recorded with my Ibanez guitar using a danelectro t-bone for the distortion and an MXR phaze 90 on the clean parts
I played a cheepy Squire jazz bass with no FX
both bass and guitar were played through an Acoustic B200H running from the direct out into the XLR input on the tascam.
The keyboards are from my friends Roland... not sure what he used for them as we did that part through email.
All vox are all done by me, 4 part harmony in total. recorded through the tascam (I need a tube preamp for a better tone)
The rest of the FX were done using the stock plugins that come with my DAW (I use Reaper)
I need studio monitors so I had to make due with what I have here and this is the result
enjoy.
Replies
I think the strongest elements are your bass playing, singing, and composition. The elements are well-balanced and your sense of balance pervades all of your work. I wish the vocals were just a little more up front. When combining a bunch of layers, it's important to roll off the bass frequencies of each track, except for the elec bass. You'll have to experiment. Lower mids and low frequencies tend to build up with a lot of tracks. I think the lead guitar tone might be a little too raspy, or if you want that, try introducing that sound earlier in the tune, as foreshadowing. As you become more familiar with mixing, you'll get better results. It doesn't matter much if your future mic preamps are tube or transformer. Look into the Universal Audio 710 for $799 or the new 4-710 for $1999(4 channels). And also the Focusrite ISA One ($499). Get a preamp with a D.I.
Great books are: The Mixing Engineer's Handbook by Bobby Owsinski and Mastering Audio by Bob Katz.
Overall, your composition is excellent and your recording could be better. Also a good live drum track would add a lot.
thanks for the great info..
sry took so long to reply have not had internet. =p
I like you thoughts on the guitar sound.. it was not ment to be so strong of distortion but it was the only other tone I had at the time (and the pedal is complete garbage).. actually thinking of redoing it with some of my new gear.
I have been recording alot lately and have found the low mids and bass build up happen from time to time. in particular with my main style of guitar music Heavy Metal. If you don't roll off the bass a bit it gets muddy fast.
I will upload a sample after this post.
I agree with Doug on the guitar sound - cut the treble. Or if are re-recording it, you can re-amp it, perhaps use either a very fat and warm Van Halen style distortion, or the more blues/crunch on the neck pickup sound.
I found the vocals unitelligable at some times an the drums a little too quiet. Maybe this could be solved by lowering the level of all guitars...