A bit of '80s-style Power/Thrash Metal from a resident brony

[Thrashy 2,800]

As one of the lead writers of this song - and out of a need to promote independent artists - I feel it is here that I should share with you all the release of my band's first ever single, the titular track from our self-produced debut album-in-progress, Bringers of Dusk:

 

 

We will be working on mixing more of our songs to release periodically over the Summer, so if you like what you hear, give our page a Like on Facebook to stay abreast of our up and coming releases.

 

If you don't like what you hear...well, can't please 'em all, now can we?

 

Lyrics:

 

“Bringers of Dusk”

Harshly burning light
It floods throughout the land
Priestess of Ahelle
Her judgment’s close at hand

We all know what it is
This madwoman intends
What she perceives as sin
Shall be mercilessly cleansed

(Shield your eyes)
For fear that you’ll be stricken blind
(Search the skies)
O, valiant heroes we must find

Gone are all
Hopes and dreams
They’ve been left to rust
Freedom’s end
Now draws the night
We call to the bringers of the dusk

Theocratic reign
All dissenters to be silenced
Magic of a tyrant
Leaves us dull and mindless

Never-setting suns
Bringing drought and famine forth
Southern nations waging war
Against their brothers to the North

 

(Bow to her)
Now that all hope is running dry
(End of days)
Punished by unabated light

Gone are all
Hopes and dreams
They’ve been left to rust
Freedom’s end
Now draws the night
We call to the bringers of the dusk

 

(Solo)

 

(Shield your eyes)
For fear that you’ll be stricken blind
(Search the skies)
O, valiant heroes we must find

 

Gone are all
Hopes and dreams
They’ve been left to rust
Freedom’s end
Now draws the night
We call to the bringers of the dusk

 

Edited May 13, 2013 by Lowline

[Twiliscael 3,960]

Wow, I like this quite a bit. Plus, it's produced pretty well. You don't always get that from self-produced independent artists. 

 

The guitar parts are solid, the bass tone is good, and the drumming sounds pretty solid. I personally am not a fan of the vocals, but like you said, you can't please everyone

[Yamato 1,348]

Wow, I like this quite a bit. Plus, it's produced pretty well. You don't always get that from self-produced independent artists. 

 

The guitar parts are solid, the bass tone is good, and the drumming sounds pretty solid. I personally am not a fan of the vocals, but like you said, you can't please everyone

 

I agree with this man completely. The music itself is excellent, I mean excellent, but I'm not a huge fan of the vocals. It definitely hits that "80's style" you referred to in the topic title, though.

[uuunph 288]

I'm not sure what's wrong with the style of vocals, because I love early power metal that sounds like that. I do however, think that the vocalist is overshooting himself a bit with the higher stuff. Audible strain in the higher notes. I totally get the sound he's doing though. Not at all saying he's underwhelming though. Getting that high modally in the first place is buttfuckingly difficult. Like, seriously, E5's.

 

Bassline is awesome too. Gain is loud as it should be on the bass, which is kinda rare now since everyone decides to ramp gain up on the other instruments so high. It sucks, really. You can't even hear the bassist in a lot of newer works. Good to avoid that here. Instrumentation sounds quite professional though; it's some well produced stuff.

 

Cover art is very 80's. Nice. Teravolt. Gamma Ray?

[Thrashy 2,800]

Wow, I like this quite a bit. Plus, it's produced pretty well. You don't always get that from self-produced independent artists. 

 

The guitar parts are solid, the bass tone is good, and the drumming sounds pretty solid. I personally am not a fan of the vocals, but like you said, you can't please everyone

 

I agree with this man completely. The music itself is excellent, I mean excellent, but I'm not a huge fan of the vocals. It definitely hits that "80's style" you referred to in the topic title, though.

Haha, thanks, I'm glad you guys think the instrumentation is good. Still doesn't sound anywhere near as well-produced as some of my own favorite bands, but that's only to be expected in a do-it-yourself environment with no big label backing you. But as long as it sounds clear enough for people to enjoy it, I guess we're on the right track to getting noticed! 

 

And yeah, this vocal style isn't quite for everyone...but, I'm optimistic that he'll do more justice to songs where he actually gets to write the vocal melodies, since this song's main line was written by our former vocalist who had a totally different vocal style...and like the dicks we are, we kinda gave the new guy the awkward task, "Feel free to insert your own style, but stay generally true to the original."

 

I'm not sure what's wrong with the style of vocals, because I love early power metal that sounds like that. I do however, think that the vocalist is overshooting himself a bit with the higher stuff. Audible strain in the higher notes. I totally get the sound he's doing though. Not at all saying he's underwhelming though. Getting that high modally in the first place is buttfuckingly difficult. Like, seriously, E5's.

 

Bassline is awesome too. Gain is loud as it should be on the bass, which is kinda rare now since everyone decides to ramp gain up on the other instruments so high. It sucks, really. You can't even hear the bassist in a lot of newer works. Good to avoid that here. Instrumentation sounds quite professional though; it's some well produced stuff.

 

Cover art is very 80's. Nice. Teravolt. Gamma Ray?

Yeah, we were kind of pushing our singer to his limits in the relatively short amount of time we could get him in the studio. In some cases I think the vocal strain kind of works to inject a sense panic or urgency, but...yeah, no, his voice was pretty shot by the time he was done with those higher screeches.

 

And as the bassist, I'm really glad you dig the bass tone, that was one of the last EQ issues we tackled as far as instrumentation goes, and I was slightly worried it wouldn't punch through the mix quite well enough. But now that I have others' opinions on it, I'll use the EQ settings on my bass as a template to use for future songs.

