Live recording

[Tadpui]

Damn, that actually sounds pretty bad ass to me! Sure, there's a little extra fluff on the bass in that one, but overall that sounds killer. Good to hear that the ol' ADA8200 is alive and well!

[stratmonkee]

wow , that sounds great to me! would love to jam with a band that had that kind of energy...I live in Michigan and the covid has killed all live music in my area...no band for me for over a year now...
Anyway, I think it sounds really cool, love the energy and the maybe not perfect vibe of the live recording, guitar sounds awesome!

[Alison]

Damn, nice live sound! Oh, to have help with live sound. . . .I'm totally on my own! Great energy, great sound!

[Greg_L]

Damn, that actually sounds pretty bad ass to me! Sure, there's a little extra fluff on the bass in that one, but overall that sounds killer. Good to hear that the ol' ADA8200 is alive and well!

wow , that sounds great to me! would love to jam with a band that had that kind of energy...I live in Michigan and the covid has killed all live music in my area...no band for me for over a year now...
Anyway, I think it sounds really cool, love the energy and the maybe not perfect vibe of the live recording, guitar sounds awesome!

Damn, nice live sound! Oh, to have help with live sound. . . .I'm totally on my own! Great energy, great sound!

Thanks yall! I'll be trying again on tuesday so we'll see how I can make it better....or worse.

[Greg_L]

Update....here's the same song as above recorded more properly in the same space using the same recording equipment. It's half live, half overdubs. It's got a few little extra guitar layers.

Red and Green.mp3

Here's one we've finished for a single to be released on compilations and upcoming video.

Red Room.mp3

Both of these were done in the practice space...live drums, bass, etc. I tracked all the other guys in the practice room, I did my own guitars at home. Mixed here at home.

[vomitHatSteve]

The second one definitely sounds better balanced.

The bass felt a little loud in the first one.

Nice work.

[Greg_L]

The second one definitely sounds better balanced.

The bass felt a little loud in the first one.

Nice work.

Thanks, yeah the second one is finished. The first one is still a rough mix. It's got a ways to go still.

[stratmonkee]

yeah, 2nd one rocks , love the guitar tone, maybe drums are a little low during the chorus leave me alone part? Great energy going on with everything, don't want to cover up anything (cool backing vocals ;>) ) , just heard some cool drum fills back there.... cool part leading into solo . Great song...I miss rock like this...

[Armistice]

Second one sounds great!

[rayc]

Cool...the 2nd one sounds fab though the voice receded, (perception), when the guitars came in. The reverb/delay was fairly obvious in the 1st part but I suspect I was used to it after the guitars etc. Ace bvox levels.
I like the 1st one too...It does have a live vibe and seemed a bit full...plenty of good though and, as you wrote, lots to be done.

[JD01]

I think they both sounded good. I really liked the first one - sounded very live. That's a band that I'd want to see!

The 2nd one sounds great though - really like your new band. What are you playing? The drums sound like you, but you're also a guitar player in this band aren't you? Your singer is great.

Only thing with the 2nd one - I think double tracked rhythms are a touch loud - when you come in with them double tracked and muted they seem a touch overpowering. Fucking great tone though - recorded at home? I can tell the fast guitar solo is you - frantic pentatonics!

Video?

[Greg_L]

Thanks @stratmonkee @Armistice @rayc and @JD01

@JD01 The drums are not me. That's our drummer, Mark. He's a good drummer. I tuned the kit for what I thought would get a good drum sound just based off my own experiences with recording drums. I think he generally prefers his drums a little more flat sounding, but I needed to get more "tone" out of them so they'd pop in a mix. My own natural instinct is to probably make them sound like my own drums, but whatever. He's a busy drummer so it took some trial and error to land on good tunings and mic placements. And his takes...oh my God. To his credit he lets nothing slide. He'll redo an entire take because he doesn't like how he hit a tom or a splash cymbal. And to hear the shit he's actually doing in isolation is pretty impressive. I don't notice it when we're playing. But just sitting there while he's drumming... it's pretty impressive. He's light years better than me, as it should be. A guitar player shouldn't be the best drummer in a band. But it helps that we can communicate drums.

In Red and Green I'm the right channel rhythm guitar and all the accent/lead bits. In Red Room I'm the right channel rhythm guitar and the second lead at the end. Oh, and the backup vocals. I record dummy place-holder tracks for the guys to play along with, but I record my own real tracks here at home. They keep all their shit in the practice room so I record their parts in the practice room. When we get to the rest of the vocals we might need to do them here at my house. The practice room gets a lot of ambient noise sometimes. There are a thousand other bands in that warehouse. It's a huge problem for recording vocals. We'll have to do the vocals at my house or go to the room at odd times when the other bands aren't active...like lunchtime on a weekend or something. When we did Red Room it was a rare moment of peace and quiet so we got it done as quick as possible. As we were finishing the drone of other bands was starting to creep in so we got it done just in time.

And yeah supposedly there will be a video for Red Room. We're not "signed" to any label, but we have a distribution deal with one. They are gonna pay for a video shoot for Red Room and they're putting us on all sorts of compilations. We'll see how that goes. I personally couldn't care less about any of that stuff.

[JD01]

Ah, cool so it'll be a sort of "fake-live" video from your rehearsal space? That'll look cool.
You've got a good drum sound there and it does sound like your drums so you've clearly got your own production style.

