My New Band's First Song!, Symphonic Metal Options

[Dinaga]

Hey mates, I talked about my new Symphonic Metal band in an older topic, so I'd like to share with you our first song.

http://soundcloud.com/dino-trnka/dolia-winter-queen-1

Everything was done in Cubase with Guitar Rig.
I won't talk much about it, I'll let the music speak for itself.

So... Please tell me what you think about the song, the overall feel, the instruments, vocals, the production and of course, the guitar solo. Looking forward to your opinion, thanks a lot in advance!


Cheers!

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[SirJamsalot]

Nice composition!

Good stuff in my opinion ~
I love the rhythm guitars as a whole - you create a great groove once the ball starts rolling. I like the opening, and if you're trying to create an ethereal feel, consider some keyboard chamber voices to back your singer. I love the composition too - you broke out the song into parts very nicely - it has direction which I like!

The *needs work* in my opinion ~
The Mix seems thin to me, and I'll have to agree with Sinisa on the vocals. She's using an operatic falsetto which is fine for the genre but if she's not going to supply the "umph", then you need to beef up the rhythm guitars/bass line to help supplement the power.

She's also singing out of key in target notes from 2:07 - 2:47. If it's by design, I don't like it It's fine for the rest, but key notes need to be spot on to be convincing and convey a solid conviction about what you're singing.

41-43 - your strings are out of tune for this one picked arpeggio, but only there? Were you gripping the fretboard too hard? <-- done that, but I'd re-record that section to keep it in tune.

I love what you're doing here! Thanks so much for sharing! Looking forward to more!

okay - third time thru - that's a good sign
haha - I had to listen to the solo section a few times to zero in on the backing chord progression for it. That's a great chord progression you have going on there. Very creative! I love it!

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This post has been edited by SirJamsalot: Jan 24 2012, 12:14 AM

[Dinaga]

Nice composition!

Good stuff in my opinion ~
I love the rhythm guitars as a whole - you create a great groove once the ball starts rolling. I like the opening, and if you're trying to create an ethereal feel, consider some keyboard chamber voices to back your singer. I love the composition too - you broke out the song into parts very nicely - it has direction which I like!

The *needs work* in my opinion ~
The Mix seems thin to me, and I'll have to agree with Sinisa on the vocals. She's using an operatic falsetto which is fine for the genre but if she's not going to supply the "umph", then you need to beef up the rhythm guitars/bass line to help supplement the power.

She's also singing out of key in target notes from 2:07 - 2:47. If it's by design, I don't like it It's fine for the rest, but key notes need to be spot on to be convincing and convey a solid conviction about what you're singing.

41-43 - your strings are out of tune for this one picked arpeggio, but only there? Were you gripping the fretboard too hard? <-- done that, but I'd re-record that section to keep it in tune.

I love what you're doing here! Thanks so much for sharing! Looking forward to more!

okay - third time thru - that's a good sign

Wow, thanks a lot Sir for such a detailed feedback! You guys really give the best feedback, this is exactly what we need right now!

About the vocals - Yes, we will constantly improve that aspect. I think our singer has potential but needs to be guided the right way and we need to improve the vocal performance by paying more attention to the exact vocal notes so they aren't out of key. Also, we did the production ourselves, in Cubase with Guitar Rig as a plugin and we could have put better suiting effects on vocal as well (we used a sort of 'Icy' reverb on vocals in Guitar Rig). And we definitely need a better microphone because vocals are sometimes too silent and other times too loud. All in all - your're totally right, there is room for improvement!

About the arpeggio - well, I was probably gripping the fretboard to hard It was a tricky arpeggio sequence for me because I played Em 5-string arpeggio then a diminished picked one and then another sweeped one, so it was also a bit rushed, for sure I must practice a LOT more to get that run better, and to be able to play it well live as well. Need to improve my sweeps too.

I feel as if all the advice that needed to be given has already been taken care of. Great job, Dinaga! The solo makes me wonder why you are a student on GMC rather than a teacher

Wow man, thanks a lot for the kind words.
That is one of my big dreams, that's why I'll have to do my best to constantly keep improving my guitar playing and one day, who knows

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This post has been edited by Dinaga: Jan 24 2012, 12:23 AM