What do you sound like right now? (a YSI thread)

Here's a demo of a song we're going to record. It's two parts - the first part is instrumental here but now it has vocals.

http://s53.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=27WKGZIXDK48M1LEB71ZPL6X6V

http://s58.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=03STG1E67WXES2V8SSIUGE4SJE

http://s32.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=36HTMQRO200EA0A47R9BXCT3XZ

http://s27.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2USUD7PG6O6X534DI67RMISA9K

I'm using a few filters in Sonar. I have no amp to my name right now, so I've plugged my guitar into this little mixing board through my sound card. EQ'd (lots of boost to the low end, cut the high end); reverb; amp sim (British overdrive); and Sonic Foundry's distortion filter.

The guitar is a Fender Mustang that my dad had bought back when it was the cheapest guitar around. Needless to say, it has appreciated in value some since then (I think it was late 60's, but it might be a 1970 model). I don't have a tremolo arm, so to bend pitch I'm using my forearm/elbow to push down on the bridge while I'm strumming.

http://s40.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3QFG1AE55Z4F13HJOLX0NU1QRO

(Btw, Chubs McKenzie is my corny beat-making alias.)

My Intended

This is fairly unfinished.

Lynskey: this is just totally not my kind of thing at all, but it seems well crafted as what it is.

6635: This is pretty cool. I especially like the way you use the bells.

It's Cakewalk's DSP-FX Studioverb. It's packaged with Sonar, I believe.

http://s25.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0RK93JO9FOQXJ1DSYG4TLSXLM4

Caveat: it's a monitor mix, has no vocals yet, the piano sounds slightly out of tune (so that'll have to be rerecorded), the snare reverb is a bit POW and there are other instruments yet to go down like harmonium & baritone guitar, so it's quite sparing.

http://s52.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3OK06GXOMMGDE0NETWIUPGIZA6

Hopefully I can post something soon...yesterday I turned in the hard drive with my band's new album for mastering (of course, by this point I already feel like 'oh, that's old news, we sound sooo much better now, blah blah').

I spent years trying to get MBV tones but never got anything like that!

Lynksey, I like your style.

Here's one of the tunes I've been most pleased with recently. I think it's somewhere between Germanesque "minimal" and London tech-house but with a little twist.

http://s56.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1KRT2OXO41TCD179PGYULAYJRC

Here's my first foray into Protools from about a month ago (and with a poorly balanced, midrange- and reverb-heavy mix to show for it!):

http://s38.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=070QODFZXPTNN28QLY5KNZVUEU

Shitty keyb'd love song as you might expect from a 17-year-old.

I know what you mean about that vocal treatment, I find that about 90% of people don't like it - thing is, I don't like the sound of my voice so I'll do anything I can to get something different out of it. The whole "get rid of lyrics" thing has been coming for a while. It's just far too interesting to have loads of slices of a vocal on different keys of a keyboard - they're non-sequential, so your usual chromatic brain doesn't get a look in and you do things more on feel. I finally got it how I wanted it a while back with these two tracks (Hope I'm not overstepping the bounds here on "what do you sound like right now?"), one mellowish that samples Shirley Ellis (which I believe the Go!Team have done since, I'll take it out when I get round to it, it's only the "And they all went to heaven" bit I want, really) and the other some sort of demented dancefloor shenanigans.

DRAY
http://s39.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=333SEFILYYX6W1783CQRUNN92B

GLITTERATI
http://s39.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=357RJY09HVHHH145AD9N1TQTMA

In summary, CAN ANYONE GET ME FUCKING GIG SOMEWHERE?

Ah - Is Chewshabadoo "Sum of A Pitch"? - if so I've liked all the stuff I've heard from you, in fact I think I DJ'ed a track somewhere last christmas. Superb track, the breakdown about 4.10 is really, really good. Get. Your. Stuff. Put. Out.

That In the Dark thing is the most credible Sheilds I've ever heard. Score! If I did that I'd never do anything else but that for the rest of my life.

Hurting - right back at ya! Not my thing, but I can appreciate it. It's the kind of thing that needs really, really pristine sound quality so you can get feeling of the band being right in front of you and get every little nuance. What it doesn't need though is an absolutely perfect take. It needs to live a little.

Mzui - similarly I'd like to hear it ultra-pristine and perfect and more studio than live sounding. The combination of instruments is gorgeous in places.

6335 - that's brilliant. I'd leave that as it is. Maybe remaster it at 6-bit or something to make it crunch like a fucker.

Firstworldman - that's exactly the kind of thing I rattle off and then cut-up to make something out of. There's loads of potential in it. I'd be a bit worried about some of the harsh treble in it. Or maybe not. Millions of possibilities.

Chubs - The beginning is like NINTENDO SHELLAC! I'd be throwing a ridiculously heavy hip hop beat in later just to confuse things further. Great ideas.

Mr Cotten - like it, like it, like it. You are one lucky bastard to have that drummer.

Nash - Great guitar sound. Needs the drums really in your face though.

Curtis - That's so up my alley. YOU CAN SING. DON'T BE SHY. Less verb, get it up there, get more confident. Get some beers in or go out and get a bit drunk then come back and record the vocal. Compress it a bit too, or two-tier it for preference, a light compressor catching most of it and a limiter to get the high peaks. That way you can put the verb in there beforehand and it'll rise up when its needed and stay out of the way when it's not.

http://s37.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0V3ZSD7D6VFCK0XRQCKA593W83

Lynskey - Gliteratti kicks ass. This makes me want to breakdance.

