My Band

[Spam]

I play drums alongside my brother, who plays guitar. We're a power punk duo, hoping to become a full fledged band one of these days. We're trying to record a demo and get it out soon. If you want to check us out, here's our purevolume, which has two songs up on it. Any feedback or comments would be most appreciated.

Enjoy, and thanks for listening. =)

FORIAMSPAM!

[detourne_me]

what did you record this on?  it could use a bit of cleaning up, but i understand how tough it is to record sometimes.

I like Heroics on a pedestrian level.  the vocals in your other song seemed a bit muddled. and kind of distracted me.
one thing i notice is you're using your crash quite a bit.  I find with duo's that one member needs to compensate for the lack of a rhythm player (bassist usually). Now with you guys, i think that your brother could maybe tune his guitar lower,  or you might incorporate your tom more into the songs.
jeez, i dunno,  i can't really express what i mean.

but i love duos, like death from above and duotang,   you might want ot check out digger and the pussycats too,  they really seem to pull off a 2 man band,  and even weirder, the drummer uses only a snare, tom, and crash to play, and plays standing up!
kinda neat to see live.

[GogglesPizanno]

As someone who does this same sort of thing with a friend I really dig the punk asthetic of it all.

I agree that the recording itself is a bit in the high end and overdriven, but depending on what kind of gear you have to record with, sometimes thats all there is. You guys appear to compensate with energy which is totally acceptable in my book. I agree with detourne_me, in that maybe your brother could either tune the guitar down, or maybe cut the treble down on the Amp (at least for recording). If you continue to record the way you do now.

If you are using the computer to record, I would suggest (if you aren't already) getting some multi-track software.
It will make a world of difference in terms of setting levels, going back and rerecording bad parts, layering sounds, adding effects/mastering etc...
Unless of course you are going for the Grip n Rip play it once were done OI! type of thing... which is totally cool too.
In that case, it just makes recording easier... even without using all that Effects crap.  :D

If your looking for free, I would recommend the program Reaper
It was programmed by the guy who created Winamp.
Its constantly being updated with stuff requested by users, and is really powerful.
http://www.reaper.fm/

Also since it supports the VST plug in format, there are a bazillion free VST effects and instruments.
A good place to start looking for those is http://www.kvraudio.com/
You can search the plugin database for free stuff.

Rock On!!

[Midnight]

I too would like to know how you recorded this. Do you mic everything separately? What flavor of mics? What are they going into?

[Spam]

We're using a really cruddy computer mic. It's not the best, really. It's sorta small too. It goes into the computer, and we edit it with music editing software, namely ACID. And I'll definately check out those programs you listed, Goggles.

And we just use the one mic. We put it in one position where it'll be able to hear everything.

But thanks for looking at our stuff, guys. We haven't really recorded anything due to the holidays, but I think we'll be doing something on Saturday with a bassist. So it oughta be cool.

FORIAMSPAM!

[Midnight]

Since this is a low-budget/no-budget thing, you can probably ignore my advise until you get a gig. ;) Anyways;

Generally speaking, in both recording and in live audio, you want 6-7 microphones. 1 vocal microphone, 1 microphone for the guitar amp, and 4-5 microphones for the drumkit.

It sounds strange, but most guitarists prefer using a microphone  on their cabinet than a direct input. Don't ask me why, it's just the way they do it. You can find information all over the internet about micing a drumkit, but it basically goes like this: 1 kick, 1 snare, 1 per tom-tom, 1 hi-hat, and some overhead mics for the cymbals. Basses, oddly enough, are on direct output usually.

Microphones can run anywhere from cheap peices of crap to expensive peices of crap. Seriously, there is no upper limit to the expenses. I like using Nady SP-5s because they're cheap (3 for $20) and they sound pretty good. They're actually knockoffs of the Shure SM-58, the old (and still expensive) live-audio standard.

Of course, with all these inputs, you need a way to deal with all them. That means dumping all the inputs into something. Somewhere. A mixing board. The cheapest mixing board that will take 8 inputs? One of the Euroracks, clocking in at over $200. The whole 'recording' thing gets pretty expensive quick.

Alternately, you can do what they do in the studios; record everything separately and then mix it in the computer. That's a lot more effective because you only need one microphone at any given point.



In any case; that's a lot of blue skying on my part. If it were me I'd start with a better microphone. A semi-pro quality microphone is only $20, no more expensive than a crappy headset. Throw that on a microphone stand and it'll sound much better.

[Spam]

Thanks for all the links, Middy. :)

So, we finally got together with another guy who had a bunch of equipment. He had mics, decompressers, cables, pedals, everything. And we recorded on his computer doing one of our songs, and it sounds a LOT better then the original recording. He still has to sprice it up a bit, but he should get it to us soon. So I'm happy that turned out well.

FORIAMSPAM!

[Midnight]

Sweet!