My new band
- Thread starter 987baz
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Thanks Mililea, much appreciatedYour last song was good, but actually a bit too hard for my tasteI really like this one! Good job! Thank you for sharing!
I started writing this song after my first session with Holley, my kinesiologist/therapist in March last year.
The sog is gift spelled backwards (TFIG), or the backwards gift, and the idea of it is basically, that suffering when looked upon "correctly" is a gift, a lesson, that if we take the hardships and suffering in a positive way we can move forward, go higher, as it were and become better versions of ourselves.
That is my experience too, absolutely right! Without darkness there is no light
I love this Quote in this regard:
FRV
Jedi
I love this because
It's not that the suffering or trauma made someone stronger but CHOOSING to overcome it is what makes someone so heckin strong. I like this view because it shows Free Will, that the choice is up to us which aligns with the C's saying we get to choose if we orientate ourselves to STS or STO through thoughts/emotions/action/behavior/intent aka The Work
Absolutely!! love this quote!! thanks for sharing :)That is my experience too, absolutely right! Without darkness there is no light
Totally agree, Love how you articul;ated this!! it's all about choice, tbh it's not easy to have this perspective while going through something, that's the hard part, but we aim for it, and in hind sight this becomes much easier, we can see growth and resilence when we look back, this event sucked, but I am a better person for it, and I am grateful for it, is my experience!
Jtucker
Jedi Master
I sent this track to my kid (he's 32 so not a kid - just to me) on a YouTube link (he's not familiar with this forum) as I know he's a big fan of Kill Switch Overdrive, but as my musical genre detection ends in 1997, I didn't want to assume that he was playing a similar genre influence as you are. It turns out, he's got some very related ideas as yours. I'm super old school and working with towels over Garnet amps and noisy guitars, but he's more along the lines of a 21st century musician like you.Thanks JtuckerYou have a good ear for sure!
all recorded, produced, mixed and mastered in Logic Pro X in my home studio. Guitars are neural dsp abasi plugin no amps used … so much easier to eq and get to sit in a mix.. plus my neighbours are happier
It's hard for him to get accurate feedback from peers on his music, so I asked him if he was good with me sending you his ideas on your music. I'm sure he'll be okay with you doing the same with his
He grew up with music and equipment around him 24/7, and figured out what us oldies were doing technologically better than us by the time he was a teenager. His main instrument has always been guitar, but he uses a Juno, some sort of Moog and records everything onboard with a DAW platform. And no, I don't understand the band references or his love for mastering technical close ears (my whole life of mastering is heavy clipping), but hopefully his comments may be of some value to you...
(Some Candianisms removed)
So first thoughts. I definitely like the genre. In fact it's pretty much my favourite genre of metal. On the production side of things I have a few critiques just for the sake of being nitpicky.
The master is quiet. Like it'll never be able to go next to bands like Wage War or Periphery at that volume. Which is also interesting because you can definitely hear some light clipping throughout the song, which implies that he like has standing bass frequencies taking up a lot of space in the mix making his limiter react harder and faster than he'd want, resulting in early clipping at a low volume.
Also kinda wish he didn't slap so much distortion on the lead vocal track. He's got a great voice. The distortion takes away from that. If his vocals are lacking punch he needs to start double and triple tracking.
He has a great voice. But if he doesn't have the time to really get those amazing takes he needs to bite the bullet and start using pitch correction. I get it. Recording at home for a couple hours a week makes it near impossible for someone to push themselves to a really amazing take. I legitimately think it's fair for home studio musicians to use auto tune and melodyne.
All that being said the guitar tone is super solid. Sounds to me like he's using the tried and true method involving a v30 speaker and whatever high gain amp he likes, or more likely an amp sim of that kind of combo, but wow did he ever mix that well.
It's easy to mess it up even if it's tried and true, but how he has that rhythm guitar glued to the bass track kicks ass.
