Clown Pockets

Chunky

Silver Member
Ok, here's a demo of my bands new song.
We called it Clown Pockets for a laugh as you need some serious pocket to do the verses justice.
We have lyrics, we just haven't recorded them yet.
I HATE, HATE, HATE the part I play on the splash in the second verse but, the guitarist insisted that it stays. Sounds sloppy to me...

Any feedback would be much appreciated. Please don't be too mean! lol

http://youtu.be/aOt9Q680kzQ
 
This thread probably should be placed under "your place", "your playing" section of this forum.

Dennis
 
your sound is very VInnie Paul

nice playing brother

rock solid
 
Sorry for posting in the wrong place.

And thanks for the kind words!

As for recording *takes deep breath*
I record our stuff on my digital kit and either use Superior Drummer or Battery 3.
The kit you hear on this was triggered through battery 3 and all the samplesbare my own.
Me andbthe guitarist spent a couple of days recording multiple velocity samples of each drum and cymbal from my kit then, I locked myself in my room for about a month and enginered them, cut them up, mapped them then tweaked them to suit my playing.

I don't have catchable e-cymbals so whenever I do a catch I have to go into the midi track and insert the catches, which is a pain.
For some reason when I record I still catch the cymbals. Old habbits die hard!
(feels awful when they don't mute).

We've just got ourselves a building so we're moving all our gear and recording equipment in so, we have the option to record my acoustic kit in future. although I strongly suspect that the set-up we are using now will always suit our current style best. But atleast we can record acoustic kit for other stuff 'cos me and the guitarist love to funk it up!

I'm going to be doing some video diaries of our recording sessions and maybe a few tuition videos on some of the parts for beginners and stuff.

Glad you didn't mind the splash as it's had me cringing when showing people!
 
I agree with Polly. Haven't listened to it yet but I will!
Well Chunky, with over 100 posts on this forum one might expect you to be familiar with where to post your playing... just blahblahing. ---- I'll be back in the "Your Playing" section ;-)
 
Thanks, can anyone tell me how I go about getting this thread moved to 'your playing'? I haven't the slightest clue.
 
Sure - become an administrator ;-)
Seriously, drop Bernhard or bermuda a PM and they'll move it into the appropriate section.
(I feel bad for not having checked out your music yet.)
 
Moved... carry on!

Bermuda
 
Thanks Jon.

Not my style but deadly drumming, Chunky, especially your bass drum work. No idea how you remembered the arrangement either. Definitely walking the walk!
 
Wow, as good as I expected/hoped but quite different in sound than what I assumed.

You know you can play, man! Cool & precise drumming!
Sound-wise I think there's too much reverb/ambience on the cymbals, and overall the drums could be mixed slightly more transparent/present (more treble).

Yeah... That more "vivid" stuff from 3.00 was what I was expecting, but earlier!! Honestly I was missing some "confusion" or quick fills but you started delivering that stuff later on ;-)
Hmm... I was missing some more toms, probably didn't hear them well due to the mix.

I also like the guitar stuff. Not too "modern" (= trendy, over the top wannabe "hard" riffs - you know what I mean)) but the way good metal should sound like IMO (guitars not overly distorted, and not too much trebles going on). Also cool utilization of some higher open strings ringing on - I like that (I'm doing the same on some parts of my orig. music.) Does your guitarist use a 7-string? I think I heard a B flat as the lowest guitar note (I guess that's the open string) so it seems your guitarist either downtunes his 7 or uses an extremely low tuning on a regular 6-string guitar.

One very crucial aspect: the vocals - they have an extreme impact on the overall perception of a piece of music. In my case this could range from "so cool stuff but the singer spoils everything" to "cool stuff AND great vocals". So unless I've heard the vocal version I couldn't give my final judgement but so far it looks quite good! Hopefully there won't be any fry or grunt vocals, will there? ;-)
 
Thanks Bermuda!

And thanks for the kind words people.
We're going to be changing drum sound in the near future as I think the kit in general.is a little reverby. There isn't reverb on it but, it's all been way too compressed then when.it comes to mastering it's knocked everything out of the sweet spot.
I'll bear that in mind about the toms, I don't want stuff getting lost in the mix.

As for guitar, our guitarist switches between 6 and 7 string, ths track is 7 string and drop tuned to A I think, that's the tuning of our lowest stuff.
He's not a fan of more distortion equals more heavy, and neither am I. I think you lose clarity that way.
Maybe it's a sign of getting old or something but I think a guitar sounds heavier and has more power when you can hear the notes.
The same way I used to think blast beats equals fast song, now I think it kills the pace. But maybe I'm just making excuses 'cos I'm lazy now! Lol.

As for vocals, It's either going to make people like us or hate us, we don't have the usual monotone sub-sonic grunts. Our singer loves glam rock! Lol, so he can sing. That's not to say he sings glam over this stuff but he has a tune and only really growls it up on the really aggressive parts and even them it's not chris barns style.

I have an old music video of us on our youtube, it's slightly lighter stuff but you can check the vocalist out. I'll post it when I find it and work out how to copy and paste on my phone (had to go to my parents to do this one).
The sound and production is cack mind.

Thanks again for the kind words and constructive critisism, next demo you hear you might just hear some of your advice in our production :)
 
Not my genre, so no useful critique from me, but I did like the overall vibe. A nice combination of throttled back aggression & musicality. Ok, the drum sounds bug me, but they do on every recording in this genre, it's just not me. I'd love it if a band of your calibre would use a non close mic'd acoustic kit, spending time on room acoustics & mic placement rather than samples, triggers, & plugins. I understand the practicalities, & the desire for ultra definition, but it's just an old fart's wish. I think the juxtaposition of blatant acoustic kit vibe and ultra controlled everything else would be a unique & worthwhile departure from the expected.

As it stands, it's a bloody good piece of composition & performance/programming.
 
I like it.

Too many metal bands just start out at 11 with blast beats and have no where from there because they spent it all in the first 4 bars.

This actually has grooves and sounds like a song and not just 4-5 minutes of "arrgghh." over a double bass roll.

Reminds me a bit of of Pantera.
 
great playing. nice grooves.

i like the snare sound but it seems to be getting lost in the mix. the kick sounds right up front, but the snare sounds a little distant to me. it's more of a timbre thing, i think. i don't know if merely bumping the snare in the mix would take care of it.

I think the juxtaposition of blatant acoustic kit vibe and ultra controlled everything else would be a unique & worthwhile departure from the expected.

totally agree with KIS here, and i am a fan of metal. i don't blame you for going this route though, chunky. recording drum tracks is extremely challenging, and if you want this kind of punch and definition, good luck getting it with an all-acoustic kit recording if you can't afford a world class recording studio (live room)/engineer/producer! you pretty much have to go all midi or use 'sample replacement' OR you have to embrace a low-fi sound that is miles away from the sound you're currently going for.

on the music: good riffs, good drumming. it's well executed. i'm not personally wowed by the composition here. i feel like i've heard all of this before... and i could see this getting lost in a sea of djent that's out there today. BUT that certainly could change with vocals, though! and also i'm somewhat jaded by metal these days and i'm extremely selective about what i listen to in terms of metal. so that could just be my own taste.

keep up the good work and best of luck to you
 
Big props Chunk o' Funk

Well beyond my abilities. Nice drumming man.
 
Wow Chunky, some very nice licks in there, not very much my type of music nowadays, but your drumming is seriously impressive, I love the 30 seconds section starting at 3:30, very cool, as is the final of the song, now I want to beat the sh**t out of my drums after hearing your song, if I break anything it'll be your fault, my old faithful Tama is not used to this kind of beating up, lol :))
 
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