Caveats:
[ul]
[li]The name, Potliquor, has nothing at all to do with either potent potables or cannabinoids. It’s a Southern thing. It refers loosely to the good stuff left over after you boil a pot of butter beans (or related food) and fatback. Great for biscuit-soppin’.[/li][li]This site was intended at the beginning as a tool for a few of us to share our musical work, since we live in different parts of the country but get together now and then to collaborate on ideas.[/li][li]The site is brand new and in an aggressive state of nondevelopment. In other words, the content is there, but it’s not pretty. I shall work on this as time/inclination permit.[/li][li]My files are the ones authored by “Tom.” You are free to download and listen to any music on the site, of course, but I reserve the right to not comment on anything not specifically authored by me. In fact, I’d prefer not to, since the other guy that has posted has considerably…odder…taste. [/li][li]I was particularly interested in critiques, ideas, and honest appraisals of the music. But keep in mind that everything up there now is sort of embryonic in nature, and was recorded by me sitting in front of my computer with guitars and a condenser mic.[/li][/ul]So, with no further ado:
My thanks in advance for gracing my humble efforts with your time, attention, and commentary. More specific comments to follow, of course, as the thread (hopefully) progresses.
Oh, I should point out that I’m most interested in commentary on the entry posted today for “Ship is Sailing,” and the entry posted for the waltz posted on May 17. There’s also a decidedly overblown rocked-out instrumental-only (so far) version of Bruce Springsteen’s “State Trooper.”
“Ship is Sailing” has lyrics, but they have not been recorded yet.
I gave them a quick listen but I’m at work sans headphones so I’ll give them a better listen tonight, maybe. I’ll reserve comment until I can hear them properly.
I know how much work goes into making your own music, trust me.
Man, this is a tough crowd. You can get a lively discussion going on the most obscure arts topic, but you can’t (or I can’t, at any rate) dredge up so much as one critique of original work. Weird.
Ship is Sailing sounds pretty damn good actually, for an unfinished song.
The lyrics could sway this one pretty sharply in either direction. You wouldn’t want to try to sound too hard over that beat, but you wouldn’t want to sound like a total pussy either. I would probably throw in at least one “fuck” just to let everyone know what ground I was standing on :).
The little refrain that happens right around 2mins45secs (and once earlier) sounds a bit Phil Collins-ish. It doesn’t really seem to fit with the song, unless you maybe have some lyrics there that you really want to make sure people hear.
Honestly, I really think it has great potential though, but I’m awaiting the lyrics for final judgement.
I just want to add in that I know this is a lame tactic used by wuss bands and I would never use that word solely for that purpose in one of my own songs. I was saying that half-jokingly but I realized it didn’t look like that after I posted it.
However, if your lyrics already have that word in them feel free to use it :).
As of right now, I don’t believe the lyrics have any profanity at all in them…which is not to say that I have any problems with it. On the contrary. This one, however, has rather defiant lyrics as it stands, without the “fucks.”
Thanks for that. I had wondered about that part. As it turns out, I also think it needs a little work. In particular, I think it takes the momentum of the song, which has built up to a nice pitch, and just kills it. It was originally meant to provide a little space between the rip-roarin’ chorus section and the last (clean guitar) verse portion, but I think it could be done in a more interesting manner.
Many thanks for the thoughts. I’m not sure when the lyrics will be added, since the guy who wrote them is not really happy with some sections yet, but trust me for now that they are really good. Typical, for this guy. He’s an amazingly talented lyricist.
Thanks in advance. As it happens, I checked your stuff out last night via your sig link. I really dig “Pay.” It reminds me of some early 90’s Ministry/Skinny Puppy/RevCo. And man, Tricky’s a real dickhole.
I also found a broken link on the song page…I think for “Dust Warrior.”
Good
The groove is really good. Although there are 3 acoustic tracks, it’s very tasteful and well mixed.
It builds well, I can see where you might want to record that electric (at the end) again, but I think it works.
The transitions are awesome. No whiplash.
The whole song is tight.
Bad
What is that midi sounding thing panned all the way to the right? It is almost distracting. I would put it back in the middle, take some trim off or something.
Rivers Cuomo called and he wants his ending back. If it were me I’d end it on that main “duh duh duh duh dum duh!” lick and kill the feedback.
the waltz
Good
The slide is awesome. What kind of guitar is that?
The mix is real good too. Not that hard, I know, with so few tracks but still good. Nothing sticks out.
