Fallen Empire (my band)

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Espy

Espy

Alright so as many of you saw here: http://www.halforums.com/forum/show...racks-(Music-Soundcloud-Halforum-Integration) Ame worked out the code to use the Soundcloud player my band (among many others) uses to share music online.
So here's my thread I said I would get around to.
The band is called Fallen Empire.
Our EP is called The World Glow and it's going to be up on iTunes/Amazon, etc within the next week or so.
Here's a few tracks that I have uploaded:

The World Glow
[sc]http://soundcloud.com/fallenempire/the-world-glow[/sc]

A Fly to Honey (an instrumental track)
[sc]http://soundcloud.com/fallenempire/a-fly-to-honey[/sc]

It Takes Away
[sc]http://soundcloud.com/fallenempire/it-takes-away[/sc]

So, there you have it, it's hard rock so I know it's not for everyone, but it's what we do so... hope you enjoy it. :p
I'll put up the art I'm working on for the cd/digital release soon, I think it's pretty rad.
Oh and here is our soundcloud page: http://soundcloud.com/fallenempire
 
KCWM

KCWM

"It Takes Away" reminds me of how I remember older NIN stuff in my head. I never got a lot of exposure to that band, but that's the first thing that came to mind, though with different vocals. This is my favorite song of the three you posted. I'm listening to more on the site now. One good thing about "The World Glow" was that it took me until the second verse to realize the verse mainly consisted of one chord. If you actually played that instead of cutting/pasting, it was very consistent...something I envy.

Now that I think about it, with the programmed drums, it also brings to mind Filter, but more along the lines of "Hey Man, Nice Shot" era Filter. It's been ages since I've listened to that CD. It's the electronic drums that does it. You guys seem to embrace them for what they are, whereas I try to make them sound like real drums and fail.

I like the vocals for the music. I think that the first thing that turns me off to music produced by amateur bands is the vocals...which is why I am so self conscious of my own. I like the use of harmonies and echos. When you described it as hard rock, I was expecting something more cookie cutter and it definitely isn't that.

I like the guitar at the end of "The Devil in You", and then it cut off.

Pretty cool stuff man. It really makes me want to get back into more electric recording, but that will likely have to wait until we get a house sometime this year.
 
Espy

Espy

Thanks man, I was hoping to hear from you.

Re: It Takes Away: Definitely my real tribute to older NIN. I can't deny the influence on me and I wanted to embrace that but yet make it mine.

The World Glow guitar: Josh Ans is actually our guitar player and yes, he plays every single note and he plays like a beast.

Drums: While I would love to have more live drums I love older NIN/Filter/Ministry/Jesus and Mary Chain/The Cure etc and one of the things I love most about them is the programmed drums. Live it will be a totally different beast. Probably a mix of live and programmed, but thats something for our future drummer to figure out. It's really freaking hard to find hard rock drummers in Minneapolis. Ugh.

Devil in You guitar... yeah... we cut it off early on purpose to be honest, kind of a sharp drop off a cliff was Josh's idea... maybe it didn't work? Either way though, they are pretty sweet aren't they? Some of my favorites he did.

I spend a LOT of time on the vocals. It's really draining and a ton of work. I use a pretty good condenser mic and I think I end up with a pretty good sound that doesn't scream "amateur" recording to the average joe/joe-ette.

As to the hard rock label, honestly it's probably not perfect since we delve so much into industrial and electronic corners but the average person seems really confused when I say we are an industrial rock band so I just go with hard rock, because in the end it's the most generic term for us.
 
KCWM

KCWM

The vocals didn't sound amateur at all. A good condenser mic goes a long way. In fact, from what I read online, if you're going to invest money into two things for your home recording studio, it's a GOOD condenser mic and an interface or input device with good pre amps. If you go new, just at a basic level, you're looking at 700-900 alone at Guitar Center. I had a friend that worked in pro-audio and he detailed the condenser mics.

Just for the record, when I said amateur, I didn't mean it as an insult. I didn't want to use the word "indie" as that's almost more of a genre now. I assume you did it on a home studio of some kind. I have a friend who's recording in a studio and it sounds like a pretty polished home demo. To get the professional sound, you need a lot of money, whether you buy the equipment yourself or go into a studio. If you engineered it yourself, I think you did a pretty kick ass job at it. That's the hardest part. In fact, I don't even mess with it...I just record tracks, level out the parts as best as I can using a blanket decibel boost, and mix the tracks together. Maybe when I have the tracks together and enough money to make it worth your while, I can talk you into working your magic on a few of my songs.
 
Espy

Espy

I record with the condensor mic (300 bucks) and a m-audio fast track pro (can't remember... 200? maybe?). I record and mix in Logic then master in Waveburner.

For having no training I feel like I did pretty damn good :)
Thanks for the kind words. I'd love to chat about your stuff and hear it!
 
Math242

Math242

I really really like the instrumental track. listened to it 4 or 5 times today. I'll get the EP from Itunes.

Industrial rock > * :)
 
Espy

Espy

Math242 said:
I really really like the instrumental track. listened to it 4 or 5 times today. I'll get the EP from Itunes.

Industrial rock > * :)
Click to expand...
Thanks man! I had hoped you and the other NIN fans here would enjoy it. It's really encouraging to hear that people into that sort of music like it.
I think I have 3 instrumental tracks posted on the site, here's my current favorite, it will be the album opener when we get all the songs together.
[sc]http://soundcloud.com/fallenempire/the-echo[/sc]

Regarding the EP, it's going to be 6 songs and it's going to be super cheap since most of the songs will be on the eventual album. I'm thinking maybe a buck or two tops. There will be a CD option for those who want since CDBABY seems to have a pretty good purchase as you go thing for CD's.
 
