[_detox]

MySpace.com - And Bring the Dark Disaster! - MAUMELLE, Arkansas - Metal / Progressive / Jazz - www.myspace.com/abtddband

This is my band. I know it's probably not something that people here will dig all that much (except maybe Winterkaelte and thisperishedmin), but it's what I do. I got a podx3 for Christmas and I've been working on making recordings for my band's EP basically since Christmas Day. We don't have any completely finished songs yet, but I like putting up the clips I have to show progress.

My recording set up is just the pod usb'd into my shitty computer (which only has 512MB of RAM right now, so it's less than desirable). I program the drums in FL Studio with DKFH, which might not be everyone's favorite, but it works REALLY well for me and if it's not broken, don't fix it right? I do the synths in there as well. After I have the drums and synth backing tracks in FL Studio, I export it as an mp3 and import it into Audacity to record guitar and whatnot.

The song that I'd like everyone to focus on is Escape. That's my newest work, and I'm REALLY proud of it. This is one of those moments where I think, if another band wrote this, I would enjoy it just as much. It's still pretty rough in my opinion, and the breakdown at the end might not be there once the song is finished.

I'd like to get some mixing tips, especially for DFKH, because I'm not sure I get it completely. I've tried using the mixer in DKFH, but it doesn't seem to make a whole lot of difference in making the drums sound more realistic. With the default mixer settings, the bass drums especially are a little flubby and I'd like them more present in the mix. For the middle ish section with the synth, in the final recording it will definitely be louder. Any other comments are definitely appreciated.

And for the record, the "i am stab in face" song is a joke song that I wrote and recorded this morning with my friend David. In my group of friends, we all like to pretend like we hate each other, and try hard to keep straight faces when we're insulting each other. The lyrics were written by David and I screamed them. The lyrics are basically a conglomeration of inside jokes..so don't worry too much about that. :P


Thanks a lot!

[ShawnFjellstad]

big points for having that electronica based intro.
seriously. awesome fucking intro.

and holy shit the beginning of what a tease is cool.

[Allen Garrow]

Nice man! I dig it! the intro to escape was leaving wondering,,,then it got a kick in the ass. I like it all....

~A

[_detox]

Thanks so much guys! Haha it really makes me smile seeing people liking this stuff.

And Shawn, the electronica is becoming more and more prominent in things that I come up with now. I absolutely love crushing melodic metal and whatnot, but I also love trance and melodic electronic stuff like that. It's my dream to combine them together without it being gimmicky.

[ShawnFjellstad]

that's been a goal of mine for a while now.
bands like drak tranquillity and in flames are good examples of what i like in that vein of music.

check out my homepage, dude. its my electronica project that i do in fl studio. let me know what you think.

[_detox]

Love it dude! That's totally the kind of electronica that I chill out and sleep to all the time. I'm more into the melodic trance lines and whatnot, but ambient and chill stuff like that really helps some time.

In Flames would do themselves a lot of good if they got that producer guy to play keyboards for them permanently in the band, it's really interesting stuff.

MySpace.com - SKY EATS AIRPLANE - FORT WORTH, Texas - Hardcore / Electronica / Metal - www.myspace.com/skyeatsairplane has some pretty neat electronic stuff in their music, but they have a little too much hardcore/emo as well.

Any mixing tips/more song comments?

[ShawnFjellstad]

thanks dude! the point of my music was to have the chill/ambient feel of a lot of electronica, while maintaining more of a directional songwriting approach.

also, my mixes are pretty bad, and i don't think i'm that great of a songwriter, so i'm afraid i'm of no help in that department.

[s7eve]

I really like what you are trying to do. On the first listen I thought this is OK not great then the guitars came in and I hated the electronica I had just listened to. I like the idea but the intro is not on the same level as the guitar, the build at the end of the intro is a bit better but the start of it brings down a great song IMO. Don't get rid of it, improve it.

[ZeroSignal]

I honestly like your music. I just think that the electronica intro in Escape is a bit of a waste of such a great intro. I'm a firm believer that the synth should be a feature throughout the song and not just an intro. Just look at These Walls by Dream Theater to see what I mean.

You're a pretty good song writer by the way.

[_detox]

s7eve: I can see what you're saying for sure, I'm a guitar player, and I have no keyboard experience at all. :P Right now my computer is less than desirable, so I'm not sure how much it can handle, but once it gets sexed up, I'll see what else I can do. Would you suggest making it longer or shorter, and more intricate or simpler? Once again, it's difficult to do a lot on my computer, but I could definitely try having different synth voices to liven things up a little.

Zero: Yeah man for sure. The synth comes up in one of the middle sections, it's just too buried (I've been meaning to fix that) and then again in the breakdown, but I'd definitely like to feature it more often. The only problem I can see is if it was a prominent instrument, I'd almost need a synth player in my band (which would be impossible to find in Arkansas, btw) or just play to samples.

Thank you guys so much for the crits and compliments.