What do you guys think? (Punk content)

[i_got_a_mohawk]

hey guys,

Last week finished a track off our demo, its called "Back Off".

Just wondering if anyone feels like posting up what they think about it?

www.myspace.com/spengler

Its the first song we've really recorded "properly" . We have another song on our profile called "Apathy" which had everyone plugged into a behringer mixer, and then that one signal was recorded through the PC sound card. So it was a case of setting everything and hoping it was about right then recording.

For Back Off we used the Presonus Firepod and Cubase, its my first finished recording done this way. (Im the only one in the band remotely technically minded, so im the one who did all the work after the other guys recorded thier parts!)

Drums: Roland V-Drums -> Midi Out -> Firepod Midi In -> EZDrummer (standard) VSTi

Bass: EBMM Stingray HH -> Firepod Input 1 -> Ampeg SVX

Guitar: Epi Les Paul -> Firepod Input 1 -> Amplitube 2

Vocals: Behringer XC8000 (or something) -> M-Audio Fasttrack then sent to me.

A few free VSTs were used for the reverb and compression. All the parts were recorded seperatley, and we were on a bit of a deadline, so the guitarist/vocalist did the vocals at home and sent me the file. The fasttrack doesnt have much headroom as there was ALOT of clipping on the vocals, but I think its fairly well covered up.

Hope you guys like the song , Its quite reverb-y , but we kinda like it like that


Cheers guys
- Will

[cowsgomoo]

we've used a similar kind of workflow... cubase/ezdrummer/svx & amplitube, and are working in a similar kind of style but we sound a fair bit different

http://www.myspace.com/ukpennyroyal

it's only a demo and there are no vocals on that track but you'll hear how we approached it... minimal reverb, and a lot of limiting in the mixdown... one thing that gives extra dynamics (which you need when you've applied pretty heavy compression to the mix) is a lot of dead stops & starts.. it's partly a compositional thing in the big stops (obviously you have to have written them beforehand) but if you comb your song you can usually find little sections that you can do something interesting with for half a beat or so... adding silence makes the loud bits louder after the word 'scientist' would be a good place to do a quick dropout

I would have lost the reverb on everything except a bit of the ezdrummer room ambience and a bit on the vocals... there are huge rock guitar sounds in amplitube without reverb that I think'd work better... and i'd put a lot more poke around 1-2k on your bass so you can hear it better

but more than anything, a good ballsy mastering compressor would work wonders

drums up, bass more pokey, vocals down... sorted!

if there's no moral objection, you can also make your tracks more powerful by going in and tidying up sloppy rhythmic playing... some people think it's cheating but if the object is to make a great sounding record, then there's an argument for it

[i_got_a_mohawk]

Gah! I typed up a bit reply, and I clicked the back button on my mouse and lost it all!

I like your sound, very 79

I also like the idea with the dead stops and starts, I'll try and incorporate that into the next few songs we're doing.

The songs we are doing now is really aimed at being more demo-like material, tho we are pretty happy with how its all sounding (like i said, we quite like the over reverbed sound on this track ). When we have another few songs together we are going to get them recorded proffesionally for (hopefully) a great sounding CD , on saying that tho, this track is going on a compilation CD with a bunch of london bands and even the well known Conflict! Which we are pretty chuffed about

I'll EQ a bit more into the bass, to be honest i really skimped here and everything is more or less flat, im not too bothered with the bass being lost in the mix a bit on this track really

Another real problem I have right now is lack of proper monitors.

Will impliment more of what your saying in the other tracks we have (1 down 6 to go), and will have them up here when they are finished

[BassSurfer]

sounds great.. i see alot of influences in there... lol good stuff man