My second recording with Mixcraft (this time with guitar track added)

55Dudester

55Dudester

New member
I'm still learning about Mixcraft 6 and all it's capabilities, but I'll throw this out there for any positive criticism or advice some of you sound experts may have. Keep in mind most of the music tracks are mp3, and then my acoustic guitar is added, then my voice. Eventually I want to start laying down music tracks from scratch using Mixcraft. I'm far from there yet, but it's a goal. Anyway, lemme know what you think of this " very amateur" recording. Don't be shy, let me have it. :spank: Oh and if you're a country music hater, don't bother listening, I've heard all the hee-haw jokes.
Here it is ---> http://soundcloud.com/rita-seguin/if-youre-gonna-do-me-wrong
 
let me start by saying hee-haw only joking
Same problem as last time for me the reverb makes the voice sound too distant for the rest of the track.
I still like it and i cant say the guitar sounded out of place.
Keep it up man but do a remix with way less reverb. Adjust the reverb with while listening with the backing track. Dont be tempted to add reverb when the vocal is soloed.
That way you can tell when it sounds right and the vocals on the top and not behind the backing.
it will sound more cohesive.
Good work mate
 
kip4 said:
let me start by saying hee-haw only joking
Same problem as last time for me the reverb makes the voice sound too distant for the rest of the track.
I still like it and i cant say the guitar sounded out of place.
Keep it up man but do a remix with way less reverb. Adjust the reverb with while listening with the backing track. Dont be tempted to add reverb when the vocal is soloed.
That way you can tell when it sounds right and the vocals on the top and not behind the backing.
it will sound more cohesive.
Good work mate
Click to expand...

Thank you so much for your opinion. I guess my reverb fetish comes from the habit of playing in night clubs for 30 years. In this recording, I thought I had really brought the reverb down, compared to my first recording....obviously not enough.
As I mentioned before, I have a very mellow voice, that when I sing, I find it sounds muffled and bassy. On the mixer, I have the LO set to 0, the MID set to MAX, and the TREBLE set to MAX, and with that, my voice still sounds quite bassy and not as sharp as I'd like it to be. I found by using some compressor and a little reverbs, it brought my voice forward and stand out from the music track, in other words, my voice didn't get muffled in with the music. Maybe my ears have been ruined for proper mixing due to my past live experiences. lol
The reverbs and setting are as follows :

ACOUSTICA REVERB

REVERBERATION : 50
HIGH FREQ. DAMPING : 50
STEREO WIDTH : 100
WET MIX : 50
DRY MIX : 100

CLASSIC REVERB

REVERBERATION
SIZE : 320
DAMPING : 11 O'Clock
PRE-DELAY : -28

FILTERS
HI-DAMP: 3 O'Clock
LO CUT : 3 O'Clock

OUTPUT
EARLY REF : about 8 O'Clock
MIX : 10 O'Clock
Level : 9 O'Clock.

I'm really interested in knowing what you would suggest as a proper effect or setting for my voice. By removing the reverbs, I find my voice doesn't mix in well with the music at all, so I obviously am doing something wrong, or, as I mentioned above, maybe my ears are use to hearing reverb when I played live.
So are you suggesting I should remove the reverb entirely, and try some other effect(s), or are you saying I should kick the reverb down more a notch or two ?
Once again, I truly appreciate your positive criticism and advice. This is just a pass time for me, but I do plan on recording an amateur CD for loved ones eventually, and I'd like it to be the best I can do, and sound as professional as possible. Sorry for babbling on, but hey, I'm retired and time means nothing to me now lol. Hope you're having a great weekend across the pond. Take care.
Cheers
Ray
 
So your using two reverbs?
are you using them as sends or insert effects?
If you dont know which google it or you tube is your friend?
I'm not suggesting you get rid of the reverb all together. This would make the vocal too present and dry and would stand out as much from the backing track as it does when theres too much reverb too.
I suggest you back it off a little more so you can just hear it when you playback the mix.
Others may not think so this is just my opinion. Frankly thats one of the most common beginner mistakes too is to add to much reverb.
Did you watch the you tube video i attached earlier. Note how the reverb is there but not noticable as reverb it just sounds like it was done in the same space.
 
kip4 said:
So your using two reverbs?
are you using them as sends or insert effects?
If you dont know which google it or you tube is your friend?
I'm not suggesting you get rid of the reverb all together. This would make the vocal too present and dry and would stand out as much from the backing track as it does when theres too much reverb too.
I suggest you back it off a little more so you can just hear it when you playback the mix.
Others may not think so this is just my opinion. Frankly thats one of the most common beginner mistakes too is to add to much reverb.
Did you watch the you tube video i attached earlier. Note how the reverb is there but not noticable as reverb it just sounds like it was done in the same space.
Click to expand...

Could you send me the YOUTUBE link again please ?
I can't answer your question regarding "sends" or "inserts" as I don't know. I'll have to read up on that and hopefully will be able to give you a somewhat intelligent answer lol.
 
Ok I think I understand your question a bit better now. The answer is "insert effects" in my recording. I still need to learn the recording language lol. I really like the YT vid on the Sonnox Oxford reverbs. Unfortunately I don't see that reverb in Mixcraft 6. (bummer :confused:)
Btw, I tried burning the song I recorded onto a cd using mixcraft, and it tells me that the it's the wrong format or something. Again, I must be doing something wrong lol.
Take care
 
WOW, aren't you a handy little fellow to know lol. I can export the tracks as a wav even though it's originally an mp3 without having to convert the file type ?
I usually don't have an issue burning mp3's to cd. Thanks for all your help (and patience) Kip.
Ray
 
55Dudester said:
WOW, aren't you a handy little fellow to know lol. I can export the tracks as a wav even though it's originally an mp3 without having to convert the file type ?
I usually don't have an issue burning mp3's to cd. Thanks for all your help (and patience) Kip.
Ray
Click to expand...