Bad
A little boring. Vocal would probably fix that.
Needs a bass. Even if it’s just the root notes.
State Trooper
Good
ummm. . .
Bad
The distorted guitar up front is bad. To loud and it sounds like a $29 distortion pedal.
The panning is crazy. Is that the day you discovered panning? The panning on the “toms”* wasn’t bad but the guitar was hard to take.
Those are midi drums, right? I hate midi drums!
I didn’t even know there was a bass until the last .25 seconds of the song. Turn it up, man!
Afer listening to SiS again I realized there is a bass in there too. You really need to turn that up. (Can you guess what instrument I play? )
Ok, I’ll play. Here’s my band, Edentrap. My caveats
This site is brand new. It’s been up for about 2 weeks.
These songs are still a work in progress. The Rivers Cuomo ending to White Lies in unintentional, we just haven’t cut the beginnings and the ends (hence the drummer count offs )
Um, that’s it. I like Tempted To much better than White Lies but that’s personal. There was another song on there but it’s not ready for dogs to listen to.
Thanks. I wasn’t sure of the tack I wanted to take on the song. I had considered a wild-assed MC5-style take, or some other things. But the other day, for no particular reason, I pulled out my dusty old cassette copy of Faith No More’s Angel Dust, and was struck by something I had forgotten…that Jim Martin was 1) an absolute unreconstructed dinosaur of a heavy metal guitarist, 2) that he was SMART (not a chord out of place. He could be flashy, if it served the song, but never out of self-indulgence,) and 3) that he was a total pro. Tight as all living hell.
So I decided to try to take the same approach on the distorted portion of Ship is Sailing. Strive to be as tight and tuned as possible. I may not have completely gotten there, but I’m pretty OK with the steps I’ve taken in that direction, and I definitely think it was the right way to go for this song.
Yeeeeeeah, OK. See, here’s the thing.
The guy who wrote the song sequenced the drums, recorded the bassline (I wish it were further up in his mix…I dunno if you noticed, but it’s bad-ASS,) added all that annoying MIDI piano melody stuff, inexplicably panned it hard right, and put that long feedback ending on. He then mixed it down, passed it to me, and since we’d been working on the song for a while, asked me to flesh out the guitars and the rest of the sound. Unfortunately, I can’t get rid of the MIDI piano stuff without killing the drums, and the feedback ending is a feature of this version of the song. I just had to play along with it. I’l have to see if I can campaign for its removal.
That slide is a cheap little ToneMaster lap steel I paid $100 for in a pawn shop. Good purchase. As for the mixes, I’m a real stickler for a smooth mix, insofar as my limited technology will allow. I’ll spend hours drawing volume and pan envelopes juuuuust so (see below about State Trooper for weaselly excuses about the mix there. :)), eliminating muddy acoustic frequencies, etc., and revisiting volume levels a hundred times.
And that’s before mastering. (Note, none of these tracks have been mastered. They are all raw mixdowns from my multitracking program.)
In the waltz’s case, you’re right. It was pretty easy, given that I had, um, 4 (?) tracks total. No, 6. Anyway, I got nice hot recording on all those tracks, with no hard peaks or valleys, or noise issues, so it went pretty smoothly.
It actually does have a very low-key bass track, which I have just boosted for another mixdown on your suggestion. Thanks.
As for the lyrics, I’ve had the damn thing sitting around for years, and rejected a hundred sets of lyrics for it. Very frustrating. The song as recorded was just a skeleton V-C-V-C-V-C-C structure to have something, anything down in a usable form. Perhaps someday…
Yeah, I agree. See below. Basically a victim of too much compromise. Time to start over with fresh ideas on this one, I think.
Yeeeeah. OK, here’s the thing.
Basically, I didn’t want to wake my girlfriend up that night with my rawk and roll wailing. So I stupidly plugged in through my reissue TubeScreamer and went directly into my mixer. As a result, I got a goofy, muddy, crappy sound. I thought maybe it could pass as a fuzzed-out cock-rock opera thing, but apparently not.
And yes, same deal with this track. I tend to work a lot of songs out initially by working the structure and programming the drums and associated fill crap in Fruity Loops (with a set of Live Drum patches…they still aren’t all that great.) Yes, MIDI drums. But it’s what I have to work with at the moment.
And there’s no bass in the song, other than MIDI. Bleeech.