 

...And yeah, our friend who designed the artwork is a nut for bands like Gamma Ray and Hammerfall. XD

Edited May 13, 2013 by Lowline

[DusK 1,264]

The quality, I'm sure you'd be forced to admit, goes far beyond amateurish.

 

I've dealt with so many bands and guys that claimed to be "experienced" in music production, only to under-deliver on their talk, and I was honestly hoping you wouldn't be one of them. The quality here, unlike your prior claim otherwise, may not be the worst I've ever heard (I am a brony music critic, after all), but it's still a far cry from being anything higher than amateurish. The writing's great, but the production is less than I was expecting. Which is saying a lot, because I wasn't expecting much.

 

The most obvious issue is the lack of stereo attention, especially in the center-panned, ill-mixed guitars. Double-tracked hard-panned rhythm guitars are the industry standard for a pretty obvious reason now, and I know you can manage it, so I highly suggest you do it, because having everything dead-center just makes for a simultaneously muddy and empty track all-around. And no, don't make the common mistake of assuming you can just dupe a take and hard-pan it; it's the slight differences in each take that end up making hardpanning sound so good, so full in a mix.

 

Despite the guitar tone being almost entirely high-end, there's a distinct lack of attack throughout the track. Your harmonic ranges (referenced as "presence" on most amps) are way too high; they should be fairly even with your mid-ranges in leads, and virtually absent in rhythm guitars to account for double-tracking in the same way gain should be reduced (though you didn't do that here, so those two things should be something you should keep in mind when you finally do decide to get around to that). Your rhythm guitar would also benefit quite a bit from some mid-low, but if you're gonna bring some bass into your rhythm tone, make sure you do a surgical, low-Q cut wherever palm-muting lights up your visualizer, and a wider-Q drop to carve space for the bass guitar.

 

Vocals are a bit pitchy in some spots. Gsnap's free. Slap that on the vocal track just past the EQ and compressor in your effects chain and set it to a modest and delayed setting to take care of that pitchiness.

 

Speaking of EQ, there's a lot wrong in that department. The lows and mid-lows are virtually non-existent, except in the vocals (which is actually a bad thing in that regard, more on that a bit later), and every guitar tone you have going on here is almost nothing but high-end. The only thing bringing any mids to the track are the vocals. Even your bass tone is missing critical 100-200Hz love.

 

Your bass guitar, btw, is lacking low-bass definition. It's different for most basses, but its core tone usually sits around 80-150 Hz. Having some high-end in the bass is great for bring out out attack and clarity the way you did here, but it really should be your compressor that does that for the most part, not your equalizer. You get the rest of your instruments right in the mix, and a low bass should end up nice and clear without the need for an excessive mid or high-end push, and if you get your compressor set up correctly, with a nice slow attack on the comp and a quick release, attack in the bass tone itself won't be a problem either.

 

Your vocals are phasing as well. Unaligned sibilances and plosives are clashing in every single vocal harmony section. When you work with a vocal harmonies the lead's supposed to be the star, and sibilance and plosives define presence in a track for vocals just as much as your warmth and clarity ranges. The lead vocals should retain them, the harmonies should see them dropped. Take a look at where your vocal harmonies are lighting up on those heavy consonants (usually around 8KHz to 10KHz) and drop them. Your backing vocals bring in too much mid-low as well, creating this uneasy boxiness during the harmonies. This mid-low boxiness is present in your lead vocal as well, turning what was likely a great vocal performance during tracking into an off-putting vocal track in the final mix. That, coupled with the complete lack of pitch correction (and don't go on about it being "unnatural" btw, literally every single professionally-produced band you listen to applies pitch correction to some extent in their recorded music) and a lack of careful effects placement to accent your singer's style, is why people in this thread are a bit off-put by the singer in this track; not because he's bad, but because you made him sound bad in the mix.

 

Drums are something you almost got right. That snare sample is rather weak and dry. You definitely have the right idea with a "clicky" kick, but it's just not prominent enough in the mix as-is.

 

I know this all may come off as a tad insulting, especially that opening paragraph, but you talked a lot of talk prior to this track's release, and to see you unable to deliver on all that talk is not only unsurprising, but saddening. All of you clearly have the base talent required to put some fantastic stuff out there. But you, as a producer, lack drive and discipline, instead replacing it with what is now revealed to be stubborn pretentiousness.

 

Given what you've posted in a couple of threads already, I have a feeling that everything I've posted about this track, all of the advice I just shot your way that could make this track leaps and bounds better than what it is now, may pour over your eyes and not make a single difference to you, and you'll still insist that this piece of amateur work is somehow anything but. But keep in mind that there are two things a musician can do when provided with knowledge from one more experienced than himself: He can either take that knowledge and apply it to his own art to better himself, or he can stubbornly refuse that knowledge and bang his head against a wall. The former creates good musicians, the latter slows personal progress in music, often to a complete halt.

 

Don't stifle your creative output by being stubborn. You won't go anywhere doing that.

Edited May 14, 2013 by DusK

[Crispy 5,563]

Well, I was gonna go ahead and say the mix was off, but Dusk destroyed me with inside knowledge and a lot more insight than I had to give.

 

The tl dr from me is the vocals are too loud and everything else is under represented.

[Thrashy 2,800]

Well, I was gonna go ahead and say the mix was off, but Dusk destroyed me with inside knowledge and a lot more insight than I had to give.

 

The tl dr from me is the vocals are too loud and everything else is under represented.

That's pretty much what I had felt about it myself, gonna have a talk with my peeps about attenuating the vox a bit.

 

Thanks to all for the constructive feedback, by the way.