Can I improve the sound quality of recordings from the 1980's with Ableton Intro 8

iggystooge

New member
Hello all,

I'm pretty much a beginner when it comes to recording, I've done little bits and not very successfully. I've never actually managed to record a full song from scratch. I have some basic gear at home and I've agreed to help a mate try to improve the sound quality of some old recordings he made with a friend who's now passed away. My mate has ideas of adding new parts to some of the songs as well as improving the overall sound of the originals.

At some point the originals, (I assume they were recorded on tape) have been transferred to CD. It is only the CD copy's we have to work with although they have been ripped in WAV format for best quality. Will this be a limiting factor regarding the improvements that can be made?

I'm using Ableton Intro 8.4.2 in Windows 7 64bit. I have a Focusrite Saffire Pro 24, a Midi controller and an AKG perception 120 Mic, plus various guitars. I really want the best end result possible with the gear I have. I don't expect miracles.

Will it be better if I post an example of the recordings so you know what we're working with?

Any help you can offer is much appreciated. Thank you.

IggyStooge.
 
Posting an example will help. But, for the most part, you are stuck with the mix you have and will only be able to add things on top of it.

EQ and compression can do a lot, if you really want to get as much out of it as you can, sending it to a good mastering engineer might be something to consider. Again, it really depends on what you actually have to work with, as far as the original recording and mix are concerned.
 
Which parts were don't by your friend?

Since this seems to be mono, adding two guitars that aren't so thin and panning them wide would help. So would doubling the bass part with a better sounding bass, if you could mimic it well enough.

Other than that, you could try taking out some of the 2-3k that there seems to be too much of, and compress it a bit to bring everything together.
 
I'm not sure who played what on that track. There is 13 tracks altogether, some covers, some originals written by my friend (rhythm guitar), the lead guitarist and the bass player. The singer wasn't in the band (he wasn't really a singer) but he liked the idea of recording an album with his mates.
 
What I was getting at is, what parts of this do you wish to retain?

The drums are obviously a drum machine, so laying better samples on top shouldn't be an issue.

If you layer another bass on top and put better drum samples on it, you could high pass the original track at around 300-400hz to keep the vocals and original guitar, then add two rhythm guitar parts panned wide to make it sound better.

But to your original question, can you do something to make this sound better, the answer is "not really, without adding to the recording".

This is for two reasons:

1. The original sounds were recorded poorly

2. it was mixed in mono
 
Sorry I misunderstood you. It's most important we retain the singers vocal. Everything else can be replaced really. I agree its not a very good recording, you should hear some of the other tracks. :D
 
The vocal should be relatively easy to keep, while adding other things to make the whole thing sound better.

Start with adding a pair of rhythm guitars and pan them hard left and right. That will help a lot.

The next thing would be adding a nice sounding bass.

You should be able to do both of those things without masking the vocal and they should add some depth to what is already there.
 
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