempting to add some quiet percussion and ambienty keyboards to the start when it's just the bass and clean guitar, then dump in some really harsh clings, clangs and booms to the end. What do people think? Is the way it is enough or does it need more?

No blindfold thanks. Fire away.

[burnyourflags]

well, i myself have been a crazy tool fan since i can remember so,my writing has been plagued with the maynardesq,tool syndrome for a long time.your playing and composing is good from what i hear.it hasnt been till recently that ive realized most people like myself dont have time to listen to tool anymore.so,what im getting at is.i kept my same writing style but,wrote songs and parts to fit into 3 to 4 minute songs,the intro is pretty cool but, over all the song dragged.i post a lot of songs on here and you will hear tool in everyone of them.its all pref.man.thats whats great about being a musician.thats all i can really say about it based of my pref.some abrupt changes or even whatever scale your using incorporate chromatic or lydian changes in the scale i dont know,i like it though ill def.look for your posts,so,far its in my taste of music

[brianinogang]

For bashings sake, everything is raw sounding. guitar tone is nice but is hurts somewhere in the upper mids sections. maybe bring down the distorted guitars. for the other details to come up. if you're thinking about synths on the intro try edirol orchestral. if you've listened to kamelot, you'll know what i mean. keep rocking bro!!!

[Test Cut]

Cheers for the replies.

As i said before, was unable to mix this song properly because when all 10 guitar tracks came in my computer gave up. Had to mix to wav, listen, tweak a bit, mix to wav again... Urgh. The guitars will probably still be pretty loud in the end as i want that bit to be a bit of a punch in the face, but am thinking of rerecording the quieter distorted ones or dropping them entirely when the louder ones come in. As for the painful EQing, not sure. Kind of ruined my hearing a bit as a kid, and have always liked really trebly guitars. Will play it to someone who never owned a Sony Walkman and see if they can notice it too.

Will check out Edirol. Installed Korg M1 this afternoon and that had some really nice sounds, but if you're after something interesting and symphonic check out Plex. Have been using that a lot of recent.

Not really worried about the song dragging as it's hopefully going to be at the end of a sludgey, Doomy five track demo. Meaning overall it won't be very long and there'll be plenty of CD space left. The bass is actually trying to sound like a dying heart. (i know. Weak). Got a sample i'm thinking of putting in to try to make that a bit more obvious.

Interesting that Tool came up. Like most of my friends i tend to get into more extreme stuff and rarely like to admit that i actually like Tool, but i was definately thinking of them when i was programing the drum lines. Most of the stuff i've done before this has been pretty crazy Grind stuff with blast beats at 7000 bpm and the like. Have always kind of felt that if you're going to use a drum machine, exploit it. Do stuff no drummer could ever do. This was my first go at using a more natural sounding kit and what really got me is you could never program anything even 10% as good as what the Tool drummer could play. Not sure where to go with drums from here. And out of interest, was it the whole song or just the drums that sounded Tooly?

Forgot about another problem if anyone's still reading this. Added a tiny bit of distortion to the bass which intern added some annoying hiss. Tried to gate it out but that didn't work. Anyone know any easy ways to get rid of hiss?

[brianinogang]

i use cool edit pro's hiss reduction. i think it does the job well but then again... i havent tried using others yet...