Samples from another project

[NobleSavage]

Hey there! I've not contributed anything here because I can't sing as awesome as the guys you have and I can't play as close to the maiden style as your guys either, but I've been here in spirit for ages.

I thought I'd give you some samples of stuff I've been working on, just to show that I'm not sitting around on my butt just talking about recording, but actually doing. lol

http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/album.php?aid=1444&alid=-1

I did the guitars, keys and drum programming as well as wrote both, Greg Rossettini did the vox and Marc Mercier did the bass on both tracks. We are still drummer searching, but the tracks were all done using myplay to exchange mp3s. The idea is a 10 song concept album and all 10 songs are currently written with recording progressing on vox and bass at an alarmingly cool rate. Neither of these songs is a finished mix, I'm waiting until we have all the tracks completed before bearing down on mixing.

Talking to you guys, as well as reading the various posts and even working with a few of you has been an incredible learning experience and has improved the quality of work a huge amount from my initial recordings. So, whether you know it or not, your work here has really reached farther than you know.

 

[Mr. Hyde]

Thanks for sharing your work with us NobleSavage. What process did you use to record these songs , did you record the drums and your guitars first and then send them on to the other guys to add their parts?

 

[Eddies cellmate]

Thanks NS, I'll check 'em out and post some thoughts when I get time. It'll be nice to hear some new stuff.

I've been writing myself lately, but it'll be awhile yet before it's ready for public consumption.

 

[NobleSavage]

Originally posted by Mr. Hyde
Thanks for sharing your work with us NobleSavage. What process did you use to record these songs , did you record the drums and your guitars first and then send them on to the other guys to add their parts?

I basically created the songs as close to finished as I could get them. I started with Cakewalk sonar and recorded each riff or guitar section and then tried to come up with a midi drum beat that would work. I had been using a drum machine until now and midi drums are sooooooo much better at creating cool parts... still not anywhere as good as a real drummer, but not as stiff and repetitive as a drum machine. I then arranged the drum parts and added a rhythm guitar. If that sounded right, I then added vocal parts. Then I programmed a soundfont bass part and then the second rhythm guitar, finally adding any keys I thought might work, again just by clicking midi notes with a mouse for all the parts of drums, bass and keys. Then I would bring the bass, drums and keys into CoolEdit Pro and do the real guitar parts. I had about six tracks finished that way before the singer and bassist came on board. I uploaded a karoake version for the singer and a bassless version for the bass player as well as emailing him the midi file of the bass, to get a framework of what the songs arrangement was. They uploaded their parts(in 192 kbps) and then I mixed them in, replacing my own.

As far as creative tools go, Sonar is a huge help. It has allowed me to get tons more creative in my drum parts as well as adding strong keyboards, without being a real keys player. The songs are still not commercial quality, but sound pretty damned cool blasting in the car.

 

[rabies]

Where can I find this 'sonar' program? You speak highly of it..and I have been in need of a way to put keyboard tracks into a recording...without actually owning a keyboard.

..refresh my memory..this is part of the lycanthrope (sp?) project? If so, you guys have made a lot of progress since I last checked it out. I checked out only the city of shadows song so far. I think the vocalist did a great job...the midi drums don't sound bad at all...altough the panning on the drums is a bit wierd sometimes...

..much better song than I could write.

 

[NobleSavage]

to get sonar, you can download a demo at cakewalk dot com.

Of course, any midi program will do, but sonar is sooo much easier. It's like the CoolEdit version of midi. lol

And, I dunno, but I've heard tell you can find full versions on KaZaa...

Actually, the Lycanthrope thing came to a screaming halt. It stopped due to countless things: bad songwriting, bad recording, lack of interest, lack of focus. lol But it was a helluva learning process for this. I decided to try to tackle the things that I thought made Lycanthrope fail.

Bad songwriting: I tried to write better songs. (duh) Still not pro level, but a marked improvement in my head.

Bad recording: again, that just seems to come with time. Plus the V-amp. And Sonar.

Lack of Interest and Lack of Focus: I tried to solve that by not pushing for members until I had the thing almost completely written and demos recorded. That way I had a definite offer to make: 10 songs. If people liked the 10 songs then they could jump on board and have no surprises, as well as a definite goal to shoot for, not just "when we have a bunch of good songs".

So far, that approach has worked really well for me. The improvement on this, vs Lycanthrope is a pretty major one, I think. So, right now, I'm looking forward to the next project. lol

As far as the panning on the drums: it's the soundfont: Drums by Slavo. It's about as good as soundfonts get... but still not a real drummer. But, once I get all the vox and all the bass parts in, I'll mix as good as possible and start searching for a willing and able drummer.

 

[Eddies cellmate]

Yea, we sometimes (as you can see) suffer from a lack of focus here too, as we all are busy with other things. That used to bother me, but now I think that it's actually good from time to time because when we do fire back into it, the enthusiasm and attention to quality seems to be better. I know that sometimes I have felt too distracted with other 'real life' things to focus properly on our work. When we get back into it here, I'm hoping that we can start writing and branching out into other material.

P.S. I've downloaded the two songs you've posted, thanks again. I don't like to offer opinions from first impressions, so in a day or two when I've digested it more I'll write some thoughts out for you.