My Band's Debut Album "Autonomy" - Now Online

joelap

joelap

Red&Goldologist
http://driftrocks.bandcamp.com

Check it out, recorded and mixed by our own J Moose. I had this info in another thread but that was more of a thread on a piece of gear I used on a specific track.

Curious to know what you guys think of the music. I can go into detail on the equipment used on the specific tracks if asked.

Feel free to purchase and help us crawl out of the credit card debt this put us into. Thanks!

Joe
 
Re: My Band's Debut Album "Autonomy" - Now Online

Moose is expecting to make a living recording music? Pfffttt.....


:p




I'm gonna be all over this like white on rice ;)

The record sounds great :)
 
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Re: My Band's Debut Album "Autonomy" - Now Online

Wow, well done! Nicely recorded and mixed. I love the big chewy guitars.
 
Re: My Band's Debut Album "Autonomy" - Now Online

Mostly digging the guitars, can't really get into the vocals or mix. What'd you guys use for amps/cabs?
 
My Band's Debut Album "Autonomy" - Now Online

Virtual Kevorkian said:
Mostly digging the guitars, can't really get into the vocals or mix. What'd you guys use for amps/cabs?
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Main guitar sound was my Demeter tgp-3 into a gmajor2 for some reverb (ghast!! Digital??!!) and into my vht 2/50/2. Main cab was an avatar vintage 4x12 with g12h30 speakers. Most 2nd guitars were into an Orange AD30htc sometimes goosed with one of my custom booster pedals into a Madison Amps 2x12 (yes chris your old cabinet!!) with warehouse guitar speakers "veteren 30" v30 clones. Other amps used sporadically include a Valvetech Hayseed 30 with eminence red fang alnico speakers and my custom built 1Watt lantern battery powered russian subminiature tube amp with a 6 or 5 inch weber speaker, and we goosed that with the Seymour Duncan compressor pedal. All solos were the tgp-3 rig.

All main guitars for every song except rust are my Les Paul studio limited with ebony board, loaded with CC/A2pro hybrids. Most alternate guitars on the remaining tracks except Circus Massacre and chaser were my USA custom Jazzmaster into the orange rig with a SD custom shop jazzmaster pickup. Circus massacre 2nd guitar into the battery amp is a dead stock fender 60th anniversary hollow tele. Chaser has two tracks of the Les Paul/Demeter rig and one track of the Les Paul into my custom germanium booster into the orange/v30 rig.

Bass is a blend of my Tube Instrument Preamp I designed and am in the process of setting up my business to sell and a Groove Tubes tube DI box. He used an ibanez soundgear on the entire rekkid.
 
Re: My Band's Debut Album "Autonomy" - Now Online

You already know I dig it big time. Like the guitar tones, like the snare, like the Rawness. Very original sounding.
Mr. Moose, I salute you!!!
 
Re: My Band's Debut Album "Autonomy" - Now Online

Sounds good.

VK-> What don't you like about the mix?

I think it works really well with the music being played but wouldn't want my stuff to be mixed quite as guitar-heavy. Guitars sound thick and great. Bass is a little back in the mix but (from what I heard) only seems to play a supporting role. Drummer seems to be more 'punk' than 'power' so I don't expect him to have a monster Josh Freese sound with toms/bass drum. Vocals sounded good with everything else in place.

I would like to hear more vocal harmonies from someone other than the main singer. Are any of you a tenor? Some well executed clean/higher pitched backup vocals would sound good against the main guy.
 
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My Band's Debut Album "Autonomy" - Now Online

None of us sing that well enough and we were also under serious time constraints, a few days only to make 7 tracks we played from 10am warm up until 3am and then some extra time in there for moose to do his thing at night (backups, etc). 17 hours of music with the occasional 30 minute break for beer and guacamole. So yes we would have liked to sing backup but ran out of time. Most harmonies are I think a different take of the vox that lined up, save for "rose colored glasses"
 
Re: My Band's Debut Album "Autonomy" - Now Online

Ah sweet, thought I heard some Orange in there! Really interested in the tube preamp - will have to keep an eye out for that!

ksmith63 said:
VK-> What don't you like about the mix?
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Most of it, but I'll risk J Moose jumping in to tear me a new one about it. In short, the kick lacks punch and is buried, vocals sound really thin on my end, cymbals aren't as detailed as I'd like, and the bass is kind of tubby but that's expected with most Ibanez's. Would like to hear more vocal production, as well - not many harmonies or layers makes it a bit boring IMO.

