Musician Forum - Band Discussion Board - BandMix

I up loaded a practice track from last nights rehearsal. Thisis one of the new ones we are working on.
It's an ambient recording, and apparently the choice of mic placement was pretty bad as it sounds like we are playing in the trunk of my wife's car, complete with redneck comentary at the end. LOL
But what the heck, I thought I'd give you guys a glimpse of what we are doing these days.
Keep in mind, very rough practice track!!

Has potential.

It mostly needs something to break it up, so the end is more powerful, when you guys are doing the rounds.

Thnk about, before the end, doing long held powerchords, with drums still going but guitars and bass just hitting on the first beat of each measure, and have your singer sing a little differently there, or maybe even better, do a strong talking part over it, like...

"And I feel like everything is craching down around me, and... (whatever words) and then scream out...

BUT I REMEMBER!!!...

"In my mind justification..."

Don't know if you get what I am saying here?

But think about a change, so it doesn't become monotonous. When things get too monotonous (or even predictable) people tend to start tuning it out. Which is why labels, almost insist for a song to have a REFRAIN, or something that compensates for what the refrain is designed to accomplish.

It's an old school, raw, rockin' tune. A change toward the end, will make it better, and set up for going nuts on the end, which grabs and keeps everyone's attention.

Good job though.

btw...

You don't like the mics on the unit iteself? It has pretty good mics on it.

It is a rough recording, sans. I can hear what you're reaching for, though, & it ain't bad. Needs a bridge, though, something to break it up.

And exactly where was the choice of mic placement? INSIDE the snare drum? I just said that because the snare is overpowering everything else. Or does your drummer just have a loud snare? I've heard drumsets like that, where everything else is about right but then, POW!!, the snare drum cuts your head off. Good song though. Did you say ya'll had just written it? I like Craig's ideas about changing it up at the end.

George, In my own songs I always like to put what I call a mid 8 in it. What Im saying is 8 bars of some sort of change up. Of course sometimes I go on and on for 32 bars.

Sounds like the good basis of a song just keep on tweaking it and something Im finally learning to do is dont hold the song sacred. Theres no rule that says you cant add an additional part or subtract a part at a later time.

Last night I recorded an old song of mine, actually I recorded 2 songs into one. Sort of a Prologue and then the actual song.

Good ideas about breaking it up a little, he have actually attempted that on a couple of passes, but as I am sure is obvious we are still working out the timing and all.

The mic's on the H4 sem to be pretty good, however I had just set the recorder / tripod just outside the shop bay door. Was not a lot of forethought involved just kind of aw heck I'll just set it over hear tonoght.

The last several attempts at recording you could barely tell we had a drumer playing at all.
The snare mic must be too hot. I will have to fix that as well.

Tony our BU vox wrote the lyrics. Melody and music of course by NKF.
It was his first attempt at a write ever.
I just thought you guys would like to here a little sample of our newer tunes, and appreciate the feed back as always.
As rough as it is I wont leave it hanging out there very long.

Thanks ya,ll.

I've got an easy way to break up this song. At 1:30 all instruments stop (except a simple drumbeat) and you sing a verse with harmonies, the music starts up again at about 1:50. We do that in a few of our songs, just a verse of nothing but vocals. Your music is full of messages and a clean voice only verse gets your message out loud and clear and in a dramatic way...

Thanks Bob !! I am going to present these ideas to the band on Tuesday.

fisherman bob wrote:I've got an easy way to break up this song. At 1:30 all instruments stop (except a simple drumbeat) and you sing a verse with harmonies, the music starts up again at about 1:50. We do that in a few of our songs, just a verse of nothing but vocals. Your music is full of messages and a clean voice only verse gets your message out loud and clear and in a dramatic way...

We do that on "Proud Mary" for the last verse, just drums and 3 vocal parts. Everybody loves it. If John Fogerty heard us he'd probably say, "Dang! That's cool. Why didn't I think of that?"

We do it cause we all forgot the song, ha ha

I think little pauses add tension to songs. If youve got a song with one of those anthem chorus's drop all the instruments except drums and get the audience to sing. If you can get the crowd involved in the osng they will like it more.

Like I said before dont be afraid to change a song that youve been playing.

Thanks for all the input folks. I am going to go ahead n pull her down.
More snipits to come though. Your all great !!