Signals Without Sound - Music
polycounter lvl 18
Hey all, inspired by Rhinokey's post on his new band Battery Dog (http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=56462) I thought I would post something I've been working on.
http://signalswithoutsound.bandcamp.mu/
So basically "Signals Without Sound" has been a solo project I've been working on and off for about 2 years now (ever since I left my older band)... and it has only been recently that I've completed a full song... and thanks to MightyPea for letting us know about BandCamp, I decided to give it a try and upload my new mix.
It's a little more poppier then I usually do, but meh... at least it is somewhat full. I do vocals guitar, bass etc. and use a drum program (Beatcraft) to create the initial beat, and edit it heavily in Acid, so hopefully the basic beats don't bother you too much (next instrument to pick up is drums).
Seems like a lot of polycounters are musicians as well, so maybe we can get some more posts up, always great to hear what you guys and girls come up with
Thanks again for checking it out :P
http://signalswithoutsound.bandcamp.mu/
So basically "Signals Without Sound" has been a solo project I've been working on and off for about 2 years now (ever since I left my older band)... and it has only been recently that I've completed a full song... and thanks to MightyPea for letting us know about BandCamp, I decided to give it a try and upload my new mix.
It's a little more poppier then I usually do, but meh... at least it is somewhat full. I do vocals guitar, bass etc. and use a drum program (Beatcraft) to create the initial beat, and edit it heavily in Acid, so hopefully the basic beats don't bother you too much (next instrument to pick up is drums).
Seems like a lot of polycounters are musicians as well, so maybe we can get some more posts up, always great to hear what you guys and girls come up with
Thanks again for checking it out :P
Replies
Nice vocals, as well
Glad to see you liking Bandcamp. It's great, isn't it? The link I posted in the Battery Dog thread was my stuff, although it's all just bits and pieces I came up with on the first go, nothing finished or even planned.
i'll put my set up list and photos in my page
I use an akg mic (wide diaphragm) to record my interments and vocals, and use the creative fidelity premium sound card for input... really simple and inexpensive, but I think it works fairly well.
I see no point in getting a mixer just yet because I only record 1 thing at a time (using only 1 mic) hopefully once I get drums in the later years, I can start building a mini studio.
I listened to this and dug it.
The mix was a little rough but I liked that. Didn't feel too clean or overworked.
Keep em coming.
B
Just recorded a pretty rough take on a new song "Ghosts" - you can check it out here - http://signalswithoutsound.bandcamp.com/
This one came out of nowhere, and those are usually my favourite kind. I was sitting down working on another song, and while I was setting up my equipment, I just started playing this little rhythm (the very starting progression) and it just turned into this.
I do apologize for the nassstyyy ass huming going on, I've recently looked into getting a Pod 2.0 which will hopefully kill some of that noise, still have to figure out how to make my mic not hum as much.
I also recently bought the new cd from Tragically Hip (love these guys) and the lead singers vocals / melodies have seriously inspired me to no ends. If anyone is a fan of the Hip, or... well enjoy good music, you should check out their new CD... I suggest giving "Coffee Girl" a listen, one of the sickest choruses I've heard in awhile.
And if you want to check out another sick band for melodies... Idiot Pilot, crazy talented young guys, and some of their music just blows me away.
Hope you enjoy
only other thing i could realy thing of is maybe boost the vocals track 10-15% as sometimes it gets a bit lost. keep it coming man and ill be throwin my manties on the stage for you at some point.
I'll boost the vocals as well, still need to re-record vocals as well, as well as tighten some other things up. Good that I don't sound too much like a whiny teen, would love to get some cool rasp shit going, but meh... my voice isn't really built for that
Thanks all
So I haven't posted any new music in awhile, but I finally finished up an ok copy of my new song I've been working on, and would love to hear what you think.
http://signalswithoutsound.bandcamp.com/track/who-am-i-to-you
I still need to work on vocals, my range sucks (had to record numerous takes, and it still didn't work to well) as well as mix some more, but overall... I'm really happy on how this turned out. Slowly I am getting to the point where what I hear in my head, I can start to actually produce... still have such a long way to go though.
Hope you all like it
I just put this new recording up, covering one of my all time favourite musicians, mr Matthew Good. The song is called Apparitions, from either Underdogs (full band version) or In Coma (acoustic version).
http://signalswithoutsound.bandcamp.com/track/apparitions-matthew-good-cover
Was really excited to record this one
I just put up a very rough mix of a new song I'm very exicted about called "Broken Bones" you can listen to it here -
http://signalswithoutsound.bandcamp.com/track/broken-bones-very-rough-version
Let me know what yaaaalll think
And where the furk is the other music people!?
The *only* thing I would say is that maybe you could look into adding a bit more low end to the vocal track as it easily cuts through the rest of the mix. That may be your intention, but I personally enjoy vocals that sort of feed into the bass end a little bit more.
I LOVE the opening riff in which you let it die off for a few beats before bringing it back. Not too many people let songs go silent like that and I think it really gives that riff some bite because it comes out of silence a couple of times instead of being connected with 8th note palm mutes or something.
