Commercial level results at home

S

ste20man

New member
Hi.

I'm still very new to home recording, can you get near commercial level results at home?

I'm having trouble with getting my drums to cut through amongst other things, it seems every time I get a level for the drums right on one part, on the chorus, they don't seem loud enough.

When I compare my stuff to Rage against the machine there music seems so much more powerful than mine. My songs are decent but they don't match up to how big thiers sound.

Has anyone had these problems?

Cheers, Ste.
 
ste20man said:
Has anyone had these problems?

Cheers, Ste.
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yup.
Pretty much everyone who's tried home recording. ;)

I'm still workin this one out myself but it seems to me that a lot of the punch, clarity and volume starts with the tracking stage.
Where's your levels at there?
 
btw...yeah, you can get commercial volume. There's guys here who get it but if they told ya, they'd have ta kill ya.
:D
 
Dogbreath said:
btw...yeah, you can get commercial volume. There's guys here who get it but if they told ya, they'd have ta kill ya.
:D
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Lol. It might be worth dying, I'd be at peace knowing I'd get results on the other side. I could live with that. :)

I think I got good guitar audio coming in. Using a tele - fender blues deluxe - SM57 - Saffire 6. I'm definitively learning as I go. I've started to carve spaces out so different instruments fit in the mix. Cut a lot of the guitars so the bass comes through and to my ears it sounds better. More clarity which is good.

I've just automated the drums so that the move from verse to chorus has that extra punch. That one was a definite winner. Maybe one of the guys who are in the know(yourself included) could put together a list of 20 top tips that 'make the difference' when it comes to mixing a song?

It's those kind of bits of knowledge born through years of frustration that would really jump start a newcomer. As if you were sitting in a studio watching someone work. I reckon you'd learn more in a day than you would in a year.

But as you said, they tell, you die. You've got to weigh that kind of shit up. :)
 
ste20man said:
As if you were sitting in a studio watching someone work. I reckon you'd learn more in a day than you would in a year.
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I tried that once, and THIS is what happened......

BobRossTheJoyofPaintingEveningsPeace_thumb2-1.png
 
ste20man said:
. Maybe one of the guys who are in the know(yourself included) could put together a list of 20 top tips that 'make the difference' when it comes to mixing a song?
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well...I'd have to say a good mix starts at tracking.

Check your levels coming in. Run them at -18...up to say -12. You wanna leave headroom.
With EQ, cut before ya boost...
If micing, play with placement til ya get THE sound you're after. If it takes ya awhile, so be it. It'll be worth it.

Gotta git for now.....
 
Getting "commercial" levels at home can be done by a monkey. Getting a GOOD SOUNDING level at home is a little harder. That has more to do with your tracking/mixing skills than it does with the "mastering" process.

The way you describe your problem seems to have little to do with getting "commercial levels". If you can't get your drums to cut through during certain parts of a tune, that has nothing to do with how loud the overall level of the song is. Your problem is a tracking/arranging/mixing problem.

All the stuff you're talking about like:
there (sic) music seems so much more powerful than mine.
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....is all about how it was recorded, mixed, and arranged, not how loud the overall mix is.
 
I don't think he's talking about levels -- I'm under the impression that he's looking more at "on that level" --

To some extent, it's not impossible or anything.

But keep in mind that you're comparing (whatever you're doing and whatever you're using) to recordings made by teams of industry professionals with hundreds of thousands of $$$ of the absolute pinnacle of gear available in fantastic sounding rooms that were built for that purpose.

Brad plays a $7000 kit that's tech'd for hours and hours before the first mic is put near it. The best possible mics for those drums are used going into whatever the best possible preamps for those mics, etc., etc., etc.

That all said - I know plenty of people who use the same gear as (person X) but don't sound like "Person X" -- Because they're not person X.

THAT all said -- Make the best recordings you can. But remember that the most important parts of a recording are the things that happen before the RECORD button is ever pressed.
 
Massive Master said:
I don't think he's talking about levels -- I'm under the impression that he's looking more at "on that level"
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I think you're right. I read
commercial level results
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...in the wrong context. My comments about anyone being able to get "those levels" were reffering to volume, so I was probably way off-track.

Thanx for pointing that out, Massive. I never would have caught it, and my response would have totally mis-led ste20ma about how easy it is to get "commercial levels".
 
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Hi again,

I guess what I was really meaning was the clarity of each track and achieving a good balance overall.

If you have a drum, bass, single guitar and vocal track only, like rage against the machine say, you can hear in their recordings a clarity and separation of each instrument.

This might be due to the recording process, getting the best quality audio in, but I also have the feeling that their must be a large amount of credit due to the mixing process. Balancing, levels, panning.

When you listen the these professional mixes of this kind of genre, you can hear everything. The drums are prominent, bass sits well, you can hear the guitar and vox. There's balance which allows the power of the instruments to come through. It's amazing how good they 'sound'.

The songs feel finished. It's this kind of 'quality' of recording that I'm after. I'm not assuming that I'll ever get close to this as you have mentioned there are a lot of things that go into creating a song. Recording, gear, room space and mixing etc. But that is what I'm after. That sort of professional sound that is crystal clear.

In terms of loudness, I've not even tried anything relating to the mastering process although I have read a little about it. I will definately move on to this at some point but only when I've maxed out my mixing chops to the full.
 
Hi ste20man, you might be making life difficult by comparing your recordings to the finished, mastered songs of bands like Rage Against The Machine.

How big is your studio (ie. its 3 dimensions) and what acoustic treatment does it have? Where in the studio are the drums placed? Which mics are you recording them with? The phrase 'fix it in the mix' is misleading; if you have not been able to capture the clarity and passion that you want from the drums then you will not be able to add them in the mix.

ste20man said:
I've just automated the drums so that the move from verse to chorus has that extra punch.
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A good drummer will normally increase the intensity with which he hits the drums when it comes to accentuated parts. I wonder if you are giving yourself a hard job by having recorded a performance that is different to what you want to have and are therefore forced to try and fix it in the mix.

Regarding the 20 tips, the best topic I have ever read is a long but worthwhile one, on the Reaper forum: Why do your recordings sound like ass?
 
Capriccio said:
A good drummer will normally increase the intensity with which he hits the drums when it comes to accentuated parts. I wonder if you are giving yourself a hard job by having recorded a performance that is different to what you want to have and are therefore forced to try and fix it in the mix.
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+1 on this Cap!

I didn't want to say this before cause everyone was talking about the process of getting the best sound recording possible --Which is our art -- but in the end it really comes down to the performance and it's magic that you are capturing. If the magic is there and you know your skills - then your golden.

I'm glad you brought this to light Cap. (you know we really need a thumbs up smiley!)
 
Capriccio said:
Regarding the 20 tips, the best topic I have ever read is a long but worthwhile one, on the Reaper forum: Why do your recordings sound like ass?
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I'm definately going to check that out Capriccio, always like to read new stuff.

The drum thing is a throw away really as I'm using Ezdrummer(Not sure if I should be embarrassed by that :) ).

It's just the class of some recordings that amazes me. There's a million things that go into making that something special I now realize. I'm gonna post a track onto this site for people to judge and hopefully help out with ideas.

I'll put a link in this thread so you can hear where I'm at if that's alright? Maybe you can give me a bit of advice to point me in the right direction with things you think could be improved? It should be less than a week if that's ok. Thanks for your input so far, has been a real help. Gonna check out the link above, see how far I can get through it tonight before the Froche - Ward fight comes on. Exitin times!
 
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