Topic: Descent Community Album 2 Submission - "In Situ"

[D2Disciple]

Hey guys, this is my first original work, and I'm trying to get some input on it before finalizing and submitting it.

It's a heavy industrial tune, "In Situ," inspired by Descent. The idea was to make everything sound as massive and as spacious as possible. Lots of heavy, driving guitars.

I'm not entirely sold on the melody, and I believe I can improve on the guitar solos a bit more. Also, this was cut after only a single round of mixing, so if it sounds a bit muddy, it's because it is, and I intend to fix it as time permits. Right now, it's late, I'm tired, and I'm ready to share the not-quite-finished product with you all 

All constructive (and possibly de-constructive) criticism welcome. 

Details

[Kaiaatzl]

Aaah, I did say something about you're technically not supposed to share...
I'll let it slide cuz wanting honest feedback is an admirable thing, and I like what I'm hearing; totally a worthy addition to the album and probably to Descent 1 and a half as well.

But nobody else is allowed to do this!
On a side note, why does the TR-808 you use always sound like 128kbps mp3?  I don't know if it's the samples or just my big strange pointy standy-up ears...

[D2Disciple]

Whoops! Didn't see that in the guidelines. My bad. I'll make sure I keep the final product secret. Those guitar solos were basically scratch tracks so I could get a feel for how they should flow when I do them again for real. I've also got to do some serious mixing... A lot of volume spike issues are causing muddiness in the mix.

I'm... Not sure what you mean by TR-808... If it helps, the upload is a not-exactly-high-quality MP3, but the final product will be in lossless WAV, FLAC, OGG or whatever file type you prefer.

Edit: Apparently you're referring to the drum machines... I really just use a variety of heavily effected kits at various times throughout the song and score them all on a MIDI roll. They're all from the built-in Presence XT MIDI synth in Presonus Studio One Prime, my (free!) DAW of choice.

[Kaiaatzl]

They don't sound like horribly good samples is all.

[D2Disciple]

They're not, to be honest, but I don't have any really high grade drum software yet. One day, though, one day. 

[Kaiaatzl]

Well I may be able to help you there.
There are some really nice free drum machines on here, TS-808 in particular I've used on tracks like Dust, Discard...

http://www.vstplanet.com/Instruments/VST_Drums7.htm

The samples on this site can also do a great job with some external processing, I've used them in some older tracks and more recently, again, in Dust...
And again, totally free.

http://www.drumsamples.org/

Rrargh, you're making me want to go and write...

[-<WillyP>-]

Check out LMMS, it's free. Runs on Linux/Windows/Apple.

[Kaiaatzl]

Well I went and wrote something, I hope you're happy!
Anyhow, was going to say if you were to mix and master this the same way you did for your Descent covers, that would be more than good enough.  I really like your guitar playing btw.  That "choir" synth might sound really nice as an organ.