[80s rock]Chug C--k

[Lunch Money]

Hi all,

[edit: I've kept the mixing advice requests in here for posterity, but I've accumulated enough advice to give it a go whenever I get off my lazy arse]

I've posted a thread in the Tracktion forum, but I figure this gives me a dual opportunity-- to bust my Music Cafe cherry and to ask all willing ears for some feedback.

The downloads:

Chug Cock, 128kps mp3

Chug Cock, 192kps mp3


The background:

My friends and I do tribute songs for special occassions. This song is for a friend who's getting married today. We've done rap in the past (mostly because we can't sing and you get a huge opportunity to curse!) but this time we decided to do an 80's-style arena rock song. To be honest, I had already started the riffs as part of the METEL-THE REVENGE contest. What are the rules for chopping it up to the 2:00 mark and submitting it?

There IS swearing, and most of the lyrics don't make sense to the non inside people, but the arena-rock-chanting chorus should be well-liked by all. Still, although there's nothing TOO extreme, this is not for sensitive ears.

Now, to the requests--

When I wake up later this morning, I'll have an hour to do some last minute tweaks, but only to EQ, Levels, Panning, and the vocal FX. The rest is pretty inaccessible on short notice. If anybody has any critical suggestions for me, I'd love it; especially since a) my ears are tired, and b) I'm really not good at mixing.

Other than that, though, I'll be doing a polished mix later, so in-depth suggestions are welcome, too, as are random comments!

I'm having a tough time with the bass and mid frequencies becoming a muck, and I believe I forgot to turn the bass down a .3 dB.

Be honest but gentle. Oh yeah, almost forgot: a) none of us can sing. That won't be fixed. b) I GOTTA have more cowbell! [I'll add some in tomorrow]

Thanks for listening,
Greg

[donkey tugger]

Hehe, well, I won't comment on the mix, cos I'm not at home so only listening on these shite PC speakers, but you seem to have got that off down to a tee; the little mellow solo bit, the drums bit for the audience to clap, though as you said, more cowbell needed!

[blaster78]

it's like the bastard son of the beastie boys and def lepard.

i dont think the mix is bad, especially with the style of tune.

i think that perhaps your drum level could be upped a little to match the crash volume.

the solo fit in perfectly.

mad me laugh anyways, which i presume is your intention

cheers,

steve

[Lunch Money]

Absolutely.

Thanks for the listen, guys. DT-- it's not up to "Cuntsucker" standards, but I'm glad ya liked it.

Which part of the drum needs to be upped? The snare, the toms, or the kick? I agree that the drums don't sound balanced, but since they're fairly robotic sounding (despite my best humanizing efforts) I didn't want to draw too much attention to them.

For what it's worth, other that doing a chunk of the writing [edit: and ALL of the recording, engineering, mixing, etc.], here's my tangible contribution:

-The rhythm guitar that comes in second and joins the first one. (ie. the one panned more to the right)
-The lyrics for the first 2 measures (the bit ending with 'got some on her shirt') along with the singing
-The slow guitar solo (including the 'fast' bit at the end leading into the second solo)
-The lyrics and 'singing' for the second ascending riff featuring 'You'll never get this from your wife.'
-The drums were modified bits and pieces from a MIDI file I had.

The rest was done by 2 other guitar-player friends, and a non-musician friend that we taught to play the bass and record his part in about... 1 hour. Basically we recorded each riff a bazillion times, took the best 'take', and then I had to manually slice it up to fix some of the timing; but he can say he's the bass player.

And for the record--

Our band is called PMF. The 'M' stands for "munchin'" and the 'F' is for "fools". You can guess what the 'P' is.

If I've made 2 people who aren't part of our circle of friends laugh already, I can just imagine the groom's reaction. !!

I almost forgot:

Recorded in Tracktion!! Woo-Haw!

[mystahr]

Heh; yeah you're gonna win with this one, especially if peeps are expecting a hiphop tune.

As said before, I dont think the mix is that bad and i see little room for short notice improvement, but considering the time I'm too late anyhow

Hope you have a great succes with it today

[Lunch Money]

Heh, thanks!

It was successful, especially with the people "in the know". We got the DJ to play it when most of the people had cleared out and it was just the core group. However, the room we were in was extremely reverby and the lyrics and subtlety of the music got completely lost, so nobody understood a single word.

That's a mixed blessing, because there WERE a few other non-core family members kicking around. We started chanting "Punk Rock!" to throw them off the scent. I won't hear if the groom liked it (after hearing it in a proper CD player privately) until he gets back from his honeymoon.

In the meantime, the PMF alumni want to get together to record a Rage Against the Machine type song sometime this week or next. I wonder when I'll be able to take my new knowledge (I learned a lot more with this one "busy" song than all my previous "starker" ones!) and apply it to my OWN writing. <chuckle>

Anyhow, thanks for listening Mystahr! Any further feedback can be a bit more detailed.

Note: I didn't end up adding cowbell. I tried to, and it became too distracting. If anyone's good at adding non-invasive cowbell to a track, you're welcome to help me out. <laff>

Cheers,
Greg

[austere]

totally not my cup of tea but you did very well succeed in making an 80's styled song! so on a humorous tone: terrible, terrible! oh, this kind of music totally justifies the end of the music of the 80's. though i do like some of the 80's popmusic (New Order rocks!!!).

i downloaded the 192kb.s version and to my ears it sounds very murcy with lots of focus on the low end. which also in my ears sounds sort of muffled. but i don't trust my ears too much today, actually not at all - they are still tired from working way too long with sound yesterday...

like i said, it's not my thing but you did do a nice job with it.

[Lunch Money]

Thanks for listening, austere!

YES! If this song reminds you of all that was bad in the 80s hair-rock scene, then it certainly must remind SOMEONE of what was good and/or funny about it. <grin> Mission accomplished!

I agree that the low end is murky. I'm having a tough time balancing the frequency spectrum. I've futzed around with the bass a tonne, but I find that it gets too "pop music" sounding if I cut too much of the bass. I want it to "ba-plomp", even if it refuses to "thump".

Also, I know what you mean about tired ears. I need to take a break from this song before coming back to polish it up. Also, I'm not looking forward to unfreezing all the frozen tracks and trying to tweak without running my CPU too high.

Cheers!
Greg