Hi all

Please check out our final version of 'The Ultimatum'. Thanks to everyone who gave suggestions on the mix etc, and James would also like to thank TLS for the singing tips.

- Vocals: James
Weapon of choice: Shure SM57

- Drums: Pete
Instrument of destruction: Yamaha DTXpressII Midi kit equipped with a Battery

- Bass: Joe
Earthquake Generator: Hohner with 'Not Even Slinky' strings

- Guitar: Dave
Executioner's Axe: Ibanez RG2570EX

The track was mixed using a ZX Spectrum with the 128kb RAM upgrade. FTW!!!!

Special thanks go out to the Devil for buying our souls on the cheap (some spiderman candy sticks and an 1/8th of weed!!!)

Rock on.

- A Time For Reason.
http://www.myspace.com/atimeforreason

Really good song...Wish it was a little longer cus I really enjoyed it. Nice work to everyone in the band

If this was ass it would be KICK ASS. But it isn't ass.

ITS FABULATASTIC. Its pure sex man. Euphoric.

Happy-in-a-can, better than beer.





You guys are the next beatles... or the next oasis, since they were the last next beatles - I don't know how that works exactly. You're something.

wow.. I'm really impressed.  I really like the vocal job on this take.  Amazing job, by everyone.  guitars, drums, bass, vocals, harmonies, EQ, effects... everything!

I really just have nothing else to say!  Downloaded.  Done.

Hey guys sounds awesome.Dave I hope you don't take this wrong this is only as I hear it and its only my opinion.I do find that your guitar is not always played real tight.It seems to swing out of timing quite often even though you still managed to always recover at the hit of the bar count.For me that makes some parts messy almost sounding pushed in...The quality of the recording helps mask this but to my ears it still dominates seeing that your guitar levels are high...The drummer is real good.Bass is well done but a bit low in level.The lead vocals although well performed sounds very thin on the non harmonized parts.The guitar tone I just don't like at all...It has no signature sound nor warmth to my ears.....Please understand I really think you are an awesome musician, this song is well put together and the fact that is that it is an awesome piece of work.My detailing is just how I heard this and its only feedback meant to help and not put down.... Anyways good luck with this Its real good stuff!!!!!
Marino!

Thanks for the feedback mate However I don't agree entirely but I will explanin.

   Some of the fast picking rhythms mirror the kick drum and were very technical for me but although they were a challenge I don't think they 'swung out of time often'. In fact some of my playing was intentionally quite relaxed to swing along to James' vocal style and I feel it fitted quite well.

   I think you will find that the main reason for the lack of sync in places is the latency, which when we had all the plugins for all the parts stacked on had to go up to 10ms.

   Anyone here who plays guitar will know that 10ms delay between two guitar parts and the main beat is very noticeable; I certainly don't think it's down to sloppy playing as we actually decided to lower this song from the tempo I wrote it at which was initially closer to 120 bpm (settled on 110).

   While I respect the opinion I just wanted to point out that I think 10ms latency between the guitar parts (bear in mind 10ms in + 10ms out latency = 20 ms) is more to do with what you can here than me just playing it poorly. Rack up a 20 millisecond delay on your guitar FX and see.

   However the whole track is mixed and mastered with compression millisecond-accurate to the tempo, which may describe the 'pushed in' effect you describe. Still, it works!

   I have a 2GB Athlon 3700+ Overclocked, and it's simply not enough to deal with a modern studio recording plugins even with an X-Fi platinum. I would love to get a highend Core2Duo with 4GB and rerecord it to make it tighter? By which time I'd be rich enough to do it in a studio anyway

Dave

yes, there's some sort of sacrifice to audio when we're not working with the highest end equipment, and it usually requires some nittygritty editing of things to get it all lined up right... if possible.  I often find myself trying to counteract the latency I experience while using Windows Vista Ultimate, which is approximately twice that of XP or earlier versions because of it's globally DRM'd design.  The OS has to often encode decode encode decode before you ever even hear/see your media on the screen.  It's terrible for latency.  I'm usually timeshifting (and sometimes slightly time-stretching) clips and widening my silence gaps and such to properly nullify my own latency problems.  I try to do all my recording in XP because of this   Good thing I kept a small partition for it!  I'm just lucky I'm not dealing with lots of hardware between me and the beast of an OS, as I'm usually always recording a single instrument at a time and usually it's the acoustic guitar.

