muffled vocals+EQ=distortion??

[dminor]

ok heres a new question....i record in vocals an dthey sound a little muffled, but not too horrible, then i start EQing them and all of a sudden the s' are distorted now...and its not like Ive pushed the highs all that much, has anyone else had this problem?

is it the fact that the vocals going in are so muffled that when i EQ i'm having to do more work than i should?

please advise....by the way, you guys are a great help!

[camn]

if you hear distortion... you probably are pushing too much. We ve ALL had that problem.

Your goal while tracking should be to record a sound you like.. So EQ on the board or sing in a brighter room or something to minimize the EQing you have to do later.

xox

[dminor]

ok the story gets a little more strange at this point....i pseudo-mixed a song that Ive been tracking for the last 3 days (due to the distortion problem) and i burn it to a cd (since i'm using windows XP, they didnt bother to install easy cd creator 5 or anything worth while, so i used the windows media player to burn it )...take the cd into my external cd player thats connected to my home theater system...and guess what....now everything that seemed muddy is now treble heavy and lacking in bottom end...now, i know what youre thinking...i probably had the mixer eq's step up weird and didnt notice...well think again. the EQ's were all at 12:00 and were basically running straight from my delta 1010 (out 1/2) into my alesis studio 16 console...and then the mix out leads to my amp....any ideas what is causing this or how to remedy it?

[dobro]

Well, I'd guess it's cuz that's what your home theater system sounds like. Play it through a boom box or a car stereo, and it'll sound different two more times. Play the same thing on your friend's home stereo, and it'll sound different again. Each system has its own sound - a lot of systems tend to boost the bottom or top end. If you applied modest amounts of EQ to the mix, then the culprit is probably your home theater system. But run a check: play commercial CDs you know and like through the same systems you're testing your own stuff on. It'll help you get your own stuff in line with pro stuff.

What you're aiming for is to burn a mix to CD that sounds as good as possible on any system it's played on. It's impossible to achieve, but it's the target you aim for.

[dminor]

ive tested it against store bought CD's and the problem lies with either the sound card or the mixer...now Ive mixed plenty of songs via adats on this mixer and so my guess is that its the sound card or cool edit...it should be noted that im running windows xp, and neither m-audio or cool edit have drivers for XP yet....could this be the culprit?

[camn]

do two things....

rip a Song off a pro cd you know well.... get a WAV of it.. and play it from CEP. Does it sound different/muted/or SUPER BRIGHT??? then burn that song onto CD... and play it. is it muted?

and

describe your ENTRIRE signal chain/setup. Down to the BRAND and MODEL of your monitors. All.

xoox

[dminor]

ok when i burn a song off a pro cd and then burn it from a cool edit session, it sounds muffled when i play it off my cd-rom using my delta1010 as my sound card....if i play it on any other cd player, it sounds fine. the brightness issue was over EQ'ing to make up for the muffled output.

heres the signal flow out.

delta1010 1/2 out into 2 channels on my alesis studio 16 console. (i've also tried just using the inserts to the same result) from the console it goes directly to my amp(samson s700) and then to my monitors(Tannoy PBM 6.5 II) the amp-monitor setup is exactly the same as I've had it for years using my adats, so i've taken that out of the equation....i believe that it might have something to do with the fact that i'm running windows XP.....any ideas?

[camn]

I dont know anything about XP.. so Im not qualified to comment on that.. but do eliminate options.

a.1) if you just put a pro CD in your CD-ROM and play it.. is it muffled?

a) Check the muffled signal with headphones out of your sampson... make sure the speaks are good. ...

b) If you can exchange amps for a bit.. try it. your amp might have blown some op-amps or something... also, incase you had a blonde moment.. check the EQs on your amp.. make sure they are flat....

b.5) bypass your console....

c) If you can run the sound out of a DIFFERENT soundcard... try that.

If its a software issue... its could be a driver.. but usually you dont have eq problems with software issues......


xoox