Cymro

So, some of you may remember that song I posted here like 2 years(?) ago with really crappy recording, one bar of drums looped over and over again, no bass and apphauling vocals.

Well, I've started recording it again since I lost the original tracks, and this time I have the benefit of actually knowing more of what I'm doing with this shit. Anyway, here's a sketchy preview of how it was orignially supposed to sound. There are problems with this one too (for instance I'm currently laying down a bass track with a guitar through a pitchshifter which causes a slight delay and doesn't have as much sustain as I'd like), but I'm actually going to work on it, and I'm still playing with the drums, but they are far more interesting then the old one.

It's just a 50 second clip of the intro...enjoy.

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"Let me tell you something about humans, nephew: They're a wonderful, friendly people - as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working.

"But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those friendly, intelligent, wonderful people...will become as nasty and as violent as the most blood-thirsty klingon."

Deslok

"Alive and Killing" sounds like a Megadeth title. Whatever happened to "Too big for underpants"? And whatever happened to Renwod?

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Cymro

Renwod is still here, "too big for underpants" will be a title further on. It'll be the one before the one where I'm strung out on coke and can't get an erection, which will be entitled "Bigger than Jesus", or "Bigger than Mohammed", depending on which side wins WW3.

Any thoughts on the muzak?

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"Let me tell you something about humans, nephew: They're a wonderful, friendly people - as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working.

"But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those friendly, intelligent, wonderful people...will become as nasty and as violent as the most blood-thirsty klingon."

Deslok

Hah, Cymro, that's how I always pictured you'd look. But I always imagined that the pimple would be on the other cheek

Tune is good, but good grief man, get a real drummer. Incorporate some tempo shifts and was there any bass present?

Have I heard that tune before btw?

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Cymro

The real drummer part is rather impossible because the drummer I used to jam with lives in Oxford. The fakeness of the drums (toms in particular) can be dealt with by fucking around with the EQ and reverb, which I'll be doing to each drum individually once I'm happy with the parts There is some bass-ishness in there, but when I did the quick mix for the sample I forgot my sound system had turbo-bass turned on which made it sound more powerful. But the bass should be clearly audible in the last riff you hear before the recording cuts off, because it's a different rhythm to the guitar part.

I did another (worse) recording of the track about a year and a half ago.

Tempo changes?

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"Let me tell you something about humans, nephew: They're a wonderful, friendly people - as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working.

"But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those friendly, intelligent, wonderful people...will become as nasty and as violent as the most blood-thirsty klingon."

Deslok

Yeah, at about 00:29 seems like a place where you could take it into a solo or even slow it all down instrumentally, like the soft flowery interlude that appears on a lot of the hard metal stuff as a juxtaposition of intensity and moods for the song. The drum track has the same backbeat the whole way through.

It's not your fault really, the last time I used a drum machine, the only things I was able to do with it were continuous backbeats like that, or stuff that would send Lars Ulrich into an epileptic seizure.

But I understand, it's only part of the whole song.

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Cymro

It doesn't really help that I haven't got much of a clue about real drums.

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"Let me tell you something about humans, nephew: They're a wonderful, friendly people - as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working.

"But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those friendly, intelligent, wonderful people...will become as nasty and as violent as the most blood-thirsty klingon."

Deslok

Listen to Genghis Khan by Iron Maiden. From "Piece Of Mind". Lots of interesting work with the timing there.

You don't really need to know a lot about drums, just imagine how you want it to sound in your head and input the drum riffs as you want them, then play your instruments over it and record it.

You need a live drummer though. If you can, why don't you see if you can get ahold of a drum kit and play what you can as far as recording something more than a simple click track. A real drummer (unless he's a bad drummer) will want to do stuff with more changes when they join you for a jam.

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Brikar

I think it sounds great.

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Cymro

I think I'm going to have to rewrite all the lyrics, and change the tune for the verses and bridge because I've tried recording the vocals several times with different styles and it just sounds rediculous, I wrote it with someone else's voice in my head so it comes out a little weird. Anywhoo, here's up to the mid section. There's definately plenty of clean up to do, but on comparison to the original recording from 2004 this is far superior. I love this song.

BTW: Des, I hate drums, the pedal makes my ankles hurt.

Attached Files

Mixdown4.zip (2.09 MB, 20 views)

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"Let me tell you something about humans, nephew: They're a wonderful, friendly people - as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working.

"But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those friendly, intelligent, wonderful people...will become as nasty and as violent as the most blood-thirsty klingon."