backseat nudist

Haunted punk from my band Big Ghost. This is my second attempt at recording drums (thanks for all the advice, Mefites!) and my first post that all the band worked on together. so pointers are very welcome.

PEPSIGRAY: We're playing tonite at the All Asia in Cambridge, btw.

lyrics:
in the bible we're writing, after we killed the titans: you and me, we were riding. I think matthew was driving. the river styx is a road: route 89 in upstate new york. this is where the ghosts go to be alone.

so we read out lines 1000 times but nothing sticks. scared to death that they might find us nude without a script. you say the world is full of traffic ain't nobody can predict. i wasn't trying

i like a town where they don't watch there kids. you like a lock with a combination but no key. the populations haunted, ghost that move at glacier speed, like a spreading disease or like a herd of them.

you tell me love's the type of weather ain't nobody can predict. I wasn't trying

the conversation is haunted/the population is hauntedl

• play
• pause
• stop
• min volume
• max volume

posted by es_de_bah (8 comments total)

es_de_bah, this is top shelf fuckin' rock n roll. I don't hear anything to nit pick about, but I would like to highlight the part near the end when the guitar is hit with rapid muted strokes and you follow through on drums...little things like that really get my attention and let me know that I'm listening to bad asses. Hell yea!
posted by snsranch at 2:54 PM on May 8, 2010

I really like the song and it sounds like you guys would sound great live.
I can't put my finger on why the recording sounds a bit muddy to me, like I want it to be crisper. Maybe it's over-compressed? Maybe the compression is noticeable because the drums are panned hard left and right, especially the cymbals, which are pretty hot. Ya, maybe it's a bit too much cymbal. Just thinking out loud here. The quieter part, around 2.40, is way clearer, so maybe play around with some more dynamic range. A smarter person than me might have better suggestions.
Great song, though, and really great playing all around.
posted by chococat at 10:46 PM on May 8, 2010

If I were in your town, I'd definitely go see you guys based on this tune. I always like your voice, and this tune is no exception, and the song is solid and driving.

The mix drives me crazy a little, because when I squint my ears and imagine it with a mix that knocks you over, like Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation or something, it would be even more powerful. Chococat mentioned compression, but I also wonder about eq. There are two valleys in the metered mix, one around 250-300hz and the other around 1khz. Those two valleys, combined with the severity of the reduction in volume of most of the frequencies over 4k, end up making it sound muffled, like the bar where you are waiting for a drink is the next room over from where the band is playing.
posted by umbú at 6:36 PM on May 9, 2010

This is totally bad-ass. If I still lived in Central Square, I'd have been there.

And yeah, the drums are too wide, there's a phase problem, and ... are the channels compressed independently maybe? I think that's what's breaking the mix.
posted by uncleozzy at 4:40 AM on May 10, 2010

thanks guys...i'll work on it. my little bro (the drummer) kept harping on me to pan the drums wider, so now I can go bac kto him and tell him he was wrong :)
posted by es_de_bah at 3:04 PM on May 10, 2010

yeah, i liked the tune and the general sound of it but had trouble with the cymbals - and there's something like an open hi hat maybe that's way too loud (to my ears anyway). and agreed about the wideness of the drums. this isn't the kind of stuff i'd listen to usually but i liked it. in particular the slightly psych guitar stuff near the end. you're good.
posted by peterkins at 3:41 PM on May 10, 2010

I like this tremendously.
posted by Pecinpah at 5:44 PM on May 10, 2010

Yeah, this is cool -- I've got a couple of cassettes of local garage bands from the '80s in a steamer trunk (the cassettes, not the bands) and this has that same feral feeling to it.

I tend to agree with the prevailing opinion re: cymbals.
posted by Karlos the Jackal at 1:56 AM on May 11, 2010