I figure some of you may be interested in a little something I've mixed...if your ears can take some screaming metal!

In the spirit of joining in I thought I'd throw out a mix I did fairly recently of my brother's metal band. They are doing a cover of LL Cool J...I think it's pretty good stuff! The drummer was a bit of a tip tapper, especially for what is supposed to be slammin' metal. Anyway, critique away if you wish!

Mama Said Knock You Out...

Warren

PS: I'm not a big fan of rap/metal stuff but it is my brother's band. I've always liked metal, along with many other types of music.

Some Tuneage I recorded for a friend (me on drums / piano).
My Piano Stuff (fun screw around stuff)IUMA Page

Today's stars are tomorrow's meteor fragments.

Pretty jammin tune, Cool riff, must better than the LL Cool J Version. It's mixed pretty well. I think the vocals should come down a bit, and the hat should come down as well. I know a lot of the rap metal stuff relies on loud open hats, but I find it distracting, could be because it was one of the only thing coming out of the tweeters on my monitors though. The bass sounds great at the intro, but fades with the entire mix. I think this is a real sign of a professional mix, however I tend to like dynamics more, so I would have kept the bass loud and made everything else even louder. Also the bass crescendo (thats probably spelled wrong) was a little choppy on the intro. The song seems long do to the constant tight focused riffing. I think some lead parts panned to the right or left could kind of liven this up some. Seems like the only thing panned at all is the drums. Typical to rap/metal, but most rap/metal songs have queit breaks (limp bizkit) or high pitched lead guitar parts (korn). I think this makes the song feel like its going somewhere. Obviously this isn't your fault, and not really the bands fault either, its a cover a repititious rap song. The band does play a bridge to mix it up, but it still kind of sounds tight and focused like the rest of the song.

Every track sounds really good. The vocals stand out but aren't over the top, the bass sounds meaty, the guitars sound lush, and most of all the drums sound great. I really like the tom fill near the end. Panning sounds pretty cool there. The effect on the vocal during the chorus is well placed, and I really like the echo on "psycho". If I use echo I always use way to much, and this made me realize that. The quick reverberation at the very end sounds good.

All and all the track sounds better than a lot of rap rock I hear on the radio. The singers got a very good voice for the genre. Almost all the things I nitpicked on were really small and nitpicky, and mostly best left to the mixers creativity. I have now listened to this song atleast 100 times, I don't think my mom likes it very much. I really wanted to try and critique a mix before reading what other people have to say. That way I don't adapt my opinions to others. Keep up the good work Warren.

-Dusty

If you liked that, here's another taste. Parental discretion is advised.

Nukelius - 5:30

Thanks for listening!

Warren

Some Tuneage I recorded for a friend (me on drums / piano).
My Piano Stuff (fun screw around stuff)IUMA Page

Today's stars are tomorrow's meteor fragments.

Woah... These guys are angrier than Body Count and Limp Bizkit combined! More than I personally can handle, but it is mixed cool. A LOOOT of panning going on in this one, and less of a "focus". Less of a focus makes me like it less, so I think I was wrong when I said it the other mix needed more space. The people that can stand this stuff would probably really like this though.

-Dusty

Yeah, unfortunately the singer broke the band up recently because he wanted to do harder stuff.

I kinda thought it was pretty hard myself, but I guess he's talking death metal.

Actually, the panning is identical in this song, it's just that they do some trade off guitar scratches and they liked it!

Warren

Some Tuneage I recorded for a friend (me on drums / piano).
My Piano Stuff (fun screw around stuff)IUMA Page

Today's stars are tomorrow's meteor fragments.

Warhead,


Great guitar tones! Whole mix sounds good. IUMA's bandwith is a joke though. Song dropped out 30 times while I was trying to listen. Thanks for sharing.