You may have imported the backing in mp3 format
then you've added the vocals (typically wav format saved)
Guitars the same
Then you export your finished mix as a wav
wav is industry standard
mp3 is for i pods and phones, sharing via email, Its a lossy format and never sounds as good as wavs.

Having said that the mp3 that you imported into the project wont be bettered by exporting the final mix to wav format.
Once a project has been converted to mp3 a lot of the lower freqauncys and very high ones are cut off and cannot be put back in.
Avoid mp3 exports unless its for a space saving reason.
The more you get into production the better you listen and notice stuff that is there and isnt there too.
I'm just rambling now
I hope this makes sense to you
 
kip4 said:
You may have imported the backing in mp3 format
then you've added the vocals (typically wav format saved)
Guitars the same
Then you export your finished mix as a wav
wav is industry standard
mp3 is for i pods and phones, sharing via email, Its a lossy format and never sounds as good as wavs.

Having said that the mp3 that you imported into the project wont be bettered by exporting the final mix to wav format.
Once a project has been converted to mp3 a lot of the lower freqauncys and very high ones are cut off and cannot be put back in.
Avoid mp3 exports unless its for a space saving reason.
The more you get into production the better you listen and notice stuff that is there and isnt there too.
I'm just rambling now
I hope this makes sense to you
Click to expand...

Dang, I just noticed I'm out of cd-r's. I'll have to go to town and by some more. Stores are closed now, will have to wait till tomorrow. Thanks again, and I "think" I understand all you've said lol
Take care.
Ray
 
Me again.
I was wondering how you guys burnt you recordings to CD ? As most of you know, I record my voice and guitar over an existing mp3 track. If I use Mixcraft, and burn to CD, for some reason, I can only burn 1 song to the CD. (I'd like to get a few more that that per cd). If I try to burn another one of my recordings to the same CD, I keep get a message stating that "I don't have a cd inserted" or It's the wrong type of CD...which btw is a CD-R. The one song I burnt to the cd plays back great on my computer and my home stereo system, but won't play in the car cd player....(?????) very confusing. Is there a better way to burn 'several' of my recordings to a CD ? If so, under my circumstances, what format should I burn e.g WAV, mp3, cda ? etc
Like I said, I used Mixcraft to burn, and the settings I checked in the boxes were "Convert to WAV first" - "Burn as one track" - "Create CD text" and "Burn All" (instead of "burn selection") The default speed was "Fastest" so I left it at that.
I also tried burning the same songs on a fresh blank cd using "CD BURNER XP: It too tells me I don't have a cd inserted or that I have the wrong type of cd. Should I be using another software for burning ?.....If so, any good free ones out there (that are idiot proof of course lol) ?
I don't have enough songs recorded to burn a cd, (maybe 2) still, I'd like to practice and get to learn how to do this before wasting too many black cd's. I just purchased 100 blanks, so hopefully I won't waste half of them on my mistakes.
Thanks for any help or suggestions any of you can give me, which is VERY much appreciated. Sorry for being such a dumb ass, and thank you for your patience for all these stupid questions. Hopefully down the road, I can repay the forum by helping another newbie like me, (surely I'm not the only stupid person here.....don't answer that lol)
Thanks people.
Ray
 
When i said Wav is the industry standard. It is but when you want to make a cd with several songs on it you need to use your software (windows media player, I tunes, Nero etc ) to make an audio cd.
Not put the wav file onto a cd and expect it to behave like a cd you buy.
When you make an audio cd (like the ones you buy) The tracks are in CDa format.
If you dont believe me check it out, put a shop bought cd in your burner and explore the cd.
and dont forget to finish the burn session either or the audio cd's you make wont play on other gear (car cd, beat box, hifi)
I suspect you have been putting the wav onto a cd and listening back on your pc. Which is fine but its not an audio cd and wont play back as i described above
I hope this helps.
 
kip4 said:
When i said Wav is the industry standard. It is but when you want to make a cd with several songs on it you need to use your software (windows media player, I tunes, Nero etc ) to make an audio cd.
Not put the wav file onto a cd and expect it to behave like a cd you buy.
When you make an audio cd (like the ones you buy) The tracks are in CDa format.
If you dont believe me check it out, put a shop bought cd in your burner and explore the cd.
and dont forget to finish the burn session either or the audio cd's you make wont play on other gear (car cd, beat box, hifi)
I suspect you have been putting the wav onto a cd and listening back on your pc. Which is fine but its not an audio cd and wont play back as i described above
I hope this helps.
Click to expand...

Man, you are just awesome Kip, thanks for explaining that to me. I'll do my best to remember all of that. I think the best thing is for me to start making a few coasters, and see what kind of trouble I get into lol
Part of the problem (other than me) is the fact that I will have to get better organized with my music files and folders. I can have the same song under 4 different categories, i.e. The original artist singing the cda, my YouTube version of the song, my Mixcraft version of the song with my voice and guitar added, my wave file of the song, and the mp3 track I use to record in mixcraft. Time to make lots and lots of folders for each category. DOH !
So, with that said, once I am finish with recording the song in Mixcraft, should I just do a "save as" an mp3, and then burn it onto a CD using my burning software ? Also, should I wait until I have several songs to burn on a cd, rather than one by one ? I was under the impression that as long as I didn't "close" or finalize a cd, I could go back and add more songs at a later date. I did not know by NOT finalizing the cd, it would prevent it from playing on my other gear (car cd, beat box, hifi) This is VERY good to know, and well noted. Thanks again Kip, you are a God send. I wish I could buy ya a beer for your help. (even if I don't drink lol)
Later
Ray
 
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