Curtis - Agree with Lynskey about the vocals. Sound good, bring them out more. I could stand it to be a little faster too - feels like it takes a while to get started, and the slowness maybe makes the vocal phrasing more difficult too, methinks.

http://www.cleftandcloven.com/bethere.mp3

i like the lynskey track too! (which surprised me, because i don't listen to any music like this) took me a bit to get used to the vocal effect, but by the end of the song it seemed to be a perfect fit.

also, the first track w/ the mbv-ish guitar really floored me. i've tried to emulate that mbv sound before and never even got close to something that cool.

still getting to the rest..and thank you all for the nice compliments about the one i posted. :) one question, because i'm dumb - how do you master in 6-bit? is that lower or higher than normal? will t-racks do this?

http://s27.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0R4M8034JR4Y3J2UT3AGQDNZU

What I'd do is stick the degradation plug-in in your master section (what's your DAW, by the way?), then insert your master plug-in after that. Think of it as if you're taking a high-res snapshot of your deliberately crapped-up signal. That way your end file is still CD quality, even though it doesn't sound like that.

I'm stupid tired - email me if you like!!!

What I'd do is stick the degradation plug-in in your master section (what's your DAW, by the way?), then insert your master plug-in after that. Think of it as if you're taking a high-res snapshot of your deliberately crapped-up signal. That way your end file is still CD quality, even though it doesn't sound like that.

I'm stupid tired - email me if you like!!!

-- Tantrum The Cat (tantrumtheca...), October 13th, 2005.

ergh, to show you how little i know about what i'm doing, i had to look up 'DAW' on the internet. anyway, i usually use cool edit pro 2, but i used audacity to make that specific song (on my work computer)

anyhow, i think i see what you're saying and i'll see if i can simulate it somehow. (not sure if i have a degradation plug-in) thanks for your help! i'll take you up on the email thing if i can't figure it out.

http://s19.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2LP0D2VGCWOP435DS9YTC36LGU

http://s49.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=243DZBOTAIGIF3APLP20W0J7M7

"My Intended" - digging the interplay between the bass-drum-vocal arrangement and the flourishes of high guitar and busier percussive noises. It lopes along nicely.

"Rumble at Pearson High" is great! The rhymes are occasionally a little bit wack ("If you look like a window dresser?") but they set the stage well and the chorus is just plain great. Is this a deliberate homage to "Stranded in the Jungle," same sort of bongo beat verse cutting abruptly to upbeat jazzy thing for the chorus? I absolutely love that song so it's hard for me to not like this. I can't tell whether on repeated listens the verses would grate or grow. One random thought: at the end when he's like "Rustle with the breeze and recite along with me, let's go" he really should continue on and sing the "Shoobey doobey dooba" stuff. Otherwise, what exactly are we reciting along with him?

"Reply" isn't my usual sort of thing so I'm probably not well prepared to evaluate it, but I like it, especially as it goes on and there's more happening. Creates a nice "space" and works as background music without being complete air pudding.

The "I'll Be There" cover is pretty much solid, can't go wrong with great melodies and a brass band. Something sounds a little bit off to me, I think it might be the mix, drums too high or something? And my rock n roll side really wants there to be some kind of instrument just keeping the rhythm moving, but really, this is as good as any brass band record I've got and would sound perfectly suitable on a summer day at the park, coming off the bandstand.

Somewhat less rad: what I'm working on right now, which is probably not the best way to show off what I'm all about, but whatev. "Half finished" being allowed, here goes.

I've just started working on what I hope will be a double LP of Paul McCartney covers. First stab, being fiddled with for the last three days or so, is "I'll Give You A Ring," minor b-side extraordinaire. My version is ending up somewhere between the Faint and the Postal Service in terms of keyboardy indie crap. The vocals are probably going to be scrapped and redone entirely, I have a cold and never should have attempted to record them.

http://www.ummagurau.com/Temp/i'llgiveyouaring05.mp3

(vocal-less version http://www.ummagurau.com/Temp/i'llgiveyouaring04.mp3 )

http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=5AFACA2026365FE4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rol1QS_t5wk

http://nf.wh3rd.net/dump/2006-09-09.mp3

My other bunch is www.myspace.com/anationmournsmusic.

:(

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MR56WPIWiIQ

It brings up the "video removed by user" dialogue

This is a danceable song made for my babycakes.

I liked this a lot.

Now working!

www.myspace.com/colincmusic

Take care.

hope this works: http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=3D17E3430F27D82D

Roxy: I like the song. I like how it picks up and really gets going. I don't think the 3 part harmony at the end is too much. I'm not sure but maybe some slow singing at the end like the singing in the beginning (when you turned twenty-two etc.) might be a nice way to end it. Just a suggestion...

http://www.myspace.com/colincmusic

many thanx, Norman!

roxy's song reminds me of the wygals and dream syndicate for some reason

We played pianos backwards. Yay!

http://www.sendspace.com/file/kfeh2d

http://www.sendspace.com/file/xx6a4z

Hummingbird

high school music tech class

!

Okay guys, this isn't exactly "right now" (more like Feb 06), but I just did/took a massive 4-track-to-hard-drive dump and kind of need someone to listen to this stuff. This is a song about, um, aliens:

http://download.yousendit.com/F50C6FEB3DAC2361

ps also the first time I've ever yousendited!

Have a listen to The Shocking Price of Bread and Everyone's A Bastard.

At any rate, here is a cover of Jackie DeShannon's 'Put a Little Love In Your Heart'. I've only heard it a few times on oldies stations and kinda forget how it went entirely, so I just did a minute and a half and decided that was enough.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/lyghs0

the track is what we just finished recordin'