http://www.myspace.com/wmztfyz
Was wondering if you guys could give some constructive criticism on the first stuff me and my mates recorded, bearing (sp?) in mind it was recorded on a zen without drums. and ignore the cover of beautiful girls haha, that was done in about 5mins...
Two things that spring to mind instantly:
Get a better myspace address
Edit all the talking from the start... oh scratch that, when the music comes in it's actually quite pleasant!
Erm... who's singing?
My friend's singing
and yeah the talking is a bit annoying, but it just kinda came out like that cos i had to turn the zen on to record and run back to my guitar and stuff. and the myspace address is just cos we've not agreed on a proper name yet. and thanks for the compliment :)
It's okay!
Maybe get hold of a wave editor like Sound Forge or something, that way you can chop out the bits you don't want. I'd suggest to your singer that he might want to be a bit bolder with his tunes, a lot of them stick too close to the guitar line - maybe try just singing the same verses through a few times, trying out different tunes, until you find something a little more unusual. Also - I'm trying to be constructive here, honestly - the lyrics are pretty bad! Not that I'm any better at writing words myself.
Confidence
has been a wee bit of an issue with the singing, but hopefully we can move that on a bit soon. And which songs are you basing the lyrics thing on? cos on some songs, StartStop and Ghosts probably, I'd agree but on others I'd say they were alright, not like Morissey or whatever but you know, average enough.
It was 'Already Happened'
just a few clunky rhymes here and there really, though like I said, it's probably better than anything I could come up with!
Haha yeah
that's what I happens when I write at 2 in the morning... Most people could come up with something better than that haha. Anyways thanks for the feedback, we'll make use of it.
Not bad tunes..
I like them, but the recordings could be done a lot better with minimal more effort. Go find a multitrack recorder on the internet like Kristal, it's free, and use that to record. It has a bunch of effects and EQ things too which are pretty good for tweaking rough recordings and making them sound a bit better. Also, you can buy a cheap (but decent) mic from a computer shop or music shop and that'll get rid of the hiss, cracks and general background noise that you get from the Zen. Or just use the inbuilt one on a pc even?
Were gonna go use my mates 8 track
soonish hopefully. Originally we were gonna use my 4 track, but it broke, which led to the whole using the zen thing, I'll use the kristal thing though in future, thanks for the advice.
Cool
I'll look forward to hearing them then! It's also worth spending an hour or so making the best mix possible, whether on a computer or a 4/8 track recorder. As tempting as it is to just wack it on myspace straight away, it's far more satisfying (I find anyway) to make sure it sounds pretty decent and the basic levels are good first.
Saaaafe
I have no idea how to mix stuff, but I guess I can work it out, there'll be some stuff on the internet somewhere probz.