Delta Witness

[Xephyr]

Alright everyone, my band has now finished recording a Christmas album!

If you like Christmas music, you'll surely enjoy listening to this. The album's called A Christmas on Osprey Pass, and it'd be wicked awesome if you downloaded and gave us your opinion (download is completely free. Don't take it for granted, some day it may not be free!)

Track Listing:
1. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
2. Silent Night
3. Blue Christmas
4. Holy Night
5. Brighter Skies II (remix of a song on our first album)
6. Hark The Herald Angels Sing
7. Memories (remix of a song on our first album)
8. Carol of the Bells
9. Christmas Medley (Let It Snow, Winter Wonderland, Deck The Halls, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Have a Holly Jolly Christmas)

You know you wanna get in on this action. Here's a download link to A Christmas on Osprey Pass:

http://www.mediafire.com/?r34c6mzypdhcl0h

Check it peeps. And if you want to check out our first, full length album, Surface Tension, here's a download for that:

http://www.mediafire.com/?22coxcs9sub5tun

Alright, well that's all I have to say. Adios.

 

[Jason]

Before I download it, I'd just like to know, what genre of music would you put your band into?

Also, I didn't even know you were in a band o.O

 

[Xephyr]

Well, here's one of the songs off of our first album:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQlwppiJuCg

Most of our music falls under this type of category, which is classic rockish

 

[Jason]

That was actually pretty good, think I'll download your albums and listen to them later on while I'm not playing vidyah gayumz

 

[Toams]

hey i listened to this a while ago but you didnt visit the forums for some time,
cool stuff though. Definetly sounds like something close to professionalism
not really there yet, but coming close!
i say get a label and go for it.. ;D

 

[Brewmeister]

I listened to "Nobody". I really like the song. Sounds more like Irish Folk in style.
The mix is pretty good, everything is mostly well balanced.

It's a little bit on the 'trebley' side overall.
The reverb/echo on the first guitar makes it sound like it's in a tin can. (more subtle)
The electric guitar that pounces in about 3/4 through the song is clipping. Try to adjust the input levels to avoid the recording distortion.
Sounds like the vocals are drifting a smidge sharp in the lower registers. (I think this is what they mean by, "Pitchy")
A good pair of headphones used as a monitor while recording can really help here. Vocalists MUST learn to listen to themselves while singing.
The end is abrupt. Could be intentional, but I think it would sound better with a fade-out.

Cool tune, nice arrangement, interesting lyrics.

I'll try to listen to the rest & let you know what I think.

Rock On!

 

[Xephyr]

JBrist: Aight bro, that'd be awesome!

Tomas: Actually, I do still come here quite often to lurk and whatnot. I came back to RPG Maker recently and have been working on a game behind the scenes lately and whatnot.

And thanks for the compliment! The funny thing is...we're just two 16-year old boys with crappy recording equipment that we use in my friend's kitchen. Considering those conditions, yes, I'd LOVE to be able to get a recording contract haha.

Brewmeister: I'm fairly sure on the album the end isn't so abrupt. Don't quote me on that though, I'll have to listen to it again haha.

Thanks for the compliments! I don't want to make any excuses, but there's only so much we can do with like a twenty dollar microphone. Money is a serious issue here, but we still keep making music with the hopes that the right person here's our stuff and hooks us up with a contract.

I'll take your advice regarding the clipping. I've never known what to do about that, to be honest.

 

[Brewmeister]

Xeph, no worries. I was trying to be more helpful than critical. :scruff:

I do demos with a cheap Radio Shack mic & my laptop using Audacity to record.
Obviously, you can't get the quality of a $1000 Sennheiser in a studio, but there are a few tricks.

If the software you're using to record has an input adjustment, sing at the loudest volume you will use in the recording, and adjust the input so it doesn't peek into the red.
Watch your distance from the microphone. Put a screen (make a cheap one with some thin material & a coat hanger if you have to) to keep the singer from getting too close. Or just get used to "Microphone Control".
For example, in "Oh Holy Night", every time the vocalist goes 'forte' (loud), you can hear the clipping (crackling / static sound). She should be backing up a little bit from the microphone on these notes.
It takes a little experimenting to get used to, but it's a necessary skill to perfect if you're going to perform. (Unless you want to piss off your sound engineer, which is never a good idea.)

As for the 'pitch' thing. Unless you have 'perfect pitch', which very few people do... It's just a matter of practice, and learning to listen to yourself when you sing.
Use headphones when you record, and make sure you can hear your voice coming through the mix (over the sound reverberating in your skull.), and you can hear the melodic music tracks. Bass always seems to pull me off key, so I never put any bass instruments in my monitor mix. Even on stage, I try to make sure the bass amp is not pointing right at me.

Learn to be really picky on your demos. This week I went back & listened to some demo tracks we did a couple months ago, and discovered a few things that just weren't quite right. So I fixed them before burning new demo CDs. It helps to give yourself a break too. Do your recording one day, then come back later to do your mixing & mastering. Then come back again another day to review & tweak.

Keep practicing, you'll get there!

What kind of setup are you using to record?

 

[Xephyr]

These are some mighty fine suggestions you're handin' me here, Brewmeister. You're the first person that's actually like...given us suggestions on how to be better at recording. Which basically means you're cool and stuffs.

To anyone that wants to hear more of our stuff on Youtube, here's the entire band (yes, the band is only two people) playing one of the songs off of our first album for you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-n_Jw3T9omc

I'm the one on the right playing the guitar. And if you're wondering, I dropped my pick into the hole of the guitar. That's why I started cracking up at the end of the video.

 

[Xephyr]

Some interesting news with my band!

First off, we changed up some band members and changed the name of the band to commemorate this change to Delta Witness. I know, it's pretty awesome.

We're working on our next album which will contain more of our awesome stuff with better quality and better songwriting.

We also got a new Youtube channel! Here's a video of me playing the guitar part to one of our new songs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRcXixawUYU

Be sure to thumps up the video and subscribe!