Diseased Project

I came here to come and ask, if there are any plans for a lead-oriented Shreddage, but I see the FAQ in the OP says there are already software designed for that. My question is, which ones are recommended in that field? I really like Shreddage and it helps a lot, and I was hoping if there's something similar for leads. I used to play all these things by myself with actual guitar but ever since I got a new computer and an external audio card (actually, it's an Alesis mini-mixer), it won't recognize my guitar properly and plays only static and really loud noises. Or maybe it's because my guitar mics are partly busted and it's overall a POS. So until I find a way to fix that, some nice lead guitar replicants would be appreciated! Also, might as well ask this one too: what's the latest and greatest when it comes to programming metal drums? It would have to be Kontakt/Sonar -compatible (or a stand-alone software). I remember there being some software or a plugin that had presets made by world-class drummers, such as Joey Jordison and (maybe?) Gene Hoglan, but I can't figure out for the life of me what it was called... or if it even worked on Kontakt/Sonar. Thanks for your input in advance!

Just checking: so the girl knows you're "collaborating with her"?

Here's a little something I whipped up for a local LAN party music competition. This time the theme was "Election", so the first thing that came to mind, was a song about Cthulhu running for presidency. Lyrics are in finnish, but basically the song is about him taking over the world, enslaving and/or killing everyone no matter the skin color or sex, destroying everything and celebrating the unavoidable victory. In other words, a pretty happy song. Youtube link: Mp3 download: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/135436/DiseasedProject/CthulhuPresidentiksi.mp3 I hope you like it. Btw, thanks to whoever it was on the IRC channel, that helped me choose the last line before the actual music starts.

Techno is not how I would describe this; it's more like a hiphop or rap backing track. Lead melody is obviously the "vocal track", so in order for it to work: you need vocals. The bass sound is painfully dreadful and sounds like fart noises to me. You need to replace it: any substitute will be better than the current form. Listening to this, my first thought about the rhythm track was that it was okay, but as I went on, I began to think this would work a lot better as an acoustic song, with no drums at all. Same melody and backing track, but played with a piano or an acoustic guitar. And vocals, of course. As it is however...I don't think I would listen to it again, let alone in a club (if it's meant to be techno).

Hardly worthy of a thread in its current form, the piece is only a minute long and it's one-key ambient. Nevertheless, I thought it sounded okay, but I gotta say for some reason I began thinking night-time Tokyo rather than space. Expand more and then we'll see.

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I would choose the piano version, it sounds less like General MIDI compared to guitar version and to me fits better for "a Town theme". Also, make some velocity changes into the notes so that they sound more human. I like the melody by the way.

I would have preferred it without the rhythm track. Not saying it's bad, but since the song starts off so nice and mellow, it's a bit distracting once you start to hear the beat at ~0:40. It's almost as if two totally different songs were combined, and that feeling stayed in me throughout the rest of the song. The beat is programmed well enough, but in my opinion it is a little quiet and buzzing anyway. Well, maybe not buzzing, but a bit weird. I would scrap them altogether and maybe add something new and interesting in their place in the rest of the sound scape if needed (=one or two instruments or something). Also, what's that sample that does this weird pulse-like wave the whole time? Like a soft key, that keeps hitting the same note repeatedly. I think there's too much of that too. I'd try to keep the song as mellow as possible (like in the intro) without any other hassle in the mix. Then it will work as a nice ambient track.

It has some potential but for me the drum track kills it. It lacks power, the beat is very dull and I don't hear any hi-hat. I suggest using completely different samples and adding more hits in there. The beat starting at 0:50 is especially uninspired. Also, BPM could be a bit higher. With a decent rhythm track it would be a lot better. I liked the intro, btw (and the speech throughout the song).

I listened to a couple, pretty good stuff. One thing I noticed was that these would greatly benefit from vocals (Heroes is aching for a rap). I don't think you're a noob at mixing, I think these sound okay.

No, as I said the sound quality is good but the glissandos as you called them, didn't fit in the composition in my opinion, hence I didn't like them.

I'm on better headphones now (I wrote my original post at work while on a break, the headphones there are crap, now I'm at home). You're right, the guitars are panned after all so it was the headphones' fault I missed that. The guitars still sound tame though and almost as if they were programmed using samples rather than actually played live. They could still pack a whole lot more punch than they do now, and you say it yourself that many people bash the tone. The bass also still sounds pretty bad. I listened to the Soundcloud link this time. As far as genre issues go, I only grabbed onto the fact that the title was "Heavy Metal" when it was not. I did read your original post before writing the first critique. So, aside from panning which I admit I heard wrong the first time, I still stand by the rest of my earlier comments. And I say it again, the song or riffs aren't horrible. There is a lot of room for improvement, but it's pretty good considering a 15-year-old wrote it.

I enjoyed it. Sounds really good, and the composition is relaxing (for the most part). I don't know the proper word for this, but the only thing I didn't like are those sweeps that start in ~0:47. But as far as sample showcasing goes, this is well done. And the track itself is pretty good too.

Without commenting the sound quality since my current headphones might be deceiving, I say this definitely needs those vocals and it's apparent you've written some parts with the idea of vocals there in mind (like 0:33 onwards). Plus, the bass track sounds a bit silly without the vocals. The rhythms are pretty nice. Melodies remind me a bit of the band "Pain" (maybe you've heard of it). Similar vocal style would work best here as well I believe. I got the feeling that the song might be a bit too repetitive (at least for my tastes), because the opening melody and all of its variants are heard so many times in the song (though I'll admit I skipped a lot after the first minute to see if this was true). I would toss some of the parts where the melody is played, and maybe try to create a whole new, distinct chorus part to fill the space.

I'm using really crappy headphones at the moment, but at least with these the guitar tone sounds really tame and weak. Also I think there's just one guitar track in there and it's in dead center. I would utilize at least two separate guitars on L and R, plus give it more volume since in rock and metal music, they should play the lead role and not just buzz on the background. Also, this is not heavy metal, it's some techno/electronica (I don't know the genres) that has a guitar in there. Just wanted to point that out. Bass sound is bad, as is overall mixing (tracker-quality), but the "jam" still isn't all that bad in itself. I wouldn't listen to it like I listen to other music (meaning, concentrating solely on the music) but it could work as a background track for a 90's freeware space shooter game such as Wings, so it has its place. I've heard a lot worse stuff than this that was made by 15 year olds (including my own), so that means there is perhaps potential if you just practice. Keep developing your skills and, if you're utilizing guitars, give them more room in the future.