The. F****g. Snare. Wouldn't change a thing. Don't think I could make do anywhere near as well. That snare f****g slaps (this is apparently a new Canadian slang that everyone is using to replace Awesome or Killer). Super tight, focused, sits in the mix incredibly well, you can hear it clearly at every point in the song. Great snare.
Also the playing and musicianship overall is incredibly high level. This guy can play and he can play really well. Great song!
I hope this is some value to you @987baz. I normally wouldn't post anything second hand on creative projects, but my kid seems to be in the same groove musically as you.
It's hard for him to get accurate feedback from peers on his music, so I asked him if he was good with me sending you his ideas on your music. I'm sure he'll be okay with you doing the same with his
Firstly, thanks mate, it's always great to get critique from like minded/vibed people, and I would be more than happy to return the favour if he is so inclined.
Lots of value indeed!! he's obviously got a great ear and understanding of mixing/mastering and with musical tastes that are similar! So again, many thanks!
Haha, that's the first time I've ever been told my masters aren't loud enough, most of the time it's that they're too loud, but against bands of that nature and of course their production team (Nolly is a legend) it is a valid point for sure! (the loudness war continues haha)
This was my first attempt at mixing/mastering a song with an 8 string guitar, and extended low bass, (usually use a 6 string) so the standing bass frequency makes a lot of sense, will keep that in mind for the next mix!
Yeah, the lead vocal in the chorus is a live tracking take I did when I first wrote the chorus, which I clipped on the way in (because I wasn't worried about levels, a mistake I won't make again) as much as tried to get a better take, I just really liked the performance so decided to roll with it.
I am not big fan of autotune, but, I do agree, that it can be useful, usually if I use it, it will be for effect rather than to retune the pitch. I I really shouldn't be lazy and just multi track the vocals, for this one I just "decided" I liked the "raw" sound of it. But, listening to it now I totally agree, it annoys me haha (I added some saturation to make it sound more "musical" instead of just clipped)
Stoked to hear he likes the guitar tone, he was spot on!
The snare is a TAMA bell brass from the 80's, I use a eventide split/transient eq for the extra snap and running the arturia bus force plugin for the aux comp, with with new fangled audio Elevate on the drum buss.
wow, I am very happy to hear it, tell him thanks for the kudos!!
Jtucker
Jedi Master
I'm glad his comments helped! And in terms of master volumes, my kid's masters are way too loud for my tastes
I asked him to help me once with mastering our laid back jazzy rock and it almost blew the speakers out in my truck...
meadow_wind
Jedi Council Member
it's really well done, the music and the video! Congratulations on this nice work 
I did not know we could do that much with it. I'm impressed. I love working with AI images, I have some beginner skills with Photoshop, and I have many ideas I would want to bring out, but I did not know how. This could be the answer!
What is the skill level one needs to achieve what your friend has done in After Effect? And do you know by chance how long (on average) it took him to do this video?
I did not know we could do that much with it. I'm impressed. I love working with AI images, I have some beginner skills with Photoshop, and I have many ideas I would want to bring out, but I did not know how. This could be the answer!
Jtucker
Jedi Master
He really liked your comments back, and with everything in music, so much is personal choice. I have to admit, until you posted your tracks, I listened to my his music, but not really the genre. My wife asked me what kind of music we were talking about, and I said it's kind of like super well-produced Queensryche with industrial influences and Metallica drums. But that would probably be way off base for how the the actual creators see it. We're just approximating it from our generation
He did insist on me listening to Sleep Token which is a really cool band with incredible arrangements and wild synth sounds. I work with an FL 10 DAW just for drums, and have no idea how you guys get the sounds you do. My kid did respond to your comments and they're pretty funny... I think both of you are on a very similar page in terms of music.
The irony of his masters usually being too loud made me laugh, I'm glad he liked the comments. I tried to go from a nit picky listeners point of view rather than a fellow musician since so much of mixing is all about personal preference.