Lots of good stuff man, I'm listening to the rest now.
Thanks for the advice on the vocals, you are defiantly right. The vocals are temp right now, I'm still messing with frequencies as well so i'll defiantly put in some more bass. I think right now I have the EQ setup so it makes it more "tinny" cause it does cut through the other instruments (sometimes) but I will re-work this big time in the coming weeks.
Yuh Jaco, just record whatever you can... you'll get something going and then thats when the real fun begins.
http://signalswithoutsound.bandcamp.com/track/in-your-company
New acoustic song I recorded this morning, really missed playing with an acoustic guitar. Don't have to really worry about all the filler (lack of band doesn't help this either).
It's pretty cheesy, but fack it... acoustics bring out the love in me :P
On "Broken Bones", the whole track seems a little more tipped towards the right channel for some reason (although maybe my speakers sweet spot is off a bit, will have to mess around with the setup).
It also seems to be lacking some low end in general, not just the vocals, but the guitar, drums, everything really. I know it's a WIP so I assume it's just not been mastered/tweaked very much yet.
BTW, do you listen to The Dear Hunter? You should check out their new album, Act III - Life And Death, I think you'd like it. Lovely music in there. If you haven't listened to them before then get Act I - The Lake North, The River South and Act II - The Meaning Of, And All Things Regarding Ms. Leading because they're superb albums.
Also the new-ish Porcupine Tree album, The Incident, is really great for inspiration IMHO.
You know you could easily get a record deal with this, go man go!!!
Edit: you have a great voice too
Like has been said already, you need some reverb discipline. Mix sounds harsh and tinny which conflicts with the music and adds to the reverb swooshiness.
MOP - I haven't heard of The Dear Hunter before... I don't think, I'll give them a listen shortly. And sadly I don't really have the space anymore to record those songs (moved)
Porcupine Tree absolutely rocks, and I love the new albums sound, more radio friendly songs mixed with some heavy stuff, love it!
GCMP - Hahaha, thanks you good sir.
That idea right now isn't my focus... but I do think about it a lot, more so in the future though. We'll see what happens. I would at least like to get an EP out one day and see how that goes.
Firestarter - Couldn't agree with you more, for some reason I have this obsession with reverb as it seems to fatten up the sound (to me anyways) but as you and Mop have said, my sound in general is tiny... I've been trying to learn proper mixing, so hopefully it'll get better as I go along.
Thanks again all
Thanks Mop!
EDIT: Alright Mop, if you haven't listened to Finch's "Say hello To Sunshine" then you need to man, I think The Dear Hunter and Finch's sound go hand in hand (very expressive singer, fantastic instruments).
Let me know if you have listened to them before, if not I can send you some songies.
i joke, good stuff man. new song is pretty good! if i hear you bitchin we dont have time for homework, imma smack you silly
and music is more important!
GET BACK TO WORK!
AE, send me a msg later on msn and I can just zip you what I have so far. If you can just spread that link around thats all the "payment" i need you know
One day I would like to work on an EP though, but right now its not the time.
Thanks again buddy!
Quite enjoyable. Peaceful.
The cover needs some greentooth though.
I've been itching to get back into more of my "roots"... so I started working on a new "full band" song today entitled Echoes
You can check out Echoes here - http://signalswithoutsound.bandcamp.com/track/echoes-instrumental-vocals-coming
Currently its just instrumental, but the vocals are being worked on as we speak... and then I'll start properly mixing this mofo into hopefully one of my better songs to date.
Overall I'm pretty happy with the arrangement, I'm thinking this is probably one of the more catchier songs I wrote (has a couple hooks in there which I think may stick)... so yuh.
I wanted to post at least SOMETHING i've been working on since 3D seems to have taken the backburner these couple of weeks :P
I would love to know what you all sexy polycounters think.
Thanks!
I'm on a laptop with crappy internal speakers here so I don't really think I can comment on this very well, but the cymbals sounded too high in the mix to me. That might just be these speakers cutting the mid and bass ranges, though. I'll give it a proper listen on some real speakers when I get home in a couple of days.
I mean I can hear that this isn't recorded like pros, but you should put money in this tbh. You sing damn good too.
I'd like nothing more than to get a band together and play some shows though, I really miss that aspect of music.
Re...Rens?
you make me sad jason
Also you might want to read up on "shelving", where you tweak the EQs for each instrument and part so that you don't have much noise mixing together, it can help separate out each part nicely. Every instrument or part gets its own frequency range to sit in, and other stuff tries not to interfere with it, I think it results in a cleaner and broader sound and definitely helps get away from muddy mids like you say.
http://signalswithoutsound.bandcamp.com/track/echoes-vocal-rough-mix
I have had the house to myself for a week now... and Its finally given me the ability to truly "sing"... as in not worrying if Im gonna bother the roomies... and this is what I got. I haven't been able to sing this freely in a long ass time... and man, I think it had payed off.
Let me know what you think so far, still have to work on bridge, harmonies as well as overall mixing.
Are you micing your amp or doing DI? If you're micing what kind of audio interface are you using?