I'm personally not bothered at all by the "swing" (intentional or not) factor Marino mentioned.  I think it's so slight anyway that it's not something that is even applicable to most of the song.  If anything, it adds to the personality of the song, in my opinion.  Myself included, I think people generally become more ridged when they're aiming for a more "professional" sound.  It's nice to have something loosened up enough to notice, yet still professional quality.  If it's a question of not keeping time, that's one thing, but again, I'm not convinced it's an issue here.

Oh, I wanted to say that I think the lyrics stand out better in this version, likely because of the additional harmonies.  I'm picking out the words a lot better, and they're quite good!  Again, I like the subtle change to vocal style and some of the melodies.  It feels more controlled in this recording.  That's really the key, being in strong control of the melody, in order to properly project it to the audience the way you hear it in your head.

Nice job.

This is the best vocal recording I've heard from you to date, sounds great!!

The only thing I'd change is to cut mid and treble on the rhythm guitar, just a gut feel that it would blend
better.

Nice Drums too

Well done!!!

Rated

Denis

Just want to make sure you understand I'm by no way putting your playing down as sloppy or whatnot!!!For all I know you could have done this intentionally as you point out with the kick match up...This is just how I interpreted the sound as I heard it and that's no biggie, is just an opinion based of my preferences of sound and execution...Now you explain many of the technical recording aspects and that's all good but to me the listener it still wouldn't matter if it was recorded with the latest most expressive equipment available or just my  PC which is no perfect studio recorder...The point is that for me and this again is "for me"in this type of music tight is key...But if that's not what your aiming for that's OK ....Let me clarify my point a little ,if you where doing a CD or download accessible song you wouldn't tell the listeners that there's latency issues,blah blah,that's why there's some rough edges....That really doesn't concern them, all they know is what they hear and so do I.....

The song is awesome and if your satisfied with the final product leave it at that...I'm no production nor music genius to tell you what to do or not...I think the song is hit and that is that!!!!Nothing else is Important they're only opinions....

Good luck
I will not add anything else sorry if you don't understand what I'm saying....Not coming back to this post to clarify anything else my point is made...Wish you guys good luck and many good things!

Edit"Hmm that sounded a bit harsh from me,what I mean is that i really have nothing to ad to clarify my opinion and I don't  want your song post to become a production debate area or give you the wrong vibe in here..You guys most definitely should receive 5 stars for putting it together so well.!!!!.
Peace
Marino

A very 'kick ass' bit of rock and roll, I agree with TLSs comments on Marinos comments...   I also picked up on the slight miss timed thing in the very beginning but put it down to 'guitar wizardrie'  If there were any more 'typos' they were lost to my ear in the song.
I do like the complete piece but James does sound thin/young compared to the very heavy/mature music.

Not much to say here- just a very solid piece of good old rock and roll.  I tend to agree with most of the reviews in that there seems to be some errors in timing, but again, overall a very solid piece!

Acidan

This is near perfection!  I'm pretty much a metal guy, but if you're thing is good pop music this is where to be!

I'm completely diggin' the harmonies between the lead and backing vocals. that's good music!

Excellent performance!
As for the recording technique - I see you have become very aware of the stuff you'd like to use in your studio, and of the sound you want to get.
The lead vocal is a bit to weak for my taste. It's thin and could use some more punch. The harmonies are great! Also, the bass drum is hardly audible (to my ears) - maybe you could make the bass guitar a bit less bassy (then it could be mixed in a bit louder without it being to powerful in the mix) and punch the low frq on the drums so that the bass drum is more apparent in the mix.
Overall, a very fine song. And again, superb perfomance. Personaly, I would have done the mastering of the song in a different fashion, but I find your way very good.

Thanks for sharing.

great song, love the tune, but Jim is right to me, the production is a little thin

anyway love the song for its energy !! like the riffs!