the moments of clarity

VSpaceBoy

VSpaceBoy

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I've been homerecording now for probably 5-6 years. I've never really tried to get my songs to sound "the next level" until recently. (I never cared) Now my band is trying to release our first demo so I'm really focusing hard on getting things to sound good.

Wow.. its like a rollercoaster of crap, mud, brittle hardhness that makes me want to pull my hair out. Its amazing really.. how hard it is to get things to sound good. You'd think it was alot easier. :rolleyes:


But! I have been making huge improvements (imo) to the sound in the last few weeks and thought I would share in case it could help anyone.

You know what hit me after chasing the "sound" I was looking for? I can summarize best in an old overused cliche..

are you ready?




Less is more

Yup, thats it. I know, you all were thinking I was going to unviel this great gem of information.. but for me, this IS the gem. See, I realized (finally) that all of my reading of books on the subject has encouraged me (unintentially) to do things way past the intended use. I would read the writers adjectives and colorations on making adjustments and I would translate it differently in my head. (or on the mixer :) )

Example.. I'd read "Yea, you gotta get some mids out of the bass guitar to take some of the "honk" out, and the lows from the guitar to keep from ruining the low end. Now, this may be very true advice, but when I hear words like "ruin" and "honk" I think to myself.. "Wow, I REALLY don't want those things in MY mix, so I'll take a little more out to make sure." :confused:

:eek: WHABAM!! :eek:

Doing this causes me to constantly fiddle and fiddle and fiddle until I have ruined the sound by sucking all the life out of EVERYTHING with eq, compression, limiting etc. What appears to sound good while I'm making the adjustment, actually ruins it. Then, I'll think that what I did couldn't possibly be the problem so I'll go on to ruin OTHER things.

GEEZ! :(

So anyhow.. I really started over from ground zero. Making extremely MINOR tweaks (if any at all), using smaller amount of compression etc. NOW.. FINALLY, I actually have some things that sound natural, I hear space between the instruments, I hear punch from the kick drum.. etc etc :D

So if I can give one piece of advice to ANYONE.. go easy.. VERY easy on EVERYTHING you do. :cool:


The only problem with what I have described above? :confused:


Now I can actually HEAR how bad my musicianship is.. :mad:

;)
 
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ah... so that's what all those people meant when they were telling me to BYISSBIR

but seriously... nice post... I'm having the same problems. I should try starting from scratch :)
 
true , true. Old wisdom still stands.

You read current articles , like : sure go ahead eq till it sounds good. HUh? Yet old wisdom says anything over 2dbs of tweekadge = retrack. I'm finding to get a prespective on what you're trying to capture is miles ahead of fixing it in the mix. Its a work in progress, but then the tracking becomes more meaningful-and less work @ mix time.

BTW, Good article Ed.

T
 
We have to reward growth in youth Fvan.
Yours was wisdom of the ages from one of the sages.
VSpaceBoy's is wisdom of the ages filtered through one of the ragers.
 
rayc said:
YEP
AND
Get Your Instrument's Sound Sorted Before It's Recorded.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Nothing sucks more than having a great song arranged, performance nailed, mic placement down, but the instruments sound like shit.

There's nothing you can about that. I'd say that's the most important.

I have to wait awhile before I can record some of my songs until I can afford a couple new guitars...acoustic, electric, and a good amp. :( :mad:
 
over time you will come to many, many of these realizations.

my most recent = make sure the drums have the vertical space to drop, and make a separate mix in each speaker.
 
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