Hello everybody,
I’m very glad to see that the user forum has been reopened. It’s really great to meet so many people from the old forum again! I’m looking forward to all their contributions to the forum.
I’d like to reintroduce myself with two very different songs featuring Saros. I like his voice because you can make him sing very emotionally. One song, „Surrender“, written some months before, is rather heavy – the other is somewhat bittersweet, I’d say.
Here’s „Surrender“, featuring some guitar riffs, a synth and a long guitar solo, three verses and three chorusses, a hookline which I hope is easily memorable, odd meters, meter changes, irregular phrase structures, many, many different chords, key changes … nothing new for a prog metal song :D, except perhaps that it closes with the last verse.
I like songs like that and I like them to is longer. The plot is still developing (I don’t understand the text and when I find it, I translate it into Czech language and to write poems in the spirit text in my head, because the translator can’t do that), but I can feel it musically and gather the atmosphere from the expression of the singing.
Thanks a lot 
Well, the lyrics – here they are, but of course that’s a weak spot, for i am not an English native speaker, too. My songs are only written for an at maximum semi-professional band.
It’s a very sinister story. Hm, it’s metal, there are certain clichés, but perhaps the lyrics are also inspired by the Russian-Ukrainian war, in medieval disguise…
S u r r e n d e r
These are the pits where my sons are buried,
these are the places where my brothers died.
These are the fields where my sisters slave,
these are the cages in which my daughters lie.
I know the sound of a thousand horses,
I’ve heard the death cry of a thousand men.
I know the sight of rotting corpses.
I have nightmares that you wouldn’t stand.
Surrender – when you realize that it’s all in vain
Surrender – and the abyss, it opens right under your feet,
Surrender – when you’re traumatized and you’re going insane,
Surrender – and you’re feeling the world is burning
and you’re freezing in spite of the heat.
My mother gave me hope, my father hatred
to carry the torch through these darkening years.
Now I’ve used it up. You know what our fate is:
An ocean could not hold our tears,
oh no, an ocean could not hold our tears.
Surrender – when you realize that it’s all in vain
Surrender – and the abyss, it opens right under your feet,
Surrender – when you’re traumatized and you’re going insane,
Surrender – and you’re feeling the world is burning
and you’re freezing in spite of the heat.
Surrender – when you realize that it’s all in vain
Surrender – and the abyss, it opens right under your feet,
Surrender – when you’re traumatized and you’re going insane,
Surrender – and you’re feeling the world is burning
and you’re freezing in spite of the heat.
Crows at the cradle sang a song for me,
they know the future, all the things to come.
All my life I’ve heard the melody,
a dirge for freedom that never should have been sung,
a dirge for freedom that never should have been sung.
Wow! Big, bombastic, ambitious, complex music, and Saros! Love it! Great lyrics in the second verse. That could almost be the chorus of a different song. The solo at :48 really sets the tone. 4:34 doesn’t quite follow it as well though. Overall, not for the faint of heart, but a powerful piece.
Ui! That’s really nice! The first time that an English native speaker says something about my lyrics… You know I’m always insecure about them because I’m from Germany. Well, the solo at 4:34 is a plugin guitar (odin 3) played on a keyboard, I’m still trying to learn how to imitate a guitar on the keyboard… Thank you so much!
Programing a lead guitar VST is really hard to sound real and the right notes, but whatever you used at :48 is perfectly unsettling.
This is phenomenal. What a project this must have been. It’s like an entire album in one song. Your sense of melody is great. Saros reminds me a bit of Draiman from Disturbed – one of my favourite vocalists. I’ve used Hayden and NineZero for my more aggressive tunes, but definitely going to check out Saros. The only criticism I have is with the drum production. It gets lost in the mix sometimes which is a shame since you created such powerful beats.
Since you like heavy music, here’s one of mine a NineZero and Hayden collab.
Looking for to hearing more from you!
Wow, that’s overwhelming, thanks a lot! Yes, I’m stilll struggling with my mixes. I have been writing songs for decades, but I started recording songs with plugins only in 2021, during corona pandemic, when rehearsing and gigging wasn’t possible. These recordings have not been made for publishing, but as a tool for rehearsing. Alas, I’m writing much more songs than my band can learn and perform…
Well, I’m gonna checkout Hayden, he seems to be also great. I use NineZero mostly for backing vocals, but sometimes also for lead, when I need an Ozzy-like singer.
Your song is great, too, with a great sense for atmosphere - the wailing guitars… - and groove. And a professional mix. It seems that there are some guys here in the forum who like and make heavy and proggy music, that’s nice! Gonna listen to the rest of your songs here, too.
Been listening again. That keyboard sound is tasty. If you were going for a Dream Theatre vibe, you nailed it. I’m hearing more and more cool layers now that’s I’ve playing it through my studio headphones. Really impressive. Your band is fortunate to have such an inventive musical mind with them.
Here’s another heavy one. I was pretty happy with the bass tone I got.
I have a new one posting tomorrow called “Killer”. I’ll send you the link to see what you think. It’s a female vocal (Nathalie) but not what you might expect from her… : )
Yes, a cool bassline and a cool sound. (And a very good sounding Hihat again - what plugin are you using? Only the snare could have a little bit more punch, I think.) Again a catching atmosphere and an impressive video. Is it critizism when I say that this is a song that is so dark that I feel it needs real human singers?
Thanks for the thoughtful feedback, Mattis. I think all of us would ideally have real singers–that’s how I hear it in my head anyway. I have 30 years of musical ideas that I’ve been slowly bringing to life. Now middle aged, I don’t have time for perfection. My goal is to finish as many songs as I can, before I can’t anymore. Perhaps my future grand children will discover Gramps’ music and be inspired to form a band. Who knows.
As far as the drums go, I’m a simpleton. My DAW is Garageband if you can believe it. I compose the drum tracks using the midi authoring tool then map the drum sound. I do use a separate track for each part though (kick, snare, toms 1, toms 2, hihat, cymbals, ride). It get the sound I like from the stock GB plugins – compressor, EQ and reverb.
What’s your process?
The first part of your answer could as well have been written by me :-D, seems we’re in a similar situation, with me being slightly above middle age, I guess.
I’m still trying (and buying… how stupid) this and that, often combining elements from different drums… better I don’t tell all of my sins here I began with Logic, but didn’t follow from windows to Mac. Then I started with Cakewalk, since it was for free, but I was increasingly angry about some things which destroyed the workflow, then I bought Samplitude in a sale, found the workflow equally insufficient and have now bought Cubase in a sale where they offered a bonus for changing from another platform… Same thing with the other stuff…
I used a factory sound from Knif Audio’s synth “Knifonium” (Plugin Alliance). The patch is called “Rudess Lead” (of course…). One of those solos where I turn the tempo of the DAW halfway down, play something on the keyboard and then return to the intended tempo. In the following months I then try to learn to play that stuff in real time 
That’s funny. I’ve had to relearn a bunch of my songs also. Especially since I usually compose the second and third guitar parts after the main chords an vocal melodies are done. There’s some stuff I wrote in the moment that poses a problem because I adjusted the tuning and didn’t take notes (like tuning the B to an A, etc). That’s a lot of work for you to play at those tempos.
I use a plug in set called STL tones and AmpHub. They had a great Black Friday sale. Very extensive library of effects and amps. Amazing sounds. Check it out.
https://stltones.com/ – $126 USD a year presently