Sanctuary For The Dead - My self-written solo project, due May 2011. - General

[B]THE ALBUM HAS BEEN RELEASED! GO LISTEN TO IT NOW![/B] [url=http://sanctuaryforthedead.bandcamp.com/][img]http://bandcamp.com/files/39/52/3952537492-1.jpg[/img] [b]http://sanctuaryforthedead.bandcamp.com/[/url][/b] [b] Sanctuary For The Dead [/b] [B]Q: How did this come about, and what the hell is it?[/B] A: In April 2010, a friend of mine, who is also a drummer, approached me to ask me to join a band he and his friends had started, playing mainly Metallica. I took the lead guitar part and we started rehearsing at his home. Soon, we had a mutual friend of ours (who didn't know any music theory etc at the time) join as the singer just for kicks. We had 4 live concerts (horrible perfomances, looking back at them, yet good fun) before disbanding and re-uniting without the original singer. We had another concert in September 2010 and I left due to personal conflicts with a member of the band.* We remained friends with the singer. Through all this time, me and him wrote some music. He didn't know anything, so he wrote lyrics at first (he got a guitar around that period) and I wrote music. The first songs were horrible. [i]*: since then, some of the line-up changed, and I joined again as bass.[/i] But ever since those days, I kept writing songs. I wrote and wrote and wrote. I had so much material that I didn't know what to do with it. One day, as I was looking through my full songs, and an idea occured to me. Make a fucking solo album using a band name I had came up with but didn't use. So I started writing more material and Sanctuary For The Dead is the result of my work. It's mainly Heavy Metal and Death Metal, with a couple of mellow songs and some lighter Metal to even it out. I had no idea how I was gonna pull it off, when my brother came to visit on christmas, and he brought his Guitar Rig external soundcard. I played guitar, sang, and used Drumkit From Hell for drums. I recorded the second track off the album (the first being the intro) and kept it private for a long time. I decided to spread it and saw positive reaction from my friends (appart from the horrendous clean vocals). [b]Q: Man those vocals are shit. [/b] A: yeah. [b]Q: The screams are good. But man those vocals are shit. [/b] A: yeah... and the solo is kinda messy. but the full album version will have a much better solo. [b]Q: How and when are you gonna release the album?[/b] It's gonna be distributed for FREE through Bandcamp with a name your price option for donations (or a bravo for my hard work, I guess). [B]It's out![/B] [b]Q: Has anything survived since your first songs?[/b] The oldest song on the album is 04. Deceptive Hearts. I wrote it as music for lyrics the singer in my old band had written. After it comes 05. Professional Killer, which actually began as a drum solo for Deceptive Hearts' original version, and then evolved into a nice and fun metal song. The later songs were complete products of my own. Well, if you got more questions, fire away. Check it out! [B][url]http://sanctuaryforthedead.bandcamp.com/[/url][/B]

Any comments/suggestions for my work? I saw a load of reffers from here so I was wondering if you guys had any comments.

Not really my style of music. I'm not into metal But It's good for being in that genre. [editline]18th March 2011[/editline] I think the guitar sounds very mono and it's not in beat with drums.

[QUOTE=tomatmann;28671328]Not really my style of music. I'm not into metal But It's good for being in that genre. [editline]18th March 2011[/editline] I think the guitar sounds very mono and it's not in beat with drums.[/QUOTE] yeah. It's one guitar with bad sound and I kinda lost it in the intro, which is why it's a demo and it doesn't represent the final product. Thanks for the feedback!

Any more opinions, guys?

This is a good effort, I'm currently writing stuff for my own metal solo project, and it's pretty difficult. That alone gets a chunk of respect from me. The guitar needs a friend, on seem of the riffs he seems very lonely and needs a good rhythm track to go with it. I think the gain could be turned down a bit too, without really good recording equipment it's hard to get a good tone with a lot of gain. Vocals weren't that bad tbh, there were no real flaws with them, just keep practising. Yeah I wasn't sure what was going on in the intro either, but it picked up after that. The final product should be good, I look forward to hearing it.

Well I just listened to All These Things I want, and it certainly had it's ups and downs. I'm sorry but the guitar is just not good. I can tell you put a lot of effort into it, it seems really well polished as a song but you can tell the guitar work is amateur, which is odd because the solo seems much better than the rest. Work on upping your finger strength, timing, and just all around. The tone is a little strange but it's mostly just the little things that aren't working for me. Also, when you sing the verses/chorus you have to sing loudly, I don't mean yell, because that's fine, and keep in the same vocal range, but for music that's intense you just have to sing...harder. Use more air and volume, it just seems like you're whisper singing. Also, your pitch is a teeny bit off at times, but generally not bad. Don't get discouraged, keep working on it, and like Wyvers said add some rhythm guitar and turn down the guitars just a bit in the mix in general, but I'm thinking this is a really good start. I don't mean to be a jerk, I can tell you have good songwriting ability, it just needs polish.

[QUOTE=Wyvers;28781563]This is a good effort, I'm currently writing stuff for my own metal solo project, and it's pretty difficult. That alone gets a chunk of respect from me. The guitar needs a friend, on seem of the riffs he seems very lonely and needs a good rhythm track to go with it. I think the gain could be turned down a bit too, without really good recording equipment it's hard to get a good tone with a lot of gain. Vocals weren't that bad tbh, there were no real flaws with them, just keep practising. Yeah I wasn't sure what was going on in the intro either, but it picked up after that. The final product should be good, I look forward to hearing it.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Biscuit-Boy;28786959]Well I just listened to All These Things I want, and it certainly had it's ups and downs. I'm sorry but the guitar is just not good. I can tell you put a lot of effort into it, it seems really well polished as a song but you can tell the guitar work is amateur, which is odd because the solo seems much better than the rest. Work on upping your finger strength, timing, and just all around. The tone is a little strange but it's mostly just the little things that aren't working for me. Also, when you sing the verses/chorus you have to sing loudly, I don't mean yell, because that's fine, and keep in the same vocal range, but for music that's intense you just have to sing...harder. Use more air and volume, it just seems like you're whisper singing. Also, your pitch is a teeny bit off at times, but generally not bad. Don't get discouraged, keep working on it, and like Wyvers said add some rhythm guitar and turn down the guitars just a bit in the mix in general, but I'm thinking this is a really good start. I don't mean to be a jerk, I can tell you have good songwriting ability, it just needs polish.[/QUOTE] Thank you both! The thing about the guitar is that I only recorded one rythm guitar. The version I've written has harmonized rythm guitars on some points and it sounds real good. I recorded with a bad Guitar Rig preset so they ought to sound a bit monotonous and crappy. And also kinda out of rythm with the drums because I had a bad setup. Instead of doing the whole thing in crash-happy Ableton Live, I first produced the drums, then exported it, played it in the background with a player, recorded guitar on a different Ableton Live project, and then mixed it and recorded vocals on Audition. The solo was just random shit I made up on the spot, because I didn't have the time to re-write the crappy solo I had (my brother was going to leave in a few days, along with the guitar rig card so I wouldn't be able to record again until this easter). I didn't sing well back then (I've improved hundreds of times since then) and I agree with every single point about the vocals. Thank you for the feedback guys :smile:

[url]http://sanctuaryforthedead.bandcamp.com/album/sanctuary-for-the-dead[/url] [B]The album has been released! All tracks (including Destiny) have been updated! Go check it out![/B]