So are you guys doing an album/EP? Or is this just a one off release?

[Greg_L]

Ah, cool so it'll be a sort of "fake-live" video from your rehearsal space? That'll look cool.
You've got a good drum sound there and it does sound like your drums so you've clearly got your own production style.

So are you guys doing an album/EP? Or is this just a one off release?

No it's gonna be an actual video. We'll be miming of course in parts of it, but there is a story idea for the video that will match the song. There's a venue here in town that is very punk rock friendly and it's pretty grimy so it's a perfect setting for what's planned for the video. We'll see. It's not gonna be huge budget stuff but if it works as planned it should be pretty good. And we'll probably make an event out of it so all the crusty locals will show up for crowd scene stuff.

We're making a full album. Actually we're recording everything we have written and will sort through it and choose what will be on the album. There will be some that don't make it, and that's fine. Maybe they'll work for a different album. We've got about an hours worth of 1-3 minute blasts of songs. Some of them are barely a minute long and 20000 BPM. Some of them are 5 minutes and pretty slow. We'll just have to see how it works out. But yeah, full album. We have an EP out and we all fucking hate it. It's so terrible. We need to replace that garbage asap.

[JD01]

Cool. I'll look forward to seeing the video and hearing the album.

[Greg_L]

Cool. I'll look forward to seeing the video and hearing the album.

It should be pretty good. We're kind of banking on the idea that clearly not everyone will like the music, but at least it will sound really good.

It's like when we play live, whether the people like us or not is only part of the puzzle. Some will, some won't. Doesn't matter. What does matter is that we're gonna assault asses with sound, and we do. And not just volume, but good actual sound. One of the benefits of being older guys playing young people music is that we have a collective fucking literal century of playing experience and income to buy good shit. It matters. We sometimes play with "kid" bands that can't play very well and/or don't sound very good because their equipment is mostly crap. That's fine, we were all there too. But then we roll in like fucking Aerosmith with multiple Marshall halfstacks and Gibsons and custom TAMA drums and we're like an atomic bomb going off compared to the other bands. It's noticeable. People tell us. That's my favorite kind of feedback we get.

[JD01]

Cool. I'll look forward to seeing the video and hearing the album.

It should be pretty good. We're kind of banking on the idea that clearly not everyone will like the music, but at least it will sound really good.

It's like when we play live, whether the people like us or not is only part of the puzzle. Some will, some won't. Doesn't matter. What does matter is that we're gonna assault asses with sound, and we do. And not just volume, but good actual sound. One of the benefits of being older guys playing young people music is that we have a collective fucking literal century of playing experience and income to buy good shit. It matters. We sometimes play with "kid" bands that can't play very well and/or don't sound very good because their equipment is mostly crap. That's fine, we were all there too. But then we roll in like fucking Aerosmith with multiple Marshall halfstacks and Gibsons and custom TAMA drums and we're like an atomic bomb going off compared to the other bands. It's noticeable. People tell us. That's my favorite kind of feedback we get.

Its noticeable when you look at decent punk rock that's getting released these days too... its all by bands that have been around for 25 or 30 years and can really play.

[Greg_L]

Its noticeable when you look at decent punk rock that's getting released these days too... its all by bands that have been around for 25 or 30 years and can really play.

Yup. And I've listened to a lot of the stuff that's been released by our local peers, just to see what we're up against. Most of it is real bad. It won't be a problem having the best sounding punk rock album in the area. And it's like I said...like us or not, we're gonna have a good sounding record. That will be indisputable.

And my bandmates have "leaked" some of our stuff to our friends in other bands. They want me to record them too. I don't want to. Fuck them. But I'm making ridiculous demands if they want it done. One guy has an SG that one of my bandmates has been lusting over for a long time. I told the guy to give up the SG and I'll record them.

[JD01]

Its noticeable when you look at decent punk rock that's getting released these days too... its all by bands that have been around for 25 or 30 years and can really play.

Yup. And I've listened to a lot of the stuff that's been released by our local peers, just to see what we're up against. Most of it is real bad. It won't be a problem having the best sounding punk rock album in the area. And it's like I said...like us or not, we're gonna have a good sounding record. That will be indisputable.

And my bandmates have "leaked" some of our stuff to our friends in other bands. They want me to record them too. I don't want to. Fuck them. But I'm making ridiculous demands if they want it done. One guy has an SG that one of my bandmates has been lusting over for a long time. I told the guy to give up the SG and I'll record them.

haha, that's great. If the other local bands, young or not, actually practice before they come to you and record you'll probably be able to make them sound good... I can't imagine you have the patience to "fix" people that can barely play though.

[Greg_L]

haha, that's great. If the other local bands, young or not, actually practice before they come to you and record you'll probably be able to make them sound good... I can't imagine you have the patience to "fix" people that can barely play though.

That's part of it. My biggest problem is just having the patience and objectivity to sit through music that I'm not personally involved with. That's why I don't record or mix much stuff for random strangers. I would not have the patience to deal with typical punk rock people. There's still a lot of "it has to be bad to be punk" attitude out there, and I hate that. I fucking hate it so much. It's like "so what it's punk rock". I do not accept that. Never have, never will. But on the flip side, that just makes me sound better than them.

And I absolutely do not have the patience or objectivity to sit through metal or modern hard rock. So recording other people is mostly off the table.