Post your (own) HM demos here!

Yep, my download limit includes streaming
Well, it's occurred to me my thrash metal rhythm chops I had 6-7 months ago that allowed me to play very intense stuff is not quite there anymore at all
I'm still very tied up with another musical project with friends, and I always like to cheap my lead chops in good shape, so time for really really practicing intense technical thrash rhythm wont be available for many months in fact.
Given that, I'll make more of a compromise I guess. Expect that my riffing will be no more technical than the early 80s thrash stuff of Kill 'Em All, Bonded By Blood and all those old records, but you can be sure the soloing is more modern sounding than that era, so audiences get to hear a blend of early and later periods of thrash in my up coming songs, so hopefully overall it comes out as sounding a bit different to stuff that was just strictly based on one era per record

ACID crashed on you, ouchy!
I'm using Acoustica Beatcraft for drums and a mix of Audacity and Acoustica Mixcraft for direct guitar recording purposes.
The Acoustica stuff is nothing fancy, cheap programs that get the job done. For bass guitar, it's Guitar Pro 5

Never heard Tubeway Army- were they big in England? Or underground punk. If the Numan is Gary Numan his pop stuff put out in the 80's was certainly heard over here.

You need to get out from under the headphones- very bad mixing levels, especially on the repetitive lead riff (was that a synth on the original). As always good playing. Some of the drums sound real and some sound synthetic. Do you use two different was to get your drums. Your vocal suited the song.

Yes, I liked the song. Probably would have bought the album back then if I had heard it.

So how do you get the live drum samples integrated so well into your tunes? Is Acid that good? I'm only familiar with writing drums on a percussion line in Sonar. Do you use waves and loop them out to the length of the song and add fill waves where you need them or have you got some sort of sample keyboard?

Edited by cobb2 - July 27 2008 at 23:56

cobb2 wrote: Yes, I liked the song. Probably would have bought the album back then if I had heard it.

http://www.myspace.com/postmortemarg

^He probably hasn't been following this thread since its inception - I never said they had to be all your own work (including production) in this thread, even though I did in the original. If it's a metal demo, then it fits the criteria, I suppose

Currently I'm working on a Thrash song, but I'm still practicing rhythmical accuracy. In the last 10 years I've been playing largely for myself, never recording anything. Playing fast thrash riffs in perfect sync with the "click" is proving to be difficult.

Of course I could always use Ableton Live's warping features and record at lower speed.

^ I'm really a big fan of copy and paste when it comes to riffs ... saves you a lot of work. I can't see why you shouldn't do that - of course when the song finally takes form you can record it from start to finish again if you're "old-school", but during the composition process I can only recommend to anyone to simply record great riffs as you think about them, and later play around with them a bit - combine them to form songs. 

MikeEnRegalia wrote: ^ I'm really a big fan of copy and paste when it comes to riffs ... saves you a lot of work. I can't see why you shouldn't do that - of course when the song finally takes form you can record it from start to finish again if you're "old-school", but during the composition process I can only recommend to anyone to simply record great riffs as you think about them, and later play around with them a bit - combine them to form songs.

Well, I was just talking about speeding it up as cheating, but I no you don't want that award for being a douche, so I know you wont cheat

I think, to give it more of a 80s thrash vibe, everyone try their best to see how long their stamina and accuracy can take them in one recording but of course I have no problem with anyone that wants to cut and paste as much as possible, I just think it takes away from the challenge a little.

Certif1ed wrote: When it comes to constructing songs in the first place, you can't beat copy and paste - after all, the verses and choruses are going to follow pretty much the same patterns and use the same riffs.   All my NWoBHM tracks are copy and paste-fests - I didn't have the time to do them properly, and your tip on using it to speed up the composition process is spot-on Mike - although I truly agree with Hughes - songs should be played properly. That's not "old-school", it's making music rather than a product.   I tried experimenting with "Walk the Walk" last night, to see how it would stand up to being thrashed - amazingly, it worked, just by playing all the riffs with 16th-note based patterns (adding some accenting here and there to get an interesting style, not just taking the "Overkill" approach ), and sticking in some double bass drum loops.   Of course, I'd need to completely redo the vocals with a more appropriate style - should be interesting, I've never tried growling before, and my "screaming" needs a LOT of work... then there's the guitar solos, which will probably have to be Kerry King specials, since my shredding technique needs a lot more practice than I have time for.   The other interesting thing will be getting the 1990s guitar tones - I've been practicing getting a much more modern sound (as well as the retro late 1970s sound), and to my ears, the late 1980s/early 1990s are generally a disaster area (Metallica's self-titled album apart) for amp sounds. Alice in Chains sounded good, and the Almighty had a great sound - but everyone else seemed to use choruses to fatten the sound up - which is cheating, in my book.   You should first get a great sound from your amp, THEN pretty it up subtly, or bludgeon the life out of it with OTT effects - for effect only, IMO. The other thing they tended to do was massively scoop the EQ - why? Why not just cut the midrange on the amp's EQ, if that's the sound you're after? I find that BOOSTING mid on the amp and cutting bass works better anyway for a really big sound.   Any more guitar sound production tips specific to getting a good thrash sound?

Ohhhh, I've done vocals on a thrash metal song before, I just sound like I'm not taking it seriously, and that's when I actually try to do them seriously
Well, I was actually listening to Alice In Chains yesterday, and yep, a great guitar sound Cantrell had, even if it's not thrash, I'm sure his Bogner amp he uses would be pretty much suited to any heavy style of music.
For me, I'm going to be using the Mesa Boogie amp simulations, with the mid range cut, which I think can work great on record, but never really works that well in a live situation (in band practice, I ALWAYS crank the mids), and just double/triple track of course.
For leads, I'm going for the Soldano SLO-100, which is pretty much very mid rangey sounding, and I would rather use that for leads because it just sound thin like a mid scooped amp sound would.
How much bottom end you use, is partly dependent on the pickups on your guitar.
I use a Seymour Duncan JB-4 bridge pickup, which has amazing harmonics for leads, but the bottom end it fairly loose, and you need to back off the low end for rhythm guitar to stop it mushing up (that said, the JB isn't as loose in the low end, as say some of the humbuckers fitted to many of Epiphones guitars).
Dave Mustaine used the JB throughout his career, and my guess is that his low end it slightly backed off to maintain a clearer signal path.
He now uses his own signature active pickups, and the bridge is based on the JB model, but the output is higher, and they seem to handle more bottom end without mushing out as quickly as their passive brother (I've the Mustaine Live Wire active pickup before, so I can testify to first hand experience with it and I highly recommend them for a searing metal tone).

^Have you downloaded the "Wherever I May Roam" Tone into your locker? I d/l'd loads of Line6 tones, but that's the one I always fall back to for seriously heavy riffs. Sounds great with EMGs