New Honey Hunters - You and Whose Army?

[Armistice]

FILES REMOVED. Thanks for playing...


Alternative title... "You! And who's Armi?"

I had the lyrics all written, sort of, without the "You and whose army?" line - there was nothing there at all, then somewhere out of nowhere I was reminded of that particular schoolyard taunt and I thought "Hmmm... that would fit nicely" in the hitherto vacant spot - and it was a cool title, much better than Song 6, which was as far as I'd got with it. In it went.

This is the one I sang about 50,000 times and I'm still not completely happy with it - there's some strangeness in a couple of syllables which, when I remove all the effects, is still there. Yes, my voice does that. Or maybe it's some room filtering somehow, which would be odd as the mic is set up in exactly the same position as every other damn song. Anyway, I've decided to live with it for now. Will see if anyone picks it up particularly.

Sort of a bit of everything, musically. If only I could stick to one genre per song... But where's the fun in that? Bit of riffing. Some Steely Danness in the chorus, and almost metally middle 8 with far too many tom toms.






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OK - version 2 with beefed up bass and kick, and more growly ending, sort of, and a few more "YAWA?" bits in the appropriate place and a bit more compression on the vocal and a few other minor tweaks.

I haven't resung the lead - just can't do that at the moment.

That 0.01MB increase in file size makes all the difference, I'm sure...

[rayc]

1st listen...
the only things that stood out are:
how the bass IN the mix sounds ace n growly but those spots where it's exposed it seems all growl n no grunt
&
the changing notes within a word in the line "You & Whose Army?" isn't 100% convincing - most particularly Whoo oo oose.

[Greg_L]

Cool guitar sounds. I like the movement on the little weedly bit at the end of the breakdown. The excessive tom tom break is good too. That sounds like something a real drummer would play so nice job on the programming.

I think with the generally aggressive intention of the song, the mix has a few things missing. The kick and bass aren't really proving a driving punch. They're there but they're too subtle. It would boost the force of the mix if it had a kick and bass locked in to punch on the downbeats. More attack from the kick and a more focused bass tone would work better IMO. Also , I know you said you sang it 50,000 times already, but sing it again. You need to be more aggressive with the vocal delivery on a song like this. Your usual smooth mature vocals don't work telling this kind of story. You had to be a pissed off young man at some point in your life. Tap into that guy and try it again.

[JD01]

I like this one Armi. I agree with Greg that the vocal could do with a bit more welly, particularly towards the end.
I like what you're doing with the bass on this and I like the song generally.

[vomitHatSteve]

I had to go back and re-listen to the bridge 'cause I was still waiting for the metally part.
It's using your style of guitar tones rather than traditional "metal" ones, which is why I missed it the first time I think.

I like it. I think I prefer the alternate name. It's very Megadeth.

Some of your vocals get a little buried. I think it's because so much of the song is on the low end of your register. Maybe some more compression for that? Or perhaps some target compression by frequency? Automation on the lowest notes might do it too, but that would be a lot of work and may still not yield great results.

[Armistice]

Cool guitar sounds. I like the movement on the little weedly bit at the end of the breakdown. The excessive tom tom break is good too. That sounds like something a real drummer would play so nice job on the programming.

I think with the generally aggressive intention of the song, the mix has a few things missing. The kick and bass aren't really proving a driving punch. They're there but they're too subtle. It would boost the force of the mix if it had a kick and bass locked in to punch on the downbeats. More attack from the kick and a more focused bass tone would work better IMO. Also , I know you said you sang it 50,000 times already, but sing it again. You need to be more aggressive with the vocal delivery on a song like this. Your usual smooth mature vocals don't work telling this kind of story. You had to be a pissed off young man at some point in your life. Tap into that guy and try it again.

I'm still a pissed off young man...

Noted on the vocals - I think I have some weird filtering going on with loud vocals in this new space - I tried them initially to get exactly that sound and they were just really harsh and awful, not in a good way. The kick I can work with - I'll put a bit of click back in it, just to annoy @rayc - and I'll go back in and raise all the levels on the MIDI to get a louder harder hit sample into play. I think they're sitting at about 70 out of 128 - plenty of room to increase, PITA though it is.

But what's a "focused" bass tone mean, exactly?

[Armistice]

I like this one Armi. I agree with Greg that the vocal could do with a bit more welly, particularly towards the end.
I like what you're doing with the bass on this and I like the song generally.

Cheers... I'll see what I can do. Perhaps I'll try the ending again. I had an idea to put some more layers on the "You and whose army?" line anyway, so doing more at the ending is no biggie.

And it's only because GF is English that I understand what "more welly" actually is...

[Armistice]

I had to go back and re-listen to the bridge 'cause I was still waiting for the metally part.
It's using your style of guitar tones rather than traditional "metal" ones, which is why I missed it the first time I think.

I like it. I think I prefer the alternate name. It's very Megadeth.

Some of your vocals get a little buried. I think it's because so much of the song is on the low end of your register. Maybe some more compression for that? Or perhaps some target compression by frequency? Automation on the lowest notes might do it too, but that would be a lot of work and may still not yield great results.

Metal is relative... It was more the riffing than the actual tone. Funny thing about some of this stuff is that when I invent it, and double track it it sounds "interesting" but not particularly heavy at all, but add bass and drums and all of a sudden it's sort of rocks out way more.

I might add another compressor over the whole vocal - something that's not trusty ReaComp - and see what happens. Not sure I'm ready for multi-band compression on vocals yet. I've used it to tame things but enhance? I could do some serious damage there...

[Armistice]

1st listen...
the only things that stood out are:
how the bass IN the mix sounds ace n growly but those spots where it's exposed it seems all growl n no grunt
&
the changing notes within a word in the line "You & Whose Army?" isn't 100% convincing - most particularly Whoo oo oose.

I'll work on the bass a bit and see what I can do. That line is supposed to sound a bit schoolyard chanty, so it stays as is. Might add a couple more tracks to it though.

Cheers

[Greg_L]

But what's a "focused" bass tone mean, exactly?

A bass tone that stands on it's own. The attack of the note is noticeable and locks in with the kick. It has midrange and it's still bass but it doesn't eat up the entire bottom end. It's there to be a noticed instrument in the mix and not just fill in low end.

[Armistice]

But what's a "focused" bass tone mean, exactly?

A bass tone that stands on it's own. The attack of the note is noticeable and locks in with the kick. It has midrange and it's still bass but it doesn't eat up the entire bottom end. It's there to be a noticed instrument in the mix and not just fill in low end.

Got it. I'll see what's going on with the compressor to see if I can sharpen it up a bit.

[TripleM]

I listened to both versions and I think #2 is an improvement. For the bass - if you have a low end boost, I'd take it down a couple of dbs. And the turn up the whole bass track a db or so. That'd give it less of a basketball sound. It's not an over the top basketball sound, but it has a hint of it. Or at least give it a try and see how it sounds. The growl on it is awesome.

Maybe turn up the lead vocal just a bit? And possibly compress it just a bit harder? It could stand out just a wee bit more - particularly on a word here and there at the end of vocal lines. I didn't hear any weird vocal sounds. Maybe some slight sibelance here and there?

Other than that it sounds nice. The guitars sound great.