Clark Kent Job: NEW PROMO RELEASED!

Everything is tight as hell. Good stuff. From a mixdown/production standpoint, you are right there.

My only niggle - and I admit this genre I am NOT an expert on by any stretch - that your 'softer' vocals are not at the same talent/performance level the rest of the playing and the 'loud' vocals are. They are good, and this is NOT personal from my end at all. I could not do better (I sing like a frog). That's my only comment of criticism.

I am a longtime old school fan of RATM, Linkin Park and Helmet; this material seems somewhat cut from that and the basis for where I am coming from. The grooves, the hooks and the choruses are all top notch - I dig it.

Good stuff Clark. Thanks for sharing.
 
Thanks guys! I'm not the guy mixing this so I can't take any credit or criticism on the mix. My friend Janne is the guy who did it and he sure is a multitalent: He recorded everything and I mean EVERYTHING. He played the drums, bass and guitars. I played a few riffs he didn't write just in case everything is right. I can take criticism on the singing though. :) I don't think I'm perfect and the biggest problem here was that I didn't write the lyrics and melodies so the low parts were too low for me and the high parts were too high for me. I had to drop everything down an octave and still it didn't quite fit my voice. I've been playing guitar for over 15 years and I've been singing for only 1½ years. I actually learned to do low growls last week so they didn't make it to these songs but maybe in future. :lol:
 
Sounds freakin' superb mate, love it!!!!!! Production is awesome, guitars sound great, some of the best sounding recto patches I've heard out of the AxeFX. Love it!
 
vicknott said:
Sounds really great, all except vocals... :( Sorry, I hope you won't be too upset because of my opinion.
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Nah, I take criticism constructively. It's much worse if all I hear is that things are okay so I stop working on my vocals and next time they suck even more. :D Please let me know what it was that you didn't like so I can work on it. I sing in tune so I assume it's that you don't like my tone of voice or something went wrong mixing-wise. I think my screams are weak in this recording. I'm working on those and if I had a chance to do them again I would.
 
Yup, it's mostly the tone of your voice, seems to me it lacks character, it's too generic. In the second song the 1.43 - 1.56 section is too weak and undefined as if you didn't sing from your soul. Also, some notes of the soft part in the first song (1.12 - 1.32) sound out of tune to me; the same with the word "best" in the third song (0.40 - 0.42), the opening note is out of tune.
I hope I made myself clear 'cause English is not my native language.
 
Very nice. I love the music and playing but have to agree the vocals are the weak link. But that is something that can be easily be fixed. You can sing but I think if you spent some time with a coach you could easily hone in on what you need to. I am not the best one to coach you on singing but I'll give you a few things to consider. One of the first things I heard is that it doesn't sound like you know how to bridge to a head voice. You were 'pulling chest'. Take a look at this video.

http://www.youtube.com/user/roblunte#p/ ... 8zroG9QWNc

Then this one
http://www.youtube.com/user/roblunte#p/u/5/HNfpeHE6Wls

I have been one of Rob's students for a while and bridging and connecting is at the core of his pedagogy. This will get you singing. You need more breath support and better phonation as well. If you took some lessons with a good coach you would go far quickly. You have a good foundation but you can easily get better. Rob has a lot of other videos that are great for vocalists as well. A lot of good information there.
 
Thanks for the input guys. I do realize than I'm not singing perfectly since I've been doing this for such a short time. The main issue in these recordings was that the melodies were written by another vocalist who I replaced so the vocal range is very uncomfortable for me. I had to sing lower than I wanted to and then again I never got to sing in my comfort zone. My diapraghm was the last thing in my mind during recordings. :( Ofcourse my main goal is to stretch myself over my limits to get better. http://www.myspace.com/clarkkentjob <--- check other songs like "urban monotony" or "conspiracy theory" since those melodies were written by me for my own vocal range etc. It's a lot easier for my to sing those. :)

Tone-wise, well this is a taste issue. Some like Axl Rose, some hate him. I'm just trying to use my natural voice. I'm not trying to be Bon Jovi an nasal the shizz out of my vocals and I'm not trying to add throatyness and try to sound cool. It's just how my pipes sound and that's real to me. :) Sounding generic might be something I might take as a compliment. It's extremely hard for me to analyze my own voice.

This is "The Flock" by the original singer: http://soundcloud.com/clark-kent-job/fi ... -the-flock

As you might notice he's singing an octave higher than me. Etc. He's a cool guy from New Zealand so English is his mother tongue. He's been singing his whole life and I'm not trying to sound like him. I'm just trying to do my thing as well as possible and try to make it work. Also different drummer and me on guitar with a Mesa Mark IV.

It is what it is and there's no need to over-analyze this. :) I hope the quality of the other instruments make up for the flaws in my voice. :D

EDIT: And I'm not using falsetto at all. Must learn to bridge... will get a lot more range.
 
xpenno said:
Sounds freakin' superb mate, love it!!!!!! Production is awesome, guitars sound great, some of the best sounding recto patches I've heard out of the AxeFX. Love it!
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Thanks man. I might have the patch somewhere in my Axe-Fx so I might be able to share it.
 
I liked it, the vocals aren't nearly as bad as I thought they'd be based on the other comments. :mrgreen:

I can tell that you are stretching your range on a few things and that stuffs been covered pretty much already, but I thought that the last song "Jaded" was sung extremely well. I'm not trying to boost your ego or anything, but it was the best sounding out of the bunch vocally IMHO. And the background vocals on just about everything sounded good to me.

Good songs. Sounded a bit like Hoobastank, Staind and even some Limp Biscuit (minus the douchiness) in there to me with the melodies and dynamics. Not sure what you guys were going for, but if I heard it on the radio I'd probably crank it up.
 
shasha said:
I liked it, the vocals aren't nearly as bad as I thought they'd be based on the other comments. :mrgreen:

I can tell that you are stretching your range on a few things and that stuffs been covered pretty much already, but I thought that the last song "Jaded" was sung extremely well. I'm not trying to boost your ego or anything, but it was the best sounding out of the bunch vocally IMHO. And the background vocals on just about everything sounded good to me.

Good songs. Sounded a bit like Hoobastank, Staind and even some Limp Biscuit (minus the douchiness) in there to me with the melodies and dynamics. Not sure what you guys were going for, but if I heard it on the radio I'd probably crank it up.
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Thanks man! The last song was in my vocal range and the guys let me bark like a dog in the C-part which I've always loved to do. :D I hate what autotune/melodyne has done to the music industry and we kinda tried to do the opposite this time. I have used a lot of autotune before but this time I actually took many takes to get it right. There are a few parts where Cubase 5's pitch function was used though. I admit I'm stretching my ass off... I just heard about head voice yesterday. :D

Our genre is nu-metal although it's a public joke that nu-metal is dead, but since the 80's was in fashion some time ago an now it's the 90's I think millennium is coming. I'm still waiting for J.Lo's comeback! :D Nu-metal is not just Limp Bizkit although we're fans of Wes Borland. There are other bands like Korn, Linkin Park and maybe even Disturbed. As you might notice I'm not trying to sound like those vocalists. It's the music that rocks in that genre. ;)
 
Clark Kent said:
xpenno said:
Sounds freakin' superb mate, love it!!!!!! Production is awesome, guitars sound great, some of the best sounding recto patches I've heard out of the AxeFX. Love it!
Click to expand...

Thanks man. I might have the patch somewhere in my Axe-Fx so I might be able to share it.
Click to expand...

You know me, if there's a patch to be shared then I'm downloading :)
 
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