"Headin' for the Weeds"

"Headin' for the Weeds"


hard rock, aggressive driving rhythm, anti war rant, written in '05, recorded in nov. 2011.

http://soundcloud.com/bat...8-headin-for-the-weeds

It really kicks!  Guitars are great.  Love the break before the solo and the solo.  Vocals are super. 

Rimshot

chasmcg
thanks for listening!
drums, yeah, folks always want the drums just slamming. me too!


i think if you listen to it at the volume i mixed it (just under 85 db) you'll see that the drums are well represented.

it's hard, to get that magic mix level, where everything sits just right.
still working on it.

this drum track was created in Sony Acid, and i could not remix any part of it, as i only had a stereo file to work with.
as it is, i hit it with some creative eq and multiband compression, and got a lot more out of it than the plain jane stereo file had to offer....

but i could not bring the drums up any further, without creating some masking effects, so i put it where it is.

Lynn
thanks lynn, and yes, sonar makes tracking pretty easy, that's true.
just hit the red button.


i use sonar pretty much like a tape machine....
once i get levels set right, i can really run with this thing.

i'll even do punchins, instead of comps.
i NEVER do comps. i'd rather capture one good performance, than build a track from a bunch of different passes.
old school, that way........

if i don't like something, i just play it back, cue it up, start playing along, and reach over and hit the RED button (R on the keyboard) and go to town.
just like a tape machine.
it's pretty cool.


probably the only thing i do in sonar, that's really 'modern', is the panning and volume envelopes for mixing.
i love being able to do a mix (with automation), save it and walk away from it, and later make tweaks to the envelopes as i hear it in new ways.
i'll do this a half dozen times before i consider it 'mixed'.

Nice work! I love all the different flavors and those really nice OOOs. I have to agree about the drums. It's hard to get them right but I think just 1db or 2 should do.


Really nice work!

Great tune! it ROCKS!

Great production. I love the guitar tone and riffs, and i have no problems with the drum volume, i think it's just fine, but that's me. The solo's really superb though, and the vocals are spot on too, very nice. But I don't know how to evaluate the structure and composition of the song.

Although i do want more of your power belting vocals.

benMMustech
alright NEB!
LOL
thanks man...
you know, i'm old enough to have seen the SKYHOOKS< 
they played at the jacksonville coliseum, opening for somebody i can't remember...
i always dug that guitar players style too, the guy that wore the face makeup/mime thing....
silly look, but he was tasty!

 

severed
appreciate the comments man, really.

structure and composition..... evaluation....
hm.

well, first off, it's just the way i write.
and i'm not following any formulas, and don't care about any particular genre, so i guess i'm just going for what i like.

i DO want to avoid cliches, if possible (by now, everything under the sun has been done)
and i'm trying to avoid strict genres, or anything else that would lock me into the proverbial cubby hole.

so if i did all that on this one, then i nailed what i wanted.

thanks again!

Hi BB, great stuff, needs more guitar though, .................just kidding ; )

Rik

Love that harmonized guitar squeal at 2:43.

You always capture such killer tones. Impressive stuff.

But I think the guitars dominate just a hair too much...I know if that was my axe-weilding I would put them even more front and center than you do! 

I listened to it around 85db and the drums were still too far back.

KILLER tune/performace/mix!

jamesyoyo
guitar squeals.
LOL
they're kinda cheesy, and at the same time, fulfilling.
heheh
like cheese whiz.
that's actually not a squeal...

it's a two part harmony bend.
just a straight up bend.

the solos are all DI thru a Palmer PDI-09, straight off the speaker feed on the boogie.

and well, this song IS a guitar heavy song, it's just one of those mix decisions i guess i fell into, after a dozen mix sessions, and back and forth and what not.
i know a lot of guys wanted to hear the drums louder...
but the mix landed where it did, as i heard it wanting the guitars to be the meat of the sound.
other songs on the album, featured more drum....
so part of that decision, was how it all played out with the other songs on the album.
 i mixed the entire project, with a continuous listen in mind. old school hope, that someone would actually listen from beginning to end, and get the overall vibe, instead of just having one song tell only part of the story.
\

thanks for the comments, i appreciate it.
still trying to dial things in....

drumstixkev
thanks for listening and commenting!

Sounds cool ! Are you smoking or weed wacking weeds ! LOL

This tune sounds super charged to me , nice mix its really rocks !

Radio

HEY GUYS!
thanks for reviving this thread, i thought it was long gone....


notnat
appreciate the comments...
i'm definitly trying to craft some unique sound, it's taken a long time to get it there.
 
 
radio
hehe.... whacking weeds, smoking weeds, it's all the same..
getting rid of weed.
LOL

glad you like this one
 

 
folwolfen
hey shad, thanks for your candor about the mix...
i mean, i completely disagree!
heheh 
but, everybody hears things differently...

the sonic fingerprint of this particular mix (missing high end) was intentional, a loud 'high end' would be harsh on this particular one,
mostly because of my choice of crunchy guitars and arrangement....
a lot of syncopation, and with more high end, it all gets a bit nervous and disjointed...
i wanted to the listener to focus on the 'groove' and the lyric, and the voices sounded exactly the way i wanted them.

so i focused on the hi hat sound, as a 'high end marker', and left everything else more smooth sounding, except for the vocals......

this song works best extremely loud.
then, to me, it all makes sense.

but even really loud, it sounds smooth.
that was the sound i was going for.
it IS different sounding, on the album, from the song that is in front of it, and behind it....
which was the reason for the style of mix on this one...