Rate my latest mix and give some feedback on the band and video

[Morddecai]

Hey guys, this is my band and I've mixed our most recent work. You'll be listening to the first single off our album endless endeavor due to be released in September. Tell me what you think, from drums, guitars, bass,vox, post-production, everything. Also if you want to give some feedback about the music, and show some love to the band, by liking our facebook page or the video.

Some info on the band:

"Beautiful Venom is a Portuguese band. Their music has been described as mix of Metal, Rock and Hardcore. Juggernaut Wings is their fisrt single taken from their debut full-length album Endless Endeavor, to be released late september.
Watch the video, comment and share.

Video recording, editing and production by: Luís Soares

Music
Produced by: Beautiful Venom
Mixed by: Andrés Malta
Mastered by: Mário Barreiros

AudioPlay Records

like us at http://www.facebook.com/beautifulvenom

Thank you"

http://youtu.be/d5Yo1Qt_on8?hd=1

 

[Morddecai]

guys, really would appreciate some feedback on this. I've put quite some effort and think it's my best mix ever.

 

[kylendm]

Sounds good but man those screams bug me a lot. He has a pretty decent singing voice though. Way to raspy with his highs and lows for me. The video is pretty good but the fact that there's no shadows on the ground bothers me too.

 

[FadeToMuffins864]

Re-do it and have the guy sing over the whole song with his clean voice. The screams are absolutely painful to listen to. Sorry if it sounds mean, but it's the absolute truth. They are not original at all, and do not sound convincing. There is absolutely no dynamics, emotion, performance, or feeling in them. Maybe the guy didn't feel comfortable in the recording environment, and it's possible that he could have given better performance with more feeling in better conditions, but this is absolute crap dude.

Again, I'm sorry if I sound mean, but I gotta be honest with you.

 

[oroinvictus]

It sounds like your vocalist is inhaling. As with the others here, the vocals bother me the most. Everything else sounds/looks pretty good to me. The greenscreening is a little obvious at parts, but that's just a nitpick of mine.

 

[Morddecai]

Hey guys. I understand your critics and I'm taking them with no bad intention. The vocals part was a bit turbulent, since this is our new vocalist since a few months. One of the things I told him, was that I'm also not to fond of the inward vocals in lots of the parts. But I'm sure he has potential to evolve into a good screamer.

 

[FadeToMuffins864]

Hey guys. I understand your critics and I'm taking them with no bad intention. The vocals part was a bit turbulent, since this is our new vocalist since a few months. One of the things I told him, was that I'm also not to fond of the inward vocals in lots of the parts. But I'm sure he has potential to evolve into a good screamer.

Haha. I don't know the guy and he may be a cool dude, but my general opinion of people who do inhales is that they are pussies who are too afraid/lack the motivation to learn how to do real vocals with real power and feeling. Inhales are GODAWFUL. If I was auditioning singers and a guy came in and tried to do inhales, he would be rocketed square in his taint by my booted foot so fast his pale, skinny, greasy, prepubescent, man-boobed body would stick straight to the ceiling while his brand new black Avril Lavigne hot topic pants that his mom bought for him would stay exactly where they were.

"not to fond" of inhales is probably different from how I would phrase it...

 

[Morddecai]

The truth is that there are big bands out there with vocalists who use inhales and sound great. I have nothing against inhaled screamed vocals, in fact sometimes they sound great, its just that the technique must be applied in the right circumstances and with the right punch. I think the problem is that most screaming-technique-knowing people are prejudice against inhale screaming and most of the times just by knowing it's being applied they retract themselves and don't listen in an unbiased way.

I understand that these vocals coud be more punchier, emotional and dynamic but as I said before we (him included) still have a lot to evolve and learn. By accepting criticism and using it to get better we will try to achieve that.

 

[FadeToMuffins864]

Maybe so, but consider that:.

Humans shout when they are emotional.
Humans growl sometimes when they are emotional.
Humans even shriek sometimes when they are emotional.
lastly, humans sing when they are emotional. The delivery and melodic phrasing have a natural ability to convey a mood and feeling to the listener.

Inward vocals are not a natural sound. There is no associated emotion, feeling, mood, evolutionary response with the sound of an inward vocal scream. In fact, inward vocals only sound passable when they don't sound blatantly inward. They still sound lifeless and one dimensional, but passable, maybe.

If you feel that you don't need your vocals to generate any emotional connection with the listener that draws them into your music, and that the primary function of vocals is to just generate some ambiguous biological noise that fights with the instrumenttal underneath them, then by all means continue with inward vocals. Call me an elitist/prejudice/etc. That's fine. I'm just interested in listening to real human emotion when I listen to a vocal performance. The only reason that I push this issue so hard is because I feel that you may not be considering how greatly it will limit the potential of your band to attract real fans, not just the facebook friends who will ike your page and say nice things because they feel obligated.

 

[Morddecai]

I perfectly understand where you're trying to get, although I don't entirely agree with some points. Thanks for giving us your opinion. It will really help us (him especially) getting better at what we do.