L

LordRavage

I am really digging it Espy. Do you have a website or myspace music page?
 
Espy

Espy

You have? I didn't think I had shared any on here before... Either way thanks!

I'll have the myspace and facebook info up soon for peeps who want to check that out. I'm having issues with soundcloud and facebook. It publishes the songs to my profile which is nice but I want them to go to my band page and I'm not sure how to direct it there...
 
Krisken

Krisken

I kind of got an early Maralyn Manson vibe from the first song. I'll have to give the other songs a listen later on.

Yeah, drum machines are ok, but I think they require a lot of work to get the right sound. I like what I hear so far though.
 
Espy

Espy

Thanks Krisken, I was wondering what you would think of the stuff. I know we have similar tastes.
 
Rob King

Rob King

Espy, I don't know much on the technical side of music, but I have to say I'm really enjoying it. I would not be shocked to buy a CD and find this stuff on it. I've listened a few times over the last few days. I'll definitely be looking into it once you release an album/ep.
 
Espy

Espy

Thanks Rob! When you say "find this stuff on a cd" that you buy do you mean the sound quality or the type of music (if you don't mind me asking)?

Heres' a little motion graphics video I made to start promoting tracks on youtube:
 
Espy

Espy

Thanks math. I wanted something fun to look at while people listen on YouTube and I figured that was more interesting than a still image.
 
Rob King

Rob King

Espy said:
Thanks Rob! When you say "find this stuff on a cd" that you buy do you mean the sound quality or the type of music (if you don't mind me asking)?
Click to expand...
Bit of both, but I was mostly talking about the quality. I'm sure technically there is room for improvement (there always is) but it sounds great from here!
 
Espy

Espy

Cool, yeah, I've gotten a pretty good response from people on the quality of the sound. I think I took rather naturally to mixing (I'm still super amateur but for never having taken a class or anything I'm happy with how fast I picked it up.)

Here's the last two tracks from the EP:
Desperate Horses - One of the harder tracks on the EP
[sc]http://soundcloud.com/fallenempire/desperate-horses[/sc]

and the obligatory remix (kind of) track, a strings version of It Takes Away:
[sc]http://soundcloud.com/fallenempire/it-takes-away-strings-version[/sc]
 
Silver Jelly

Silver Jelly

I've listened to some of these tracks and I must say I like them a lot. Sometimes I have trouble understanding what the lyrics are, but I guess that's my "foreigness" acting up.
 
drawn_inward

drawn_inward

Espy said:
You have? I didn't think I had shared any on here before... Either way thanks!

I'll have the myspace and facebook info up soon for peeps who want to check that out. I'm having issues with soundcloud and facebook. It publishes the songs to my profile which is nice but I want them to go to my band page and I'm not sure how to direct it there...
Click to expand...
Yeah, I remember when you changed the name from Halcyon, or something like that. We had a thread at one point, in which, musical folks posted stuff.
 
C

Chazwozel

I likes, I just think actual drums would sound a lot better than the keyboard.
 
Espy

Espy

Thanks Chaz! Yeah, I'd love to have a live drummer... we have been searching for one and it turns out if there is a hard rock drummer in Minneapolis they are already in 4 bands. Bleh. So far we have found a bass player though so we have 3 out of 5. Just need a drummer and a violin player and we are ready to start playing live.

So anyone know a great drummer who lives in the Twin Cities? Yeah... I didn't think so... :(
 
fade

fade

Staff member
I listened to the first. I liked it. The one thing that did bother me was the repetitiveness of the guitar in the first half of the song.
 
Silver Jelly

Silver Jelly

I heard it's possible to have your songs on spotify, even if you are just a "starting" band? That would be some great exposure, at least in countries where spotify is avaliable. (now that I mention it, I don't even know if it is in the US! I think it probably is, but who knows...)
 
fade

fade

Staff member
It's not, much to our dismay. Also, some places in Europe I've heard are blocking it because of the high bandwidth usage. I know Oxford doesn't allow it on campus now.
 
Espy

Espy

I'm actually going through "CDBaby" for distrobution. This is their list of partners:
iTunes, including:
iTunes
iTunes-UK
iTunes-Europe
Austria
Belgium
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Ireland
Italy
Luxembourg
Netherlands
Norway
Portugal
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
iTunes-Japan
iTunes-Canada
iTunes-Australia
iTunes-New Zealand
Amazon MP3
eMusic
Rhapsody
Napster
Spotify
Liquid Digital
Verizon V-Cast
Lala
Shockhound
Nokia
Amie Street
last.fm
Zune
MediaNet (formerly MusicNet)
Didiom
Tradebit
inProdicon
GreatIndieMusic

Since this is just a little sampler EP I'm pricing it dirt, dirt, dirt cheap (like .99cents) and allowing them to distribute it to everybody even the free places and streaming sites.
My only real goal is to get our stuff out there and available. My next step is to get stuff out to college radio (which I would have avoided thinking our sound doesn't fit, but I was told to go for it anyway) and I have a name of a place that supposedly for a small fee gets your stuff out to pretty much every college radio station in the states.
As for Europe... not sure. CDBaby hits Europe but I'll look into spotify.
 
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