When we first got together and decided to cover the song, we wanted to take it in a different direction. I was playing all this ambient, loud feedbacky slide guitar. Very spooky and atmospheric. The other guys asked if I could make it more “riffy,” and after listening to the thing a million times, I finally squeezed out the stuff you hear on the track. Back to the slide for me.
OK, so my comments on Edentrap:
I only see a link to “Tempted To,” so the following comments pertain to that song.
General impression: very good quality and tightly performed. You’re a goddamned fine bass player, and whoever’s drumming has a tight, snappy sound. Very good.
This may be a stylistic choice, but the distortion sounds a little annoyingly thin to me. Maybe I like mine a little meatier, but it ends up sounding cold to me.
I love the lyrics, and the delivery. The vocal mix is excellent as well.
It sounds as if you’re going pretty heavy on the chorus on the bass and the acoustic. Again, maybe a stylistic choice, but I’d have gone a little more warm and natural. In any case, the mix sounds right, except for the little acoustic solo thingy in the middle of the song. The idea is great, but it seems to be pretty far down in the mix.
Other than minor gripes, great stuff! Love the Eden graphics.
This is an ongoing struggle we have. We are relatively new to “home recording” and are having trouble making what ends up on the cd = what we hear sitting at the board. Most of it sounds like it’s been squeezed into a martini glass, you know, like the eq looks like this / . I’ve been told this gets fixed in mastering, but I’m skeptical. I’ve been thinking about buying a P.O.S. old school jambox and monitoring through that but that seems kind of silly.
You’d never know it but we had to get him kind of drunk to go off like that. He’s a really shy guy and it’s hard to get him going. I think it worked
See above. I know exactly what you mean. Sounds perfect at the board.
It is. It was a last minute addition because the song sounds empty right there and we threw that in to fill space.
Thanks! A guy I share a room with at work did that for me in about 5 minutes. He’s amazing.
Hey Ogre, great stuff, I really liked it. Ship is sailing is catchy as hell.
Let me start off by saying that most of the people I know bang out the worst crap in programs like Reason or Acid, so you’ve cleared my first hurdle.
YOU ACTUALLY HAVE SOME TALENT!.
I’m feel somewhat limited to make some serious points, because Quicktime is popping up, and I have no concept of time. (kind of useless to say “halfway through the song there’s…”) I think Bruce actually did a good job as well, and covered the bases. My second hurdle is usually sound quality, and I have to say, I like how everything sounds. I couldn’t hear the bass too well on SIS, but I’m listening on the big speakers now, and the bass is indeed tight. I also like the dynamics, the small breakdowns and the buildups. The only thing that sounded a bit strange to me, and has already been pointed out, was the overdubbed guitar at the end. It sounded a bit “tart” to me. I’d try re-tuning it up a hair and dropping it slightly deeping in the mix. Try some slight reverb also, sometimes it can generate harmonics that might make it sit better in the mix.
Waltz -
Really like it, the sound quality is tight, and the slides are the shit.
State Trooper -
Sounds like something they play at 4:00 am before they kick me out of the bar.
Again, I like the groove, and the sonic quality sounds good to me (<snare hit>). For some reason the music depresses me a little bit, but it’s called “State Trooper”, and they certainly depress me sometimes.
I’d really like to hear this stuff with some vocals on it. That will totally make or break it.
Sorry to make this some love in, you probably wanted some constructive criticism, but honestly, I don’t hear anything on the bad side. Make sure you finish this stuff and get it out.
Check out a Sonic Maximizer by BBE or even better an Aural Exciter (Aphex), they work magic on adding life to a mix. Basically they are the last thing in the chain and are plugged into what is doing the final recording (usually a DAT) They add some nasty bottom (too nasty, you have to be carefull) and sparkle the high end. Used conservatively you’ll wonder how you lived without the thing. With mastering they compress the shit out of the mix (to make it radio friendly) and basically level out the volume of the whole album. That way song 3 doesn’t [sub]sound like this[/sub] and track 6 SOUNDS LIKE THIS! CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW, I’M TRACK MOTHERFUCKING SIX!!!
Basically we had been making beats in our house for awhile and had a small crew together. We gave out a few tapes to people, and somehow Tricky ended up with one, and for whatever reason took a liking to it. He was starting a new label that would be under Artemis records, and wanted us to do an album. Long story short, due to too many chefs in our kitchen, we had some infighting which ended up with us taking about 2 years to get the album finished. Tricky and the guy behind him, Danny Goldberg, a huge industry guy, wanted the album done fast. They ended up telling us to fuck off, when they saw that we didn’t have our shit together like we should have.
