A couple songs recorded in my new little studio

[Beefbud]

Well I finally got to a point in my life where I have my own separate room for recording. Since I started pursuing home recording around age 16 (almost 10 years ago!) I have always been confined to my bedroom, which was a nightmare space-wise whenever I wanted to set up and play drums. Anyways, I had a housemate move out recently and I turned his room into my studio. Now that I don't have to worry about setting up and taking down and rearranging shit, I'm hoping the recording process will go much smoother. My goal is to record 1 song a week on average for as long as possible. These two songs are the result of the first two weeks:

Week 1: http://soundcloud.com/z-plan/olympics

This one's pretty mellow with some parts that overlap and such, and I sort of tacked on an improvised piano part at the end that's pretty weird.

Week 2: http://soundcloud.com/z-plan/small-town-wheels

This was my attempt at a country song, and I really like how it turned out. Inspired by my roommate who just moved across the country (and thus gave me the ability to have my own studio and record this song!)

Feedback welcome and appreciated.

[Beefbud]

Week 4 (3 was skipped because I was busy...I need to double up now): http://soundcloud.com/z-plan/heavy-metal-tenor

[Beefbud]

Week 5: http://soundcloud.com/z-plan/friend-i-know

This is a song I've had rolling around in my head for a year or two now, so I was pretty excited to finally get it recorded and be pleased with the results. You could say it's sort of Beatles-y, though that description is definitely a cop out. I was going for a sound closer to something from Mark Mothersbaugh off of the Royal Tenenbaums soundtrack, or a song off of Beck's "Mutations" that has a harpsichord in it.

Also, a bit of irony related to the song: One of the lyrics is "I wanna get struck by lightning", and I had finished and uploaded the song a mere couple of hours before the enormous storm hit the east coast last week. I was a bit scared that God might take that lyric a little too seriously and strike me down that night.

[JamesHE]

heavy metal tenor - great song. I left some comments for ya.

I like what i've heard, cool stuff.

I like a lot of those changes in "small town wheels" - drums were too roomy for me, cymbals too loud - vocal could be a bit better in spots, but I think it's good.

"Friend I know" - this one I don't like. find a key that works better for you here. transposing it up or down a half step might do the trick. try it faster as well.

[Beefbud]

thanks for listening! my biggest problem with drums is trying to get everything with two mics since i'm just using an mbox, which i usually just use a kick and an overhead so sometimes the snare gets lost a bit.

I did move the key around for Friend I Know a bit before recording; were you thinking it should be in a higher key?

[Nick Sevilla]

Hi,
I listened to "Friend I Know".
The sounds are fine. Drums are right with the other instruments.
But, as with so much music on the 'net, I find it lacking in emotion.
Maybe I'm getting old but I am used to a performance. This still sounds like you are singing it by reading the lyrics aloud. I cannot tell what the singer is feeling.
The music work as it is, I would try singing it a few more times, with more feeling of the lyrics. One of the most difficult things is precisely to have the singers' emotion come through in the performance of a song. And very often this is the part of the recording which takes the longest to commit properly.
Maybe think about a way of exaggerating what emotions you fell when singing the piece. That I think would be the best single thing you could do to that song to make it connect with the listener.

Cheers

[Beefbud]

Thanks for the comments Nick. I do feel like I normally skimp, or "settle" on my vocals since I'm not a very accomplished singer. I am going to attempt to take more time to make the vocals stronger in newer recordings, which will probably just mean I need to do a lot more punching in. I have to be honest though, and I know it's not the norm, but I am a fan of dead-pan, straight-laced, square-ass vocals, which is one reason why I don't necessarily sing with much emotion. I would much rather hear something sung in a dead-pan style than someone singing in an overly-affected manner.