[LAU] Demo: Soda P - Pent-Up

[Jeremy Jongepier]

Dear all,

After convincing my other bandmembers to move to Linux because of all 
the time we lost figuring out how all that proprietary stuff works we 
did get a lot more productive.

So here it is, the very first demo-track from our rehearsal room, 
completely recorded and mixed with Linux.

http://linux.autostatic.com/temp/sodap-pentup(mixdown20100919).ogg

This is also the first band track that I tried to mix and master a bit. 
I fear I'm still a better musician than a studio engineer, but I've 
learned so much already the last two years, thanks to this list, 
LinuxMusicians.com and the guys at #opensourcemusicians (especially 
[lsd]/wootangent.net). What didn't help either is that I had to mix this 
track partly on my headphones (I do have a pair of decent DT770's) 
because of our little man sleeping downstairs: 
http://lou.dekenwaarestraat.nl/
What did help is that I have close to zero experience with 
recording/mixing/creating music on other OS's. When I read how other 
people are struggling with switching from one OS to Linux I realize how 
lucky I am that I've chosen Linux from the start to make/record music 
with my computer.

And we're still experimenting with the band when it comes to mic 
placement, which mic to use for what, amp settings, soundcard settings 
etc. Also, most tracks for this song were played in one take, simply 
because we don't have a lot of time (a few hours a week) and since it's 
demo stuff we had to let go of our perfectionism, we'll save that for 
the definite recordings.

Software I used:
- Qtractor (I'm a huge Qtractor afficionado)
- Yoshimi with the Pulse Pad 3 instrument patch for the synth riff in 
this song
- Guitarix distortion plugin for the synth
- JAMin
- SC4 and Calf compressor plugins
- C* EQ plugin
- Freeverb plugin (I still have to emerge myself in that convolution stuff)
- Rezound (could someone please save that program from oblivion? It's 
just so much better than Audacity)
- Jack1 with FFADO for our FireWire card
- Ubuntu 9.10/10.04 (I still use 9.10 for various reasons)

I enjoyed a lot playing around with this song, especially now that I 
finally have a room for myself at my home for my music stuff where I 
have some mics set up, a decent PC, some MIDI controllers and percussion 
stuff. I did the backing vocals, the MIDI stuff and the tambourine at 
home. I love tambourines but I hate playing them, it's a friggin 
difficult instrument, no kidding. I also tried adding some acoustic 
guitar but that didn't work out. Originally, this song is an acoustic 
song that I must've written more than 10 years ago: 
http://www.autostatic.com/beltree/beltree-pentup.mp3

So shoot. Really, I'd appreciate any feedback so I can improve my 
recording and mixing skills (and eventually my mastering skills). We're 
a DIY band so if we could also do this very last thing ourselves we'd be 
thrilled.

Best,

Jeremy
http://sodap.nl