Track from my melodeath bands full length - please critique my production/writing!

[GhostUnholy]

Hey guys,

My band, Skies of Strife, just self released our new full length "The Rise and Fall" a month ago. I produced/engineered it (my first project!), and then it was mixed by James Miller at The Surge Recording House and mastered at Spectre Mastering. This is the 4th track from it:

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/2159465/04 Blood Money.mp3

As this was my first attempt at engineering a project myself, some feedback would really be helpful. The drums are just awful in my opinion, and I really want to track drums professionally next time even if I do the rest myself. I was limited resource-wise but given my lack of experience, I'm pretty happy with the results.

Also, any opinions on my writing would be appreciated!

 

[tronix87]

Not bad the mix, but the drums are not so good. Crashes/overheads not so good
Sometimes doublebass has some of the machinegun effect.
I like the clean guitar solo, its amazing also from the recording, i can hear the picks

 

[Mago]

hey!
got power, but i dont quite like the rhythmguitar sound...maybe theres some freqs I dont like
and yeah, i guess theres just 1 sample for the kick, am i right? machinegunish, as tronix allready said.
maybe too much hights on the overheads? think its too brilliant...
acoustics sound very cool imo

cool stuff

cheers!

 

[GhostUnholy]

Hey, thanks for the replies guys!
We didn't have the resources to track drums well so unfortunately everything is triggered, including the cymbals. And yeah, only 1 sample for the kick. I really had no idea how to handle drums and will have to do a lot more reading before the next recording. Mago, I think i might know what you mean, i feel like there's a little harshness in the rhythm guitar sound.
Interestingly the acoustic sound is just my cheap simon and patrick acoustic recorded with an AT4040 through the presonus firestudio preamps, and a little eq. In terms of the pick sound, I wasn't sure how to get rid of that, is that just about playing cleaner, or is this something you can fix with tone/eq?

 

[Mago]

Hey, thanks for the replies guys!
We didn't have the resources to track drums well so unfortunately everything is triggered, including the cymbals. And yeah, only 1 sample for the kick. I really had no idea how to handle drums and will have to do a lot more reading before the next recording. Mago, I think i might know what you mean, i feel like there's a little harshness in the rhythm guitar sound.
Interestingly the acoustic sound is just my cheap simon and patrick acoustic recorded with an AT4040 through the presonus firestudio preamps, and a little eq. In terms of the pick sound, I wasn't sure how to get rid of that, is that just about playing cleaner, or is this something you can fix with tone/eq?

@ OH: so what's the problem lowering the volume or taking out some Highs then?

@ Kick: I once read here somewhere that if you only have 1 kick-sample try making a few others by tuning down and up a few cents.

@ acoustic: you mean the one from 2:46? best way to get rid of picking sound is: use your fingers but guessing that it could get a bit difficult in that case, try searching the freq with the EQ and then lower it a bit

cheers

 

[mburton21]

Observations:

-I think the vocals could come up a bit.

-Do you have Drumagog or anything like it? You could very easily get rid of the machinegun effect on the kick with a simple 2 sample .gog file.

-In the clean part the kick drum totally does not jive IMO.

-Best tone in the song is during the clean segment

Unique composition though, I like your writing style