How to make Bad Dudes sound Tougher?

[dgerch]

Hi, I'm in a band called Bad DUdes and we recently recorded. We played the songs ok but I asked the engineer to give us a totally pristine, seperated recording. He did it perfectly, the only problem is that whenever I play this stuff for anyone they say it sounds like Nintendo Music:

http://www.baddudes.us/recordings/rec-cover.html

I hate Nintendo Music and I love Led Zeppelin and Black Flag. How can we mix/overdub this stuff to sound less clever and more savage while retaining the arrangements and harmonies?

[Everybody's X]

cant get the link to work

[dgerch]

Does the link work now?

[tiger vomitt]

the highs are kind of muted, which helps it sound mellow. it's also pretty clean for what youre describing. the drums dont have a lot bite, the clean gtrs are really clean. the bass sound and low end in general are good

a nice splatter of spring reverb might make it sound louder. a fancier reverb might make it sound more ... reverb-y, not really louder. maybe. something like that.

how was it recorded? i have other ideas but id like to hear how it was done first

[dgerch]

We recorded at singing serpent in San Diego where Blackheart procession records and stuff.

Basically, I wanna know, can we salvage these recordings and mix them.overdub them to sound more like Led Zeppelin/ACDC/Daft Punk or should we rerecord them enitirely?

Hey you're from Brooklyn, Bad Dudes just got off a west coast tour with Brooklynites Breaker Breaker. Know those guys?

[dgerch]

Oh yeah, we recorded all digital and did the drums in a pretty tight sounding room (Not a lot of ambience or reflection). Other wise the whole process was pretty standard. Any questions in particular?

[tiger vomitt]

i would say re-recording will get you there more easily (i get the impression your band is very tight, so the performance part of recording probably wouldnt be TOO hard). i think you may be able to salvage what you've got but it wont be easy.

1st thing to do if trying to salvage, is definitely dump to tape. especially the drums. i could hear the digital thing a mile away but i didnt want to be obnoxious and say it like that. anyway, you're hearing why people dont like recording drums and most other rock stuff to digital.

if you dont mind my asking, what made you choose the studio you did? it seems to me a band like yours would have certain requirements upfront (based on what youve said here) - at least 1" 16 track tape, big sounding room, etc

if im picking out a studio for a similar kind of sound to what you described i would avoid digital recording (for basic tracks at least) and i wouldnt track in a small dead room if possible.

gotta run, no time to re-read this. id love to hear what you end up with, post back ok? good luck!!

[ryan_c]

My question is: If your band is called Bad Dudes, why wouldn't you want to sound like a Nintendo game?

[Lostboy]

i really liked these songs. i think they have character ... i like that i can't really place the songs in a narrow range of influences (like i would be able to if they sounded like AC/DC and zeppelin, or some version of classic/hard rock). maybe it sounds a little like one of mike patton's bands, but not in a bad way.

about the whole "nintendo music" thing: i'd say this has more to do with the kind of synth sounds and your energetic, jumpy, stop-start arrangements than it does with the way it was recorded. i can see the comparison to nintendo music, but i wouldn't take that as a need to re-record the songs! so what if your songs sound like nintendo music? they're still good!

so my advice, which may be totally unhelpful, is just to keep the songs as they are. they are unique! i think you should be proud of them.

[swedishstudios]

Dude these songs are so cool. You guys remind me of "Cap'n Jazz/The Owls" with a slash of "The Locust". You guys are so tight which makes the music ten times betta. I love the assortment of synths mixed with the crazy/riffy guitar going on. Nice work dude(s).

swedish

[jca83]

yeah man! these songs rock. i'd say, embrace the nintendo!

or just some reverb like such-and-such said, that'll beefen up the drums especially.

[A.L.]

man you're really in for it. You hate Nintendo music, but as ryan_c noted your band shares the name of one of the greatest cult-classic video games of all time.
http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?let ... me_id=6991

You're never going to stop hearing the Nintendo music thing, since every geek in the world will think you named your band after a video game anyways. And I agree, it seems like the nintendo-fying is in the playing not the recording to me.

Awesome songs anyways. woo!

[tiger vomitt]

i assumed they were named after the game

the playing is definitely nintendo-ish. but that doesnt mean the sounds have to be really small, thin and dry when he's looking for big, fat and roomy.

[dgerch]

First off thanks for all the help and kind words. I really appreciate it. Yeah I know there's the video game bad dudes, but that's honestly not what we we're going for....

I think the video gamyness is due to the fact that the music is kind of classical (we wanted that to be in a melodramatic blonde redhead way, not legend of zelda, but whatever) and that the precision and thinness of sounds adds to it too.

We have a $3500 dollar budget to record an album and I really want it to be a physical sounding record that rocks people. Maybe going analog is the way (But it would be harder to fix mistakes that way) and giving the guitars more distortion and keyboards more thick daft punk sounding tones.

If this record could be recorded in any ways I would pick the extremes between the ambient heavyness of Zeppelin and Sabbath as well as the airtight thickness of Daft Punk or Chronic 2000. Is that totally senseless?
Any Ideas?

[ryan_c]

Ok, I actually listened to the songs this time, while it's not worth anything, here's my two cents:

$.01 You don't sound anything like Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath. Like at all. Your songs are really fucking tech math rock and your recording sounds like a Pat Metheny record. They do sound a lot like old video game music, which I don't think is a bad thing. "Heavy" isn't a word that I'd use to describe them, though.
$.02 If you want to butch them up, I agree with Tiger. Re-record them. Don't be afraid to crank the gain on your amps. Lots of distortion and feedback are your friends. Get a beefier drum sound. But note that they'll be totally different songs than they are now. If you're cool with that, go for it. I don't know if that will make these songs better or ruin them, it will most likely be one or the other. There will be a night and day difference, though. If you're looking for a physical record, you want to think Daughters, not Manhattan Transfer. Just try and rock as hard as possible and make as much noise as you can.