thanks guys.

i was wrong about how music production was going. i thought it was all about performing everything live yourself (especially after the Milli Vanilli thing), but as it turns out, many bands now use some type of backing track or pc to fill in the vocals and keyboards.

i am actually pretty happy with the tone i had on that cd. i haven't been able to really top it. i believe my tone nowadays is very similar though.

it is cool that there are many heavy christian bands out there now. the thing is that it seems like christian music is always behind as far as the latest styles. it's like artists get saved and after 2-3 years they try to keep doing what they were doing stylistically and it's almost dated sounding by the time it comes out. that's how it was in my day anyway. there are some exceptions to that though: Flyleaf seemed to come out and do something fresh (to my ears anyway).

sounds good i wouldn't have guessed you were only working with a stereo drum track.

i was listening to an album by a band called cry of love for years before i even realised they were a christian rock band..lol

I'm of the opinion that there was more chicanery going on back in the 70's and 80's than we knew about, since it was easier for acts to conceal certain things; especially with no YouTube.

For instance, I was at the concert Motley Crue filmed the Home Sweet Home video, and that piano part was clearly pre-recorded. Tommy Lee was running back to his drum kit and the piano was still playing.

Bands like Kiss were using guys like Gary Corbett behind the stage adding keyboards and triggering backing vocals.

And it turns out the entire first Warrant album was done pretty much by session musicians.

I also seem to recall a major lawsuit when Electric Light Orchestra was caught using pre-recorded tracks in a live setting.

I'm sure these are but a few examples and the practice was more widespread than we knew.

I see what you're saying about Christian bands sounding dated; I would imagine it would have something to do with the fact Christian radio is not known to be a trendsetter. So anything too far from the norm doesn't stand a chance of getting much airplay.

Some of the more mainstream Christian bands are sometimes more with the times. For instance, I really dig Paramore.

Sounds great, I did some songs where we had to mix down the drums like that. Guitars are NICE! It don't seem "direct" like the Eleven Rack stuff. Maybe I'm used to hearing a lot of this kind of thing from listening to a lot of bands that did it, but it sounds very realistic in comparison. Very full & as if the "mics" are set up perfectly. There's always that factor that everything is now captured crystal clear in the digital recording realm too. I wonder with your ears if you could take the Fabfilter Saturn plugin & get that tape sound just like on the "reel thing." Gotta be the tape saturation that makes the difference & makes it breathe...

\m/!!!!!