It's not bad, I just think it could be a lot better, and I of course have no real knowledge of what he was dealing with, equipment-wise, musician-wise, and situationally with the recordings, so take that all with a grain of salt.
 
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Re: My Band's Debut Album "Autonomy" - Now Online

Virtual Kevorkian said:
It's not bad, I just think it could be a lot better, and I of course have no real knowledge of what he was dealing with, equipment-wise, musician-wise, and situationally with the recordings, so take that all with a grain of salt.
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Good gravy, everyones a critic...

Only got a minute here, thought I'd check this thread while I do some last minute email stuff.

These guys worked their asses off and tracked 8 songs over the course of four VERY long days... like 10am-2am. Seven of those eight tunes made the record. It was all mixed over the course of another 30-40 odd hours. None of it was recorded in a proper studio... we took over a house and then I mixed back at my shop. Mastered by Brad Blackwood... he's no slouch either. Only enough of a hack to deal with the likes of ZZ Top & Maroon 5.

Could it be better? Maybe... sure... but I think these guys deserve a hand for getting so much done in what was basically no time. I would've liked to do more vocals & whatnot myself but hey, there's only so much time to execute things properly.

And execute they did. There's no 'vibe-aligner' anywhere on here... nor a single kick or snare sample. They played every single note & those are 100% real drums. There's also NO eq on the guitars. 100% flat track through mix.

Regarding the mix/sonic critics... the band had EVERY opportunity to say "hey man, we don't like what we hear... this sucks" and stop the process while changes were made... and you what? That happened! Several times in fact.

If anything i'd recommend popping for the FLAC download or wait till next week and order a physical CD... listen to it on some good, full range speakers... not some piece of crap computer streaming stuff before saying the "kick drum is buried" or whatever.

Believe me, if the kick wasn't hitting hard enough Rich would've let me know.

In the meantime all the idle chatter does is make 'ya come across like a hater.

Adios.

Trucks all packed. Gotta go make another rekkid...

I'll get back with more details later on, and for everyone who digs it I offer many many thanks!!!
 
My Band's Debut Album "Autonomy" - Now Online

Lol about rich letting you know cause yeah he would have! I think we had an issue with the Kick something about rich bouncing the beater so if we went too up front with it you would hear the double hit or something odd like that. Moose may remember.

VK I'll shoot you a PM tonight when I'm not on my iPhone. I'm looking for beta testers for the preamp and you'd be perfect to test it out.

In the end, time was really the overall factor. We did every solo in one day, and I think it was half the day. We maybe had time to do 5 maybe 6 takes of vocals / lead guitars per song and then it was pick the best one and move on. Which wa great because we wanted a raw record that sounded like us not something over produced with lots of wooga-wooga protools magic. One of our favorite bands is Clutch and we like to think of ourselves as a slightly more mainstream sounding clutch.
 
Re: My Band's Debut Album "Autonomy" - Now Online

sounds good dudez!!! tasty guitar distortion. reminds me how much I like my tube amp cranked lol I mighta mixed a lil differently here and there but alas the talent stays the same...

lotta work to do all that, pro recording, good stuff :P
 
Re: My Band's Debut Album "Autonomy" - Now Online

joelap said:
Most 2nd guitars were into an Orange AD30htc sometimes goosed with one of my custom booster pedals into a Madison Amps 2x12 (yes chris your old cabinet!!) with warehouse guitar speakers "veteren 30" v30 clones.
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That brought a tear to my eye... you actually still use that thing! :friday:

The guitars sound freakin' great as far as I'm concerned (big and raw, I always hated over compressed guitars). "Circus Massacre" is probably my favorite at this point :) The drums sound pretty good. The snare sounds really, really good, the cymbals don't dominate (which I really like), the hi-hat fits in the mix perfectly. Truth be told, the bass sounds a bit weak to me on my setup, but that's splitting hairs.
 