Ironically, we have some people at Sony currently interested in our stuff, and we’re having the same problems. Some people never learn. Getting signed is like winning the lotto, and yet we haven’t learned the lessons of the past.
Thanks, man. It’s a great thing to have someone appreciate your music…as I’m sure you know.
Yeah, that part will be completely overhauled. Among the things that make it awkward is the fact that I hit a passing note in there that was completely out of key. :rolleyes:
Ever heard the original? It’s a moody, late-night-contemplation sort of song. Really dark and smoky (which my little version is not…a prime reason to overhaul the whole thing.)
I’ve been looking for a solution like this too. Many, many thanks for the suggestion. I’ve been able to get a fairly warm sound to date, but it could be fuller. (And the Aphex is cheap!)
By the way, guys, speaking of gearhead talk, what kind of equipment do you use? Any secrets you’d like to share? Tips? Do you have a full-on studio, or what? Acoustic foam on the walls?
Me, for “studio equipment,” I’m running a Marshall MXL 2003 condenser mic (very good 1" diaphragm mic, and cheap too!) into a Behringer 16-channel mixer, into a Dell XP box with an Audigy 2 sound card (I’d like to upgrade to maybe a Delta-44 or something when I get the money.) I run N-Track Studio, and usually T-Raxx for mastering.
No real studio noise control or anything. No money for it.
For noisemakers, I have the previously mentioned ToneMaster lap steel, a G&L ASAT (Tele, basically. Used it for the bright-sounding reggae guitar on SiS,) a 1970’s Ibanez 335 copy for a more rockin’ sound, and various and sundry acoustics (a Yamaha classical, a Washburn dreadnought, and a Taylor 422.) I also have a banjo my grandfather gave me when he died. Swore Scruggs owned it. Dunno how truthful it is, but he’s from the right area of the country, and the banjo is a Gibson Mastertone, like Earl used to play. Oh, and I have a G&L bass with a 115 watt Peavey Black Widow (what can I say? I’m not really a bass player.) My guitars all go through a Fender Prosonic tube combo…basically a discontinued Twin Reverb, only with Celestion 10’s in it, so it can growl really, really well.
Oh, and incidentally, take a look here: http://www.prosoundweb.com/recording/tapeop/buildmic/buildmic_16_1.shtml
Instructions on building your own condenser mics and power supplies for dead cheap. I’m trying it. The guy swears by them, and I figure if I can get a good pair of room mics for $20, it’s so worth it. If they suck, well hell, it was $20.
Actually, if they’re really good, I can see me building a full set of drum mics. The mic cartridges are cheap as dirt through a supply house like Digikey.
I just wanted to pop in and say that I’ve got Ship is Sailing in my iTunes playlist and I like it very much. I like instrumental-only things anyway (I know that this piece won’t stay instrumental-only), but anyway, I like it. Quite a bit. Thumbs up!
And yes, you have talent. There’s no doubt about that. I have more respect than ever for those who create their own music since I started to tinker with Apple’s Garageband software. I did okay with the bundled loops (and my own little “melodies” on top of them) but that’s nothing compared to making it from scratch. And it has been really challenging to make something sound decent in Garageband, even though the loops do most of the work for you! (Not that some people can’t make completely abysmal music in Garageband, because oh my word, they do!) Anyway, since my recent exposure to Garageband, I have some small particle of a clue of how much hard work goes into making something sound good.
So anyway, to reiterate, yeah, you’ve got some definite ability there. I’ll look forward to hearing how Ship is Sailing progresses!
[twobirdswithonestone]
We go mic -> TASCAM 428(USB) -> Computer -> Cakewalk Home Studio. How could we use those processors, World Eater, as the last step? Computer -> TASCAM(Out) -> processor -> TASCAM(IN) -> Computer -> Cakewalk -> 1 track?
Ogre, did you check out the pictures on the website? We threw quilts over the booms around the drums! It actually kind of worked.
In fact, I’d prefer not to, since the other guy that has posted has considerably…odder…taste. [/li][li]I was particularly interested in critiques, ideas, and honest appraisals of the music. But keep in mind that everything up there now is sort of embryonic in nature, and was recorded by me sitting in front of my computer with guitars and a condenser mic.[/li][/ul]So, with no further ado:
If it were me I’d end it on that main “duh duh duh duh dum duh!” lick and kill the feedback.