Justin

Why would anyone want to play 'harder' than this? The musicianship all drops out when bands get to hard and too fast. It becomes more about timing than notes. Oh well, I guess to each theys own. Unfortuantly every time I go see underground or unsigned bands the band that plays the hardest and the fastest wins the crowd over those that play amazing. Those bands always tell the soundman to make it loud, loud, loud. And then the vocals get burried because the singer is jumping around to much and the mic picks up hella feedback. How many of the bands you see actually make it though? People use them to let out energy for 30 minutes (thats usually all the singers voice can hold up) and then forget about them as soon as they leave stage. Maybe never even knowing their name! Ah, work to do, I tell you I just can't do these 2 line posts!

-Dusty

Harder than that? Man, there's a bunch of stuff that is WAY harder than that. I know it's not a surprise to you, but it's all about feeling just like other forms of music.

I think Slayer's Reign in Blood is one of the greatest albums of all time (certainly death metal anyhow), and it's probably rockin' along at about 200 beats per minute or higher! You can really get some aggression out playing at those levels, just as Barry White can get the ladies all wetty wetty.

I'm not much of a "metal head" anymore, but can appreciate some aggressive stuff.

Warren

Some Tuneage I recorded for a friend (me on drums / piano).
My Piano Stuff (fun screw around stuff)IUMA Page

Today's stars are tomorrow's meteor fragments.

Yeah, harder slayer style is cool, but not rap/rock harder, talkin' about how bad you are and how many bitches you nail a night. That shit just sucks. Harder and faster isn't "smooth", and the emotions seem fake in extremly hard rap-rock. I use to play in a death metal guitar in a thrash band, and I listened to nothing but extremly hard shit from in 9th and 10th grade. But thats because I hadn't ever listened to anything softer besides pop radio. If you could only wobble your balls to one beat I don't see how thrash could win, expecially thrash-rap. I don't know what kind of band he left to be in, perhaps he's leaving all the rap influence aside, thats cool. I actually enjoyed the LL Cool J mix though, fun song. But that same song played twice as fast with darker guitars and more screaming would just sound rediculous IMHO. I can think of 10's of bands I really like that are harder than that, but not harder and rappy still. And when I wrote that post I was thinking harder rappy for some reason.

-Dusty

Cool song! Weak drum sounds, IMO. Snare is distant and weak. Cymbals aren't translating in the recording very well.

I like the concept, vox performance, guitar and bass parts/sound.

Dan Richards
Digital Pro Sound
The Listening Sessions

Dan, thanks for listening. The drummer was a tip tapper for sure, and the snare was a late 60's Slingerland tom converted into a snare...not ideal for recording! The drummer also showed up with a friggin' Cad KBM kick mic and insisted we use that 'cause his boss said it was cool. What a shitty mic for rock, so hyped and boomy it might be good for hip-hop if those guys actually played any instruments! I've eq'd the crap out of it for this mix.

Guitars are AT4033 Marshall 12" combo left, and AT3035 Crate / Laney cab half stack right. Bass was plugged straight into the board as usual with me. Vocals are AT3035.

Can anyone comment on the sub-bass booms in this mix (LL Cool J cover)? I mixed on my HR824's and heard it fine, but probably not much below 45hz or so. I don't have a sub in my house either, or car for that matter. It's rare that I mix or listen to sub-bass.

Warren

Some Tuneage I recorded for a friend (me on drums / piano).
My Piano Stuff (fun screw around stuff)IUMA Page

Today's stars are tomorrow's meteor fragments.

haha, kick-ass song. they beat me to it though, i've wanted to rock out Mama Said Knock You Out for a while now. Nice sound, cool guitar tone.

Jim

Warren....

Yep -- this needs to be much more punchy - as Dot pointed out, the drums are weak, as is the underlying rhythm/groove.

Didn't care for snare sound at all... but I thought the distortion on the vocal was cool!

Would have liked to hear stronger more well-defined bass too....

Good effort though!


Bruce Valeriani
Blue Bear Sound