New song.  Would love comments....

Check out PAIN at this link:

http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/album.php?aid=2878&alid=-1

It is only a pre-production recording, as I am interested to know if I even have a song worth recording before I put too much effort into it. I have gotten mixed reviews from friends on this one, so I would like to get some “un-biased” comments. I would appreciate any comments at all. Is it a good enough song to record? Is it too slow, too fast? Should I consider a different vocalist? etc. Are the guitar parts working?

Hmf ! Won’t play. All I got was an error msg…

Quote (teryeah @ Feb. 25 2006,10:30)
Hmf ! Won't play. All I got was an error msg...

ditto

should be ok now.

Hmmm… I liked it better when the link didn’t work. Kidding :laugh:
Sorry, but I don’t think there’s much of a song happening in there. I hear a mood but not a song. Mind you, I fell off the metal wagon sometime after Master of Puppets so what the heck do I know ?

Yea, I have to say that I’m kinda on the fence with this one. I think you nailed it with “Mood”. I might back burner this one, and pull it out when I don’t have anything else to work on. (which isn’t often). I was kinda thinking there is the start of something, and that something I think I’m hearing is the “mood”.

Don’t put this away yet. There’s plenty you can do.

First off, you can improve this a great deal with reverb and compression. Listen to this: Pain remaster by Captain Damage
That’s just a quickie and bear in mind this was re-mp3’d after converting back and forth. I added some verb on the mix (Sonic Foundry Acoustic Mirror stockroom impulse), some multiband/brickwall compression - maybe a bit too much (SonitusFX Multiband), and just for kicks a little flange on the bass/drum break in the middle.

You should put some compression on the vocal track(s) to even the level out.

One thing that jumps out at me with this tune is that I felt like I expected a much angrier treatment for the vocals. IMO heavy music like this is at its best with a real bleeding-polyp-scream! Think Meshuggah, Kittie, even old Metallica (Ride the Lightning) If recutting the vocals is an option or interest, you might try for that (but don’t hurt yourself :D ). Or, if you plan on keeping these vox, you might try some processing like distortion, maybe a bandpass filter for a megaphone effect. This will tend to push it more towards an industrial sound which may not be the direction you want to go. It doesn’t have to be on the whole track though.

Again with the vocals, I thought some upper harmonies would add some contrast. In the chorus, but also in particular, the repetitions of reason felt like it should be harmonized. A thought I had was to harmonize it electronically, rather than live (I’ve harmoniozed entire choruses with SoundForge), but this would again push it towards an industrial sound.

I’m kind of a dinosaur and prefer a guitar sound with more mids, but that’s just me. I’m aware that the scoop sound is “in” these days (when I worked at the music store, kids would come in and set the amps with bass & trebble maxed and mids all the way off before even turning the amp on). Adding some mids will help them sound more defined.

The bass could use more low-mids for better thump.