Every defence for his decisions makes honestly perfect sense and I can't argue against him. At the end of the day all that matters is that it's a great song that's got a killer hook and is fun to listen too.
I do suppose comparing his mastering with Nolly's isn't fair either since Nolly is literally the king of metal production at this point in time.
He doesn't have his old band or his current music posted on social media currently as he's kind of a perfectionist (he got that from his mother and not me clearly). But I have MP4's from him I can post on the music thread I have, if he's okay with it. I think you'll be pretty surprised how similar your musical tastes are.
Musicinventor
Jedi Master
Thats a difficult question to answer, but tbh these days it's a lot easier than it used to be. With a lot of AI tools now built into AE and other programs. 10 years ago when I started using AE it took me about 8 hours to hand rotoscope a scene now you can do it 5 minutes!
It actually to him about 3 months to make the video, but he hand drew the characters, it's also worth noting, you need a beefy computer to run AE as it's very CPU and ram intensive, if you're running a mac (as I am) it's actually better because you can take advantage of the GPU's ;)
there are plenty of tutorials online about how to use AE, the basic gist is, you get the image into photoshop, seperate background and foreground, so they are on seperate layers, and then you can animate them, using parallax to sell it. I would say if it's something that interests you, you could be up and running in a few days. AE is a full on program, but you can just find the relevant tutorials to suit what you are doing, you don't need to know the whole program (which is almost impossible anyway) just the bits that work for you.
Alternatively, if you just want to animate your still AI images, you can use a website like LeiaPix - Convert 2D to 3D Depth Animation AI Technology which does it for you, there is a free account you can sign up for too! you can only do limited things and it has a max of 10 second animations, but if yuo're just doing simple dollies or zooms it's great!!
I use it for insta to make reels like this .. which was an AI image
hahah I love this description!!
I have to agree Sleep Token are amazing!
Ah nice I haven't really used FL in a long while, but all DAWS have their advantages, and as long as you can get what you need from it, that's all that matters. I use pro tools at work, which I don't particularly like, but it is the industry standard and I have to teach my students the basics, Logic is my DAW of choice.
We seem to be on the same page indeed .. although, I used to be a huge metal head, but now I love all types of music, as long as they have soul, well, maybe except rap, still can't get into it although i did do a collab with a rapper in LA quite a few years back haha
Indeed and it's much appreciated, I thin at the end of the day, you have to do what you like as a mixer, even if it's not what is happening in the real world, if you're a signed band and trying to make money from it than there is certainly more pressure to conform to industry standards, but for me, it's a passion/hobby that I love and I just go with what I like, not to say I don't want to learn or becoe better, there's always something new to learn to enhance what I'm creating :)
thanks, that's high praise indeed.
haha indeed! Nolly is that for sure, and I've learned a lot from watching him mix online!
Awesome looking forward to hearing his stuff, and yes I suffered from perfectionism for a long time, and tbh never posted anything, now I just let go of that and put it out in the world warts and all, IMO it's imperfectly perfect haha as there is never perfection, we're always striving to be better!! thanks again for your and your sons feedback
thank you my friend, I am actually working on some more proggy stuff atm .. my other solo project which I haven't done anything for in a while is here .. lots of odd time and long 10 minute journeys haha
Just listened to your song TFIG and I really like it, especially the chorus, nice work!! 
The only suggestion I'd have is lowering the volume of the music a little bit or increasing the volume of your voice as the music drowns out your singing a bit, which is a shame because you have a great voice!
The only suggestion I'd have is lowering the volume of the music a little bit or increasing the volume of your voice as the music drowns out your singing a bit, which is a shame because you have a great voice!
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Just listened to your song TFIG and I really like it, especially the chorus, nice work!!
Many thanks Oxajil
yeah I am a guitarist at heart so I do tend to push them up and the voice back a bit, and thanks again for having a listen and for the kind feedback 
