A friend of mine bouyght me their two CDs as a Christmas present and here is what I think:
Songwriting: the songwriting is great; the hooks are memorable, the lyrics have good formulation. The riffs are good and creative. The songs have a good pop feel to them that has meaning and does not try to sound like anybody else. Overall, I thought the albums Influence and Embrace, are very listener friendly.
Production: the sound needs a lot of work. A lot. The micing certainly requires a lot more work because everything from the guitars, vocals, drums, and bass have no öomph" to them, there is too much air in the different elements of the recording, and the recordings sound like they have too much air floating around in the tracks. The EQing needs a lot of work, and "mastering"needs to be done with a proper set of monitors. I wondered why the songs sounded like they did so, I looked at the mastering credits - oh - the "mastering" was done by the same guy that did the mixing, most likely at the very same place the recording was done. As a result of this discovery, I asked around about Backyard Studios from fellows who had seen or were familiar with the facility in Cebu. It turns out the place is housed in a back yard, in a building made of concrete with no proper monitoring system, or recording wall treatment. It figures. It turns out they run a carenderia (eatery) business there too.
Now, I am all for the D-I-Y ethic but this is why recordings such as UrbanDub's Embrace and Influence sound the way they do: people try to juggle everything that they can, thinking that it is "good enough." For local distribution and subpar sonic standards? Sure. Can the production compete with internationally distributed music? Not likely.
Apparently, Urband Dub's sound is not unique since the sonic signature of this Demetrio guy is all over Slapshock's latest offering, as well as Agaw Agimat's last two records. All three band's music are different but the sterile production of the music is there.
Note: For your reference, I monitored Urban Dub (Influence, Embrace), Slapshock (Silence), and Agaw Agimat (Mantra) through the following monitoring speakers (see below). I use these a lot, often on a daily basis, so I know how they translate sound in different genres. The CDs were not r*pped. I listened to the original copies straight from the CD to ensure that I was listening to an accurate representation of what was on the disc.
Monitor 1: Event ASP8, 2: Genelec 1032A, 3: Dyna Audio BM6 (borrowed from my brother's setup who deals a lot with drum tracking)
