First off, just let me say that I am absolutely my biggest critic. I'll be the first to criticize other peoples work, but I'm no hypocrite. I judge myself just as harshly and to teh same standard. The main problem was with my backing tracks. For some reason, despite having decent monitors to mix them through and spending hours upon hours fine tuning, certain critical elements were lost in the live mix. Most noticeably was the absence of bass guitar. NONE of the songs had any audible sign of having a bass guitar. This especially affected "The Judge" and "Zombie Hunter" which feature bass only sections. Another unfortunate symptom was the reduced volume, and in some instances, complete absence, of intro tracks and samples. My opening music for "The Drone Machine" had very low volume, while the rest of the song was fine. The intermission track, "Voices," was missing its synth track and all of the overlapped voice parts. All that remained was the incredibly loud guitar feedback. Finally, and most tragically, "The New Gods of The Galaxy," one of my favorite songs, was missing the voice over by Optimus prime during the bridge refrain and interlude to the final verse. Typically, Optimus' voice would come in and say "My name is Optimus Prime. We are autonomous robotic organisms from the planet cybertron," and then "Autobots, roll out!." Every time I play this song, I get goose bumps during that part, and it was a major disappointment for them to be cut out.
As far as drums went, the cymbals and snare were very pronounced and made it quite easy for me to stay in time. But the kick drum was utterly lost and for some reason the toms were the louder than everything else. Anyways, the most likely culprit for all these problems was a compressor or gate being placed somewhere in the signal chain. If I would have thought of it earlier in the set maybe I would have said something and got it fixed. I see this as a learning experience and next time I will take a more hands on approach to the soundcheck.
On the bright side, I nailed several songs and got a good amount of applause after each song. I enjoyed debuting my new song "Eight Headed Fire-Dragon," as well as getting to play my new guitar on stage for the first time. I met some new people and all around had a great night. I'd like to thank everyone who came out to support me.
www.youtube.com/watch
Setlist:
1. The Drone Machine
2. Earthless
3. Carrier
4. House of Clouds
5. Eight Headed Fire-Dragon / Thunderkiss '65 (White Zombie cover, intro only)
6. Red Suns Rays
7. Voices (Intermission)
8. The Judge
9. Zombie Hunter
10. Into The Void (Black Sabbath cover)
11. The New Gods of The Galaxy
12. Titan Rising
Overall play time: 1hr 10mins
