First Song - Feedback Requested

[jpat54]

First post here on TGP - as I play more than bass I figured I could get some use from visiting other forums than TB also. But anywho...

Title says it all. This is our first song as a band and we're wanting honest feedback from people who actually know stuff about music. Honest, yet not cruel and degrading please.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08BfN_nkuUM

Sorry for the annoying little kid during the breakdown before the solo... our drummer's little brother's friend wouldn't let us be the entire time we were trying to do this.

We're writing more stuff as we're getting together more. We have some more gigs set up for the future, and are actually have made it to a final round in a Battle of the Bands in Iowa.

[Shiny McShine]

That worked well. The solo was cool. The idea was thematically strong yet simple. Everyone's pretty tight on it. I liked the wah too.

Whatever you were doing with the vocal worked. I don't know if it was just mike clipping or you were using a fuzz pedal but I liked it. Try to remember how you did that for the future.

Get a couple of little stage lights--one with a yellow and the other with a purple gel and put them on the floor below you and point them up at your faces. This will eliminate the darkness in your faces. Next, line up on the paintings/posters in the back so that they each frame your heads.

The bass player had some cool disinterested looking expressions he did accidentally I think. Figure out how to look that way more often because it was hip looking. It seemed like he was sort of starting to sneer a little bit at the whole thing.

I like the ambient miking you did. That happens to be one of my favorite sort of raw drum sounds. The kit sounded alive and the rawness works for this sort of sound.

If you could get a little more separation between the guitars that'd be cool too. In other words, just put the amps a little more to the left and right.

I also liked the way vocal seemed like you were just talking to audience yet you were singing. Keep working at this; it's a good fit for you.

[jpat54]

Thanks. The bassist is actually me haha. We recorded through Audacity actually and synced it with a recording of the drums. With the vocals, out mic crapped out on us, so we had to end up using a Rockband mic through the USB slot... didn't work out too well IMO.

[Shiny McShine]

Disagree on the vocal recording. This sort of distortion can be an effect itself. See Neil Young's Southern Man for an example of how an impedance mismatch became history (I'm not really into this song at this point though; even Neil says it's past its use date).

Doing pop is about achieving a sound, not so much about pure music or recording technique. You have actually achieved a unique sound here.

[jpat54]

Anyone else have opinions?