topvega

Hey nice work man!

Don't you even dare Thank me. I must Thank You for this wonderful piece of work.

"Thanks man, appreciate the kind words. I am stoked to start working with Addictive Drums. Will be working on something this weekend.

Thanks for all your input, it helps. It's always good to get outside input and opinions. The support is highly appreciated."

No problem. I'll look out for a new track using Addictive Drums when you post it. I expect the drums to be much better and am sure they will be. I've just very briefly had a look at a review of AD and found this criticism: "It's not possible to have more than one kick, snare or ride cymbal in a kit."

The review was from 2007 but that's a bit annoying if (still) true.

I use Superior Drummer and you can add extra kit parts, which is great for mixing up the various add-on packs you buy (I have bought many).

With Addictive, what you might need to do is load a few instances of separate kits and then have a whole load of MIDI files on each track and just keep experimenting with moving them around until you get things to flow perfectly and sound quite distinctive. You might, for instance, want to have a different snare for verse and chorus so you can then try moving the MIDI parts between the different kits you have set up.

This is especially useful for someone like me who likes to mix up the genres and sort of force one on top of another. My detailed drum programming is a big part of that. Even if you just want to do straightish rock stuff, working with a lot of fills that you mix and match and edit and fine tune can really help make it sound as though you have a killer drummer rather than just a decent one, which is what you;d get if you lazily just used the MID files included in AD without much extra editing or layering.

Don't forget to pay close attention to your velocity levels of each kit piece. You can edit them in your sequencer. Sometimes, there's quite a heavy sound that plays at the top velocuty level (127) so sometimes you need to carefully reduce this (especially for snare and kick). The velocity levels of the playing is important for giving the right feel as the timing of the playing and the choice of kit part played.

If you don't already know all this, you'll probably find it out anyway but I thought I'd just give you a heads up and some things to think about early on. Ask me if any of this advice is not clear enough and I shall clarify...

Good luck!

Hi TopVega,
Good song. I am not sure you need a vocal part: maybe a keyboard player who could keep your pace would be more beneficial than a singer. Just an idea...
Liked & downloaded it.
Take care, Domenico

This is good and there's a definite song in there for a songwriter to make something of.

It builds and gets better over that first minute and those twin guitars work really well. Nice mix between the rhythm riffs and the lead psychedelic stuff.

Glad to hear you're getting Addictive Drums. I haven't used it but have other, similar hypersampled. I have many times on here recommended such software to producers as lower quality loops just don't cut it and you can do so much with these hypersampled acoustic drum products. Your stuff will be way better and new grooves and fills will give you ideas for riffs and how to progress your music.

While this track is a bit samey, it's all good stuff but would benefit from those Addictive drums and the proper song over the top. Keep going because it's well worth pursuing but there's still a long way to go to make it as good as it could and should be.

Good strong track. I like it!

Viry nice track:
Good guitars and rythm.
Nice work
Paulo

It rocks but it's definitely not heavy metal, as far as I hear it. Metal isn't only about the guitar and the drums would need to be a lot heavier to move it into that genre.

They're good riffs and some of the second (lead) guitar work with those trills is good and psychedelic though the drums let it down as they're using the same fills and patterns too often.

If you want to make a track like this as good as it could/should be, the drumming needs to improve so I hope you get some better software a range of hypersampled kits and start to make good use of the many MIDI files from professional drummers that such software generally comes with (or you can buy the MIDI packs separately). I have great fun all the time working with loads and loads of great professional patterns and mixing them up and layering them and using changes in groove to help me change riffs.

Apart from improved drums (both sounds and playing/patterns) I think this could do with some other change - perhaps something like another sort of instrument coming in (synth?) or the guitar dropping out to leave more space and let the track breathe a bit (allows you also to build it back up again and come back in with a blast).

Or could be good without making those changes I suggested but just having some vocals. Then the lead psychedelic trills could come in when the vocals are having a break and that would count as a change and create some excitement. GOod luck with it...

Reminds me of some Govt Mule. Your guitar riffs seem very set and not an off the cuff attempt. Sounds weird, but I appreciate a guitarist who can play the same thing 8 times and not change it. Diggin it.

a good time jam topvega
i hope to hear some vocals on this....
stellar guitar work as always

Love those guitars, and the bass is awesome too!

Hello TV,
I like it a lot and the sound quality is very good!
Definitely you need to find somebody to sing on this!
Very good
Domenico

This rocks. Yeah the drum's a bit of a weak link, and (the right) vocals could be nice, but I don't mind that it's an instrumental one bit, so long as it's headbangingly delicious, and this is a crowd mover. Not heavy enough for the heavy metal genre? I disagree on that one, dude. Great work.

TV!

I'm really sorry but I don't hear nor StaticX neither Fear Factory...but I hear an outstandingly "headbangingly" groovy, bloody brilliant stoner rock song a la KYUSS...John Garcia is laughing proudly somewhere now... :-)

THANX TV, ALWAYS LOVE YOUR WORKS, MAN

Danke

Great track man. I'm surprised I'm the first person to comment. Great riffs and awesome bass line. Good drum beat but would obviously sound better being played by an actual drummer to give it a better feel. All round great song. Only advise is get a drummer and this song is just calling out for some awesome lyrics over the top and a solo in the middle. Hope this has helped and looking forward to hearing more of your tracks in the future.

nice guitar work. the mix sounds great. peace.

I enjoy this style of yours man. The sounds revolve around my head, from left to the right front to back as I sit here still. Dig them grooves. The hip hop rock flavor is a favorite of mine and you did a fine job here, even though it's old it still remains fresh. Gives that 'don't mess with me, I'm jammin' feel ha. This holds well on its own, vocals would add to the flavor but what I like about this idea is already here! Thank you for the share. Fun jam. Peace.

Awesome. Kind of makes me think of Blue Oyster Cult with a little ZZ Top flavor.

Nice song. For some reason This makes me want to listen to Molly Hatchet now!

Roll em fat too! This sounds Great!! I need to take my thumb out of my butt and learn Reaper, Yeah rip them solos up like a nice big smelly fart!! Thank you for sharing these awesome tracks! I'm no good with vocals either, I got one coming soon with a little death metal growls but that's it for me LOL!, other than saying some things for samples.

The track if fxckin rockin, its my opinion that u should b more aggressive with the solo's. Dont b shy to rip em like a fart rite in front of everyone, :)

I think I may have already said this to you, but I really like the "live feeling" on your songs.
It really sounds like a real band is playing.
Good!
I think the song has still some "rough" edges (a couple of notes here and there) but this is good stuff!
Domenico

Fuggin awesome!!!

The lead guitar playing on this has a kind of David Gilmour feeling. Great song overall. I like this.

Ha, I wasn't expecting to hear a rock ballad when I read the title, but it works. To me, it just feels like a song about frustration, with women. And I dig that.