My First Recording, how did I do?

[Stevo7]

Hi. I'm really new to home recording. This is my bands first recording. How did we do? We used a Tascam us-122, Studio projects B1 microphone and Cakewalk home studio software. We recorded a vocals, djembe, guitar, and egg shakers. Any suggestions on how we can improve recording? Any help would be great.

Thanks alot.

You can hear the song here.

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/6/stevelambmusic.htm

[Spaztic]

The egg shaker is to loud, try turning it down.

[scrubs]

I would say that for a first effort, this is pretty good. The acoustic tone you got is very nice. The vocalist has a great voice. The song is decent, too.

Here are the major problems (most of which are dynamics issues) that jump out:

1) The levels are really all over the place. At times the percussion is far too loud. Other times, it is barely audible. Dynamics in a song are great, but this one is out of control. Adding some selective compression to individual tracks should smooth it out a bit.

2) There are some plosives on the lead vocal (0:13 and others). There is also some clipping of the signal (0:47 and others). Make sure you are using a pop filter for vocals. Some compression will also help here.

3) Mic placement on that djembe is critical. You want to capture the tone, without all the "boom." I'm not sure how you miked it, but it is really boomy. Perhaps angle the mic a little off-axis.

[firetech]

I second everything scrubs said. Good advice, man.

What a voice on that girl! You might try limiting and/or *lightly* compressing parts of the vocals because they're a little to hot sometimes. Sounds like she leans a few inches more away from the mic around the last little lines she's doing. that's about the level I think you want it at. It blends really well in with the music and doesn't overpower it which is happening a lot through the song. Don't bring it back too much though because she's got an awesome voice and that's the real selling point.

I'm really blown away. This is very excellent for a first shot. I'm also really excited to hear a female vocalist. Caught me by surprise :-)