First attempt to make something out of the recordings we did in our rehearsal space back in May. We did like 12 songs and about 3 takes of each song in one day. I did mic the drums the day before but all the other instrument mics were setup on the recording day itself in a pretty quick fashion. So don’t expect a super duper recording quality. It’s also not super tight, we did use a click track but we also played everything live so there are some mistakes and rough edges here and there. We had a great time again though. Hopefully we can use some of these tracks as a pre-production so any studio where we might end up for recording our first full length gets an idea of what we’re doing.
Classic You! is my punk rock band, think Pennywise, Bad Religion, Offspring, sometimes referred to as “skate punk”.
Recorded and mixed with Ardour and FOSS plugins only. I’m still learning, I find mixing this kind of music very challenging. The song itself is about getting choked in a corporate environment.
Wake up in the morning
And I’m feeling quite OK
Think I’ll roll another number
To make it through the day
Or maybe just a cup of coffee
To reset my mind
I could also not take anything
And just feel undefined
No I don’t want to be
Another working drone
But corporate’s on my tail right now
They won’t leave me alone
No I don’t want to be
Another working drone
Just put me in front of a screen
And leave me in the zone
Strolling down the hallway
Realize I forgot my badge
Tailgate for the f*****g umpteenth time
I like living on the edge
Once I’m in the office
Can I get something done for a change?
It’s the speed of business
Versus the speed of governance
Sounds great! I like the mix and things are a nice blend of well-defined without losing the rawness the genre should have. Great to have the Vibe of people playing in a room together. I like the sentiment of the lyrics too. Well Done!
Thanks Glen! And also thanks for the compliment about the lyrics. In 2021 I joined a small Dutch company, it was a fun time. Then the company got acquired by a big multinational and that’s when things starting to go downhill. This song is about that period. After two years it was getting suffocating so I applied at a non-profit corporation, got hired and now I have to get used to that kind of environment again
Agree with the other commenters here Superb recording, nice one…! A tad heavy on the master compression in my opinion but that’s just my taste. The recording style and production really suit this type of music. Love the guitar sounds and the way the vocal melody sits above the riffs etc, it’s a well-arranged and nicely-structured tune.
I get nostalgic with this type of stuff, having spent a lot of my youth listening to this type of California punk, skateboarding (which I still make time for today even at this tender age ), etc. So I always like it when you put something up here, Jeremy. And this one’s mega catchy and fun to listen to.
Thanks! The bass player comes up with most of the songs. He uploads scratch versions of them without vocals and then we rehearse them a couple of times. After a few rounds I chime in with some completely random gibberish and if the bass player starts jumping up and down I know I’m onto something. It’s a great way, and a real fun way, to work together like that.
Agreed but it’s hard to find information on a good working mastering chain with preferably open source tools. I tried the demo of Presswerk and it sounded really good right away, then I set up the LSP multiband compressor to mimic Presswerk a bit but I fear I overdid the ratios
Would you mind sharing your mastering chain? That could definitely help getting a better understanding of how this stuff works.
Many thanks for the compliments! We can improve on the guitar sounds, one of the guitarists used this very expensive modeling pedal with which he modeled his own preamp and then he bypassed the preamp section he just modeled to go straight into the power amp. While his amp as a whole sounds amazing it now sounds thin and lacks body and oomph. The other guitarist uses my stuff, both amp and guitar, but I’m going to swap the PUs in that guitar to alnicos, it’s now got ceramics in it and it’s a bit too gritty and it lacks some bass.
And so good to hear that it reminisces you of of your youth, of skateboarding and California punk, bit proud that we manage to awake such good memories.
Sure man. You can see the majority of my mastering plugins in the screenshots when I post tunes in this forum actually. It varies a lot but I’ll give you a rough summary here.
I used to use ACMT plugins almost exclusively because I genuinely think they’re maybe the best bread and butter audio plugins for Linux. Couple of great EQs for mastering, the bus compressor and then the mighty ACM70 usually did the job.
Nowadays however I’m on a FOSS jam and only use FOSS plugins accordingly, so my 2 bus (read: mastering chain) looks something like;
curve (Airwindows)
Mastering2 or SmoothEQ2 (Airwindows)
Pressure6 (Airwindows)
Stonefire maybe (Airwindows)
ADClip9 or just ClipOnly3 (Airwindows)
[post-fader]
Referencer (LSP)
Monitoring3 (Airwindows)
I also really like putting OmniAmp (Arboreal Audio) on buses and think it would be a nifty tool for the 2 bus but I haven’t tried it yet. PiMax (also Arboreal Audio) is another excellent option for that ‘inflator’ thing - easy to use and works brilliantly. I imagine ZL Equaliser would be useful for dynamic EQ if you’re going for an über modern sound but I hate that über modern sound so haven’t bothered with it yet.
I find British pop-rock-punk simply fresh and lively. What confuses me a bit is the way the beats are counted—sometimes on-beat, sometimes off-beat; which is it? Or is it both?
Then again, with pogo, it doesn’t really matter anyway
Thanks!! Oh you also posted screenshots of your stereo exports with mastering plugins on them? Going to check those too then. I’m going to experiment with the plugins you mentioned!
It’s just a fleeting impression of mine that the chorus—starting at the 2:41 mark—seems to float freely over the tempo; it’s not really a musical problem, though.
Seems like @guth is right.
I think i see what it is - Common arranging glitch/messup (however) in this style - two different underlying beats at the same time.
At 2:41 The beat becomes straight, and vocal line is acting like there is still pre-measure accents (chord changes and kick hits), like there were troughout the rest of the song:
I don’t wanna be (on “be” the chords changes, it’s pre-next-bar, pre-measure)
another working drone (same thing again, it lands on “dr…”)
But, i’ve seen many song with something like this disregarded…
Thanks for clarifying and good catch, I now know what you mean. This is because I did not mute the main guitar riff so I drift towards that main riff with my vocals. And that riff happens to float a bit. I’ll redo the last chorus and then mute the guitar riff, that should probably resolve the offbeat feeling.
Superb recording, nice one…! A tad heavy on the master compression in my opinion but that’s just my taste. The recording style and production really suit this type of music. Love the guitar sounds and the way the vocal melody sits above the riffs etc, it’s a well-arranged and nicely-structured tune.
), etc. So I always like it when you put something up here, Jeremy. And this one’s mega catchy and fun to listen to.
