fendertelemusik
Member
Hey everyone, long time songwriter long time procrastinating recorder....
I'll start with what I use and set up.
I record in my living room, I have two studio monitors about 8 feet away from me on stands and have them slightly turned inwards to hit me centrally, I use a boss 8 track digital recorder and record using guitars,bass and an portable drum kit ( basically pads )
I know little to nothing about eq and compression and just tend to record track by track while playing along... once I have the main song usually 2/3 guitars bass and drums recorded getting the levels right is where I suffer....
The few ways I've tried doing it have confused me a lot.
If I record at a much quieter level and get it sounding right once I boost the master fader, the bass and drums sound way too loud ( and this makes sense as I 've noticed with professional recorded tracks when you turn the volume right down the bass guitar and kick drums become non existent and you can hear all the high end stuff still playing until you turn it so low everything is mute.
If I record at a higher level everything can sound amazing but once turned down you start to notice where things sound off... it's almost like pumping the volume up just meshes everything together and drums sound alive, bass fuller etc...
I've even experimented with just trying to set everything equal using the bar graph on the display so that it all looks like this ------ instead of -_ --_ for example and even then some instruments are louder than other which doesn't makes sense as they should all be outputting at the same level according to the levels bar graph.
any advice would be great, I know how I want it to sound in my head.. but I have hard time hearing if anything is too loud or quiet and im talking it just out the slightest touch but enough that it will overpower another track.
I guess the biggest problem I have is im trying to get a final mix using faders only as I have no idea how to use compression and eq, so its recording my tracks then trying to level them using just faders... is this even possible ?
I'll start with what I use and set up.
I record in my living room, I have two studio monitors about 8 feet away from me on stands and have them slightly turned inwards to hit me centrally, I use a boss 8 track digital recorder and record using guitars,bass and an portable drum kit ( basically pads )
I know little to nothing about eq and compression and just tend to record track by track while playing along... once I have the main song usually 2/3 guitars bass and drums recorded getting the levels right is where I suffer....
The few ways I've tried doing it have confused me a lot.
If I record at a much quieter level and get it sounding right once I boost the master fader, the bass and drums sound way too loud ( and this makes sense as I 've noticed with professional recorded tracks when you turn the volume right down the bass guitar and kick drums become non existent and you can hear all the high end stuff still playing until you turn it so low everything is mute.
If I record at a higher level everything can sound amazing but once turned down you start to notice where things sound off... it's almost like pumping the volume up just meshes everything together and drums sound alive, bass fuller etc...
I've even experimented with just trying to set everything equal using the bar graph on the display so that it all looks like this ------ instead of -_ --_ for example and even then some instruments are louder than other which doesn't makes sense as they should all be outputting at the same level according to the levels bar graph.
any advice would be great, I know how I want it to sound in my head.. but I have hard time hearing if anything is too loud or quiet and im talking it just out the slightest touch but enough that it will overpower another track.
I guess the biggest problem I have is im trying to get a final mix using faders only as I have no idea how to use compression and eq, so its recording my tracks then trying to level them using just faders... is this even possible ?
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