My band's new EP for free

Corey Y · December 16, 2011, 05:00:12 PM

This isn't stoner rock, but I know some of you guys dig on fast punk/hardcore/grindcore type stuff as well. So I figured I'd post this, since it's short (10 songs in about 7 minutes) and free. So if you hate it don't worry, it will be over soon. I played bass and recorded it.

http://mentalwaste.bandcamp.com/

VOLVO))) · December 16, 2011, 05:09:57 PM

this fucking rules, dude! Reminds me of wolfbrigade a little bit.

Metal and Beer · December 16, 2011, 06:38:23 PM

Hell yeah I dig me some ragin' crust. My craptop speaks are preventing me from hearing some sweet grindcore fuzzbass attack though...

Corey Y · December 16, 2011, 06:49:33 PM

Glad you dudes are digging it. I have almost no one locally to play it for who wouldn't frown and shake their head.

I actually go fairly clean for my bass tone with that band. I used to be in a similar sounding band with the same guitarist/singer where I used insane over the top bass distortion. I just went with a little bit of tube amp type grit on this. I might change my mind and go nuts on the next one, who knows. I'm a fickle bas(s)tard.

Hemisaurus · December 16, 2011, 08:09:34 PM

Quote from: Metal and Beer on December 16, 2011, 06:38:23 PM
Hell yeah I dig me some ragin' crust. My craptop speaks are preventing me from hearing some sweet grindcore fuzzbass attack though...

There's these things called headphones

Metal and Beer · December 16, 2011, 08:34:34 PM

The headphone jack is damaged, Pierre. You should see this craptop, it looks like it was used as body armor in a shootout

Hemisaurus · December 16, 2011, 08:49:33 PM

Mine died after one headbutt too many. It had an external power jack, on a piece of cable caulked to the case. If you have a working USB jack, they have USB sound things for under $10.

$2.14 shipped to your door.

Hemisaurus · December 16, 2011, 09:00:18 PM

I like it. You feel like being really geeky and telling us in depth how you recorded it? Start a Tape-Op thread

Corey Y · December 16, 2011, 09:17:37 PM

I can get into the recording process in depth, but you might be disappointed. No analog or tubes whatsoever.

Hemisaurus · December 16, 2011, 11:29:07 PM

I would not be dissappointed, I'm not a tube / tape fetishist, just curious.

If there's a microphone used, or a string plucked, or a drum hit, you've got analog

I was referring to the magazine Tape-Op, not to any useage of a tape machine. Sort of interview yourself, how did you mic each instrument, did everyone play their parts together, etc, etc. Cheap mic that surprised you, best bit of software, yada, yada. What do you plan to do next time, what gear was a let down.

Corey Y · December 17, 2011, 12:36:30 AM

Oh yeah, I know, I'm a TapeOp subscriber/forum member. You got it, here's a rundown.

The whole thing was recorded in Logic 9 on my iMac, using a Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56 interface. Onboard preamps only, no outboard gear. The vocals were recorded with an EV RE-20 mic, guitars and bass were recorded direct. The guitar was a stock Squier Affinity Fat Strat (bridge PU), the bass was a Carvin SB4000 (neck PU) in drop D tuning. The drums were Toontrack Superior Drummer 2.0 (default Avatar kit), with the beats comprised of a mix of the Library Of The Extreme and Songwriter's Pack 2 midi packs, with some editing and some additional midi sequencing by me to fit certain parts.

Most of the plugins used were bundled Logic ones, with the exception of the URS Strip Pro.

The guitar signal was split to two separate tracks:

Guitar 1 (LEFT): Pedalboard (Hi-Drive Treble Boost) > Amp Designer ("Vintage British Head", speaker emulation disabled) > Redwirez impulse via Space Designer (Hiwatt 4x12 Vintage Fanes + SM57)

Guitar 2 (RIGHT): Pedalboard (Hi-Drive Treble Boost + Happy Face Fuzz) > Amp Designer ("Vintage British Head", speaker emulation disabled) > Redwirez impulse via Space Designer (Orange 4x12 V30 + SM57)

The bass signal was split into two separate tracks:

Bass 1: Bass Amp (Rock Stack)

Bass 2: Amp Designer ("Sunshine Head", speaker emulation disabled) > Redwirez Impulse via Space Designer (SVT 810 + Senn 421)

I used URS Strip Pro for buss compression, filtering (low and high cut) and EQ on the drum, bass and vocal groups. Fairly mild compression and eq on the drums, a lot more surgical on the bass and vocals, with a touch of fuzz from Pedalboard again added to the vocals for grit.

