Just my friends goofing around and writing some songs. We’re scheduled to play a dive bar in a month…
http://thesoontohaves.bandcamp.com/
skydiving, subject to change, millennial, and choose your parents wisely are my favorites
Vocals getting drowned out by the instruments. Other than that, not bad.
These are recorded with a camcorder in the center of the practice studio so the quality sucks. Thanks for listening!
Nice job. I listened to a handful of songs. Don’t know if you are aware, but I’ve been playing out for about 8 years now and have seen a tone of original bands.
Since you asked for critique:
style - I like it. Its very easy to listen to. The songs don’t all sound the same, and there’s a decent amount of interesting stuff going on. Very musical, and I like the groovy beats.
tightness - I think you guys are solid here.
vocals - He’s doing what he can with his voice. Intonation falls off at times and that will either get better with practice or it won’t. As it is, it gets the job done. The biggest thing you can do almost immediately is spend some time on the right amount of effects. In these recordings, he sounds very dry. Mess around with the EQ. I think you could probably pull back some of the highs and push a little of the bottom to make his voice sound fuller, and ad some reverb and maybe even a slight chorus or flange effect to it. Don’t do too much to the point where its annoying, but you can really make him sound a lot more professional.
writing/hooks - this is the hardest part for any band, and I think most of them under estimate the importance of a good simple solid hook that just grabs everyone’s attention without thinking about it. As musicians we tend to focus so much on the intricateness and the musicality that we can’t see the forest through the trees. Just about every great song out there has some hook in it where you can hear it once and then when you see someone else who’s heard it you can easily say, “hey, did you hear the song that goes like THIS?” and then you can easily describe the song to them.
If you can get that part down, then you will be better than 99% of the bands out there.
Anyway, I think you guys sound great. If you played locally, you’d certainly be the kind of band that I’d like to see (and all critique aside, you are a lot better than the original band I was in).
Thanks for the great feedback Barry! I was hoping you would chime in given your experience.
What are your thoughts on us lacking a lead guitarist? We had one but he had to give up the band due to too many commitments. Most of our songs don’t really have guitar solos. The piano does some solo stuff on many songs but we’re contemplating trying to get a lead guitarist or not. What is holding us back from doing so is that the 4 of us are good friends and we are hesitant to try to add someone we don’t know.
My personally opinion from a practical standpoint is that the fewer musicians you have, the easier it is to get everything together. Every additional person means:
1 more schedule
1 more opinion
1 more person to have not practiced their parts
etc
Honestly, I didn’t think anything was lacking in your sound from what I heard.
Yea, I agree. Scheduling is a bitch with 4 of us now and I have a kid on the way in 2 months which will make it even harder.
Yea, I agree. Scheduling is a bitch with 4 of us now and I have a kid on the way in 2 months which will make it even harder.
My band has been struggling to find a drummer, so about a month ago I suggested we go mostly acoustic and we have been able to put way more together and refine it with three people. I do simple percussion while singing and so far it has been working great. I’d always suggest less is more when it comes to music.
When I was in a band of five rehearsals where all of us were there were so sporadic it was just annoying. It’s hard to progress with so many people.
To the OP, as a vocalist myself my only comment is that on some of the songs it sounds like he’s trying to cram too many words into lines and it throws off the rhythm a bit. If he could find similar words with less syllables on some of the main lyrics it might help the flow a bit, plus his breathing will be a bit more natural, which will help him from dropping off at the end of lines.
These are recorded with a camcorder in the center of the practice studio so the quality sucks. Thanks for listening!
That’s to bad, the sound quality is so bad it is hard to tell how good you are. The drums are rolling over everything.
You don’t necessarily need a lead guitarist.
If you are good you can get away with just a bassist and a drummer like Royal blood.
We are all mediocre musicians at best except our drummer is pretty talented.
We’re trying to book studio time to record a few songs for real but it’s been a challenge making it happen
We are all mediocre musicians at best except our drummer is pretty talented.
We’re trying to book studio time to record a few songs for real but it’s been a challenge making it happen
Depending on what gear you have or can borrow, you might consider something like UbuntuStudio to play around with laying down some tracks. If you can get an audio interface/mixer and a couple of good mics, you can pretty easily put together some solid tracks then mix and master. If nothing else, it would be great experience before you get into a studio.
Overall things sounded pretty good IMO; of course the mix was pretty bad but with a camcorder mic, that’s to be expected. As Barry mentioned, the hook is important and while it doesn’t need to be complex, is often overlooked when putting together a song. I would also keep things simple in terms of the lineup; if you feel that you need guitar solos as you progress, then look at the key of the song and put together some basic solos to start and grow from there.
Shane
Very interesting sound. I like the keyboard.
Try some tempo changes. The songs all kind of go one speed. (Think the Foo Fighters)
The vocals were kind of weak but that might just be your recording system.
Nice work!