general help

[dave321321]

hi everybody,

i'm new to recording but want to make some decent basement recordings of some stuff i'm working on.

i currently own a computer with cooledit on it, a shure sm57 and a shure pg48, a really really cheap 'mixer' which is kind of radioshack quality and really doesn't do much more than boost the mic signal, and some gear.

right now i'm only using one mic at a time because i need to get another xlr-1/4" cord because the super awesome cheap mixer only has 1/4" inputs

this morning i tried to record some drums, guitar, and bass and put it together.

here is a link to my 'test':

http://www.vacationdrinkingteam.com/temp1/jan19.mp3

if anyone feels like downloading that and listening to it and just offering some general suggestions (bearing in mind what i have to use), that would be really awesome. i'd rather people who know what they're doing listen to this and if you can think of anything really obvious that might help out my little recording endeavours, that would be sweet.

right off the bat, i don't like how muddy everything is. the cymbals cover up a lot of low-end on the guitars, and the guitars are kind of muddy by themselves, and the bass peaks really quickly.

i've been reading homerecording.com for the last 2 hours and already have a few ideas of how to make everything better, but like i said, if anyone wants to give me some advice that would rock.

[dave321321]

ps, the reasons for wanting to make these recordings are as follows:

1. something to show engineers when i record this stuff at a studio.

2. stuff to play along to in my discman at said studios so i don't have to worry about tempos and metronomes and the shit that usually fucks me up in the studio.

3. genuinely interested in learning how to record. this is day one of me having some gear and instruments together and i'm totally hooked on it and can't wait to spend the next couple of weeks writing and recording stuff for upcoming records.

[Massive Master]

From what I read in your post, I really expected much worse than what I heard. Sure, it sounds "distant" and "washy" but it's clear enough to know what's going on. That's a fine start!

The rest is all experimentation, time & talent. Upgrading some gear would be a good step.

[TexRoadkill]

If you want to improve the quality a mic pream would probably be the first step.

I would recomend exporting your project as individual wav files for each track. That way the studio you go to can put them into their DAW and you can replace the tracks one by one. You will also want a seperate click track in the project to keep everything in sync. You should be able to burn all the tracks in a 16bit song to a CD as data files. Unless your track counts are getting pretty high you should be okay.

[radiorickm]

i listened to you clip. for the equipment at hand, you did a very good job.

There is one thing i noticed,and it may be more my equipment and the MP3.

i played the clip thru the netscape win amp. it has the spectrum display on it.

although the guitars were mixed equally. there was no separation between them. What i mean is that listening to the clip and watching the spectrum, every frequency from about 50hz to 7.5KHz was peaking together. it was just one big sound.

each insturment should occupy it's own space in the sound spectrum. i could not honestly begin to tell you how many guitars were playing.

it is a learned art to get that to happen.

btw....i believe if you learn to get a good sound from bad equipment, getting a good sound from good equipment is that much easier!

keep recording and learning.

[noisedude]

great start. without being funny a lot of it has to do with the instruments too. my favourite live snare sounds rubbish on tape no matter what i do with it. also you may have to adjust your technique at times.

but for what you've got i'd say it's excellent. get an LDC such as the SP B1 (start a flame war by going onto the mics board and asking about it!!!) and a yamaha MG series mixer. then think about your soundcard.