Re: My Band's Debut Album "Autonomy" - Now Online

Criticism is OK I suppose, it could be proactive, but haters are not allowed. :)

Don't know what equipment JM used for recording and mixing, but his overall intentions seem good.
I like the guitars and bass, drum is OK, I would add some more depth to the snare (don't know how though:) )
Kick is OK.
Guitars seem to have some battle in the lower mid segment to my ear.

With a couple of simple EQ tweaking I would be perfectly satisfied with this recording, if it was mine bands.
I liked some songs and riffs at first hearing (Autonomy and Circus Massacre).
Dislike the vocals though - recorded well, just not the colour of voice I like.

Anyway, they could probably have got a better sounding master tracks, but with a lot more money invested.
You can't spent like $5000 and expect to get the same quality as like $50.000 recordings have.

Keep up the good work.
 
Re: My Band's Debut Album "Autonomy" - Now Online

joelap said:
VK I'll shoot you a PM tonight when I'm not on my iPhone. I'm looking for beta testers for the preamp and you'd be perfect to test it out.
Click to expand...

Cool, would love to give it a proper run next to my API and Neve builds.
 
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Re: My Band's Debut Album "Autonomy" - Now Online

"Chaser" was DEFINATELY my favorite track out of the bunch (When I listen to it I hear ALOT of potential). It simply sounded the most "solid" and "complete" to me out of the other tracks. In regards to the other tracks, while I liked bits and pieces of them, I couldn't get into them. I also agree that you guys need to figure out something for the vocals (whether it be improving yourselves as vocalists or finding someone to fill it).
 
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Re: My Band's Debut Album "Autonomy" - Now Online

posting here to subscribe so I can check this out from home
 
My Band's Debut Album "Autonomy" - Now Online

GuitarGuy503 said:
also agree that you guys need to figure out something for the vocals (whether it be improving yourselves as vocalists or finding someone to fill it).
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Thanks for the input but I don't see that happening... I can think of many, many albums and bands who only have one guy doing vox. As I said I occasionally do a very minute bit of backing vox but we had insufficient time for me spend butchering take after take to get a good one.
 
Re: My Band's Debut Album "Autonomy" - Now Online

joelap said:
In the end, time was really the overall factor. We did every solo in one day, and I think it was half the day. We maybe had time to do 5 maybe 6 takes of vocals / lead guitars per song and then it was pick the best one and move on. Which wa great because we wanted a raw record that sounded like us not something over produced with lots of wooga-wooga protools magic. One of our favorite bands is Clutch and we like to think of ourselves as a slightly more mainstream sounding clutch.
Click to expand...

Makin' a record there's always a trade-off & balance of time vs. desired output... what the 'finished' product should be.

Regardless of budget it takes, what? A few hours at best to get a drum sound up? After that its ENTIRELY upto the musicians to deliver, and the producer to keep everyone on track and moving towards that desired output.

Early on while talking about what the record should sound like, besides "good" someone... not mentioning who in the band, but we all know who it was (not joe!) said that it should sound "organic" like Metallicas Black record.

Sorry man, but that ain't close to "organic" in the least! Drums NEVER sound like that in a room. Anyone ever stand next to an acoustic drum kit that sounds exactly like that record? Close to it? Thought not.

So the flip side of that is Nirvana's In Utero... that sounds pretty organic and there's lots of middle ground between those two. Which is where we ended up. Nobody involved with the project wanted to do the whole midi-drum kit, paint by numbers, otto-tuned "modern record" thing.

'Ya know... the comments about the "lack" of vocal production and layering etc. tell me that anyone who made those comments NEVER actually LISTENED to any of the songs.

There might not be 20 tracks of vocals on each tune, but there are layers there... sometimes just for a line or two within a verse. Quite a few vocals besides the lead on Chaser were cut with a lo-fi mic through Joes battery amp. There's one song with at least a half-dozen voices layered in at the end in a VERY obvious way.

Its funny but when I played the final, unmastered mixes for one of my musician buddies he had nothing but compliments on the vocal layering and production. Thought it made some nods to Janes Addiction.

Go figure.
 
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