As an overview of what was used, very bare bones, but it was mostly all in the mixing itself. I use very low levels, since digital doesn't have much of a noise floor, and give myself a lot of headroom to work with. I did a lot of fine tuning with each settings and how everything interacted in the signal chain. There was a lot of trial an error. I did some reamping and tried out different solid state and tube heads, real pedals, but in the end I was able to get a sound I liked and felt worked for the music all in the box. The Redwirez cab impulses made a HUGE difference though. I probably did about 5 totally different sounding mixes before getting to the final one. It was an exercise in trying to get the best possible sound completely in the box and relying on the mix. Usually I'm very minimal with mixes and like to get everything squared away in the room, so it was a fun diversion from that.

The next time I might go in a completely different direction. It's just a fun project where we try to keep everything fast paced on the writing and playing side of things to keep it exciting. Pretty much all the guitar parts were recorded in one take as soon as they were done being written.

jibberish · December 17, 2011, 04:07:34 PM

that was a cool read. thx for the effort of writing that up. now i have to listen to it some more ...

edit: btw, the series of <1minute tunes is an interesting idea. made a mental note of that for possible use myself.

VOLVO))) · December 17, 2011, 06:00:55 PM

I downloaded that blast pack a while ago, holy shit is it fun.

This is what I did with it.

Corey Y · December 17, 2011, 06:10:39 PM

Yeah it's a great midi pack. You can use it for a lot different styles too, with a little editing.

grimniggzy · December 17, 2011, 06:20:11 PM

Way into this! Good job, man. It sounds great.

Hemisaurus · December 17, 2011, 06:31:29 PM

I've only had it on in the car, a few times, quiet-like because of the kid, but you'd never know it was done in the box.

Ayek · December 17, 2011, 06:34:58 PM

This is something I can dig. Good job on keeping a good amount of rawness to it

VOLVO))) · December 17, 2011, 09:18:10 PM

I may go ahead and write a grind album, haha

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

Hemisaurus · December 17, 2011, 09:37:35 PM

I was thinking it would be great on a split 7", you can get 6-7 minutes on one side at 33rpm I think. Two bands, two albums, one 7".

Corey Y · December 17, 2011, 10:01:12 PM

I want to do a split with another band, if we can find one interested. We're already working on new material. All our songs are short, so it would be easy to pack a lot of songs on one side of a 7".

You should do it Jake. Just start writing.

Hemisaurus · December 18, 2011, 10:49:43 AM

Yep, that should totally fit, most companies recommend no more than 6.30

VOLVO))) · December 24, 2011, 12:12:36 AM

Man, I wish I could do vocals.

hashbrowns · December 31, 2011, 01:00:33 AM

Quote from: SunnO))) on December 24, 2011, 12:12:36 AM
Man, I wish I could do vocals.

Just throwin this out there but I like to growl, rasp, scream, shout, all that good stuff. If you wanna collaborate over the internet let me know theres probably some way I could lay down some brutal vox.

peyotepeddler · December 31, 2011, 01:40:57 AM

holy shit, just saw this, very nice indeed!

the attitude and delivery is great!

Corey Y · December 31, 2011, 03:51:52 AM

Quote from: peyotepeddler on December 31, 2011, 01:40:57 AM
holy shit, just saw this, very nice indeed!

the attitude and delivery is great!

Thanks, we've probably got the most amount of listens/downloads from here, oddly enough. Since we don't play live and don't have many connections with similar sounding bands it's hard to get the word out. We did get a positive review online recently, which was cool. Just started writing new material for the next release today too, trying to keep the momentum going.