Merry, merry Christmas everybody! And what is Christmas without some good ol’ punk rock?
https://downloads.autostatic.com/classicyou/classic_you-it_is_christmas_all_around_(2025_edition).flac
Wrote this song two years ago for a contest and the Classic You! guys were enthusiastic about it and we even played it live at a Christmas festival at one point. Last month we were challenged to record this song for a Christmas radio show. And quite a challenge it was, getting everyone to find the time to record their parts and then getting the editing and mixing done on time. But we made it. Because of the time constraint it is not the most tight recording ever and I feel there’s still lots of room for improvement when it comes to my mixing skills.
Everything was played live in our rehearsal space, only the sleigh bellls and tubular bells come from a sample pack (the Versilian Community Sample Library). For me it was the first time I did such an elaborate recording session but it was really a lot of fun to set everything up, try stuff out (ORTF overheads, Blumlein array fro the room mics) and work with some new (well, second hand) mics. The band had a blast too and I’m really happy they all could find time in their busy schedules (work, family, kids, cats).
From the mics everything went into two Behringer ADA8200 ADAT units, connected to a RME Digiface USB which was connected in its turn to a laptop running Debian 12 with Ardour 8.12. Zero xruns, rock solid setup. Yep, much gratitude goes out to the Ardour devs, Ardour does what it has to do and it does it good.
Mixing was done with FLOSS plugins only. Mostly LSP and x42. Dragonfly for the reverbs.
Hope you like it! And again, merry Christmas and the best wishes for the new year!
5 Likes
And the lyrics! They’re inspired by all those Hallmark movies I had to watch with my wife so it’s crammed with Christmassy stuff.
It Is Christmas All Around
Deck the halls with mistletoe
Drink some eggnog and hot coco
Caroling in front of your door
Spruce or pine, Fraser Fir
Ugly sweaters and hot cider
Yuletide is never a bore
It is Christmas 2x
It is Christmas all around
Don’t you hear the sleigh bells sound
Light the tree and watch the snow fall down
It is Christmas all around
Wreaths and ornaments abound
Santa Claus is coming back to town
Call it truce under a holly twine
With Christmas cobbler and some mulled wine
Stockings hang by the fireplace, garlands too
Cookies baked, sugar iced
Pumpkin pie ready to be sliced
Through the Christmas baubles I see you
It is Christmas 2x
It is Christmas all around
Don’t you hear the sleigh bells sound
Light the tree and watch the snow fall down
It is Christmas all around
Wreaths and ornaments abound
Santa Claus is coming back to town
(Counterpoint vocals)
Gingerbread, shooting stars
The jolly season is in our hearts
Santa Claus is coming back to town
Candy canes, a snow globe from your teens
Wooden nutcracker figurines
Santa Claus is coming back to town
2 Likes
Christmas simply wouldn’t be complete without some rock solid punk rock! 
Nice one, Jeremy 
This one is a good fun listen 
Proper wee romper stomper. Excellent overall tone (love that guitar sound) and fantastic changes at around 2:30 to keep the listener on their toes…! I also really ike your clean, not-too-in-your-face drum sound.
Good stuff man Keep em coming.
1 Like
Thanks @willy_dinglefinger! Means a lot because I was a bit uncertain about the mix and some recorded parts. We’ll keep it coming, the other guys really enjoyed recording this song and I learned a great lot myself. We’re definitely going to record more songs this way.
The bridge breaks in nicely yeah. Tempo switch, Lagwagonesque riff and a solo. And thanks for the compliment about the drum sound. I initially had White Christmas by Bad Religion loaded as a reference but a sound like that is undoable for me, already on the first listen I had something like, this is so frigging loud, I can’t and won’t do it that way. I also used 8 mics to record the kit and it sounded good and natural already without any effects so I tried not to overdo it.
1 Like
Ah fantastic, good to hear recording with your band is either an arduous ordeal or great fun and if it’s the latter then yous must be doing something right.
Good…! Music has been mastered way too hot for way too long and I think it’s a fool’s game trying to keep up… Neither the artist nor mastering engineer (nor anyone else) can ultimately set the actual final loudness for the listener as it’s only the listener who has full control of the volume pot at the end of the day.
Furthermore, if you play two versions of the same tune, one hot and the other less-hot, side by side and level-matched, the less-hot version always sounds better. That’s even more true about guitar-based rock I think, including pop punk / punk rock. So in my humble opinion, it’s best to master your music a bit quieter and rest assured knowing the listener will just turn it up or down to their tastes accordingly.