Ok mastering gurus. What would you do with this?

guitarhunny

guitarhunny

New member
Here I am the newby and being curious by nature I am wondering what the professionals would do with a home studio geek's attempt at recording to make it closer to their level of genius. I am providing a song that I have written and recorded called "stranger" and I would be very pleased if it would be taken into consideration and some useful input given on your mastering processes. If you get too technical, I will just get lost but go to town with the explanation anyway.

Please go to www.ruthsharpmusic.com and find the "Stranger" link on the "my music" page. It is an MP3 file so it is a little more compressed sounding than the original WAV file but I think you'll get the jist of it.

Thanks
 
Well - I'm not currently a professional...
I can tell you that I can't play the file though - it's 53bytes and has an extension of m3u. :)
 
First thing that hits right away is that heavy slapback delay - too much - too loud... it has to be far more subtle..........

Second - that guitar is very thin and overbright-sounding - it really needs some body to beef it up.

Vocal is dark and woolly-sounding.... not sure I care for the reverb you used... it's a bit too wet - quite a bit in some spots....

More depth and cohesion is needed to glue the tracks together, the effects don't sound married to the song - you have dry tracks with effects on top, rather than having a guitar sitting in an ambient space, and the vocal in a complimentary ambient space.

OTOH - recording notwithstanding -- killer performances though -- great playing and emotion in the vocal! Reminds me a bit of Ani Difranco........

A good mixing job on it will make the track shine......
 
I'll 2nd that - terchnically speaking - the guitar piezo has that classic 'poke your eyes out' presence when the strings get slapped or plucked, buried a bit too deep in the 'wash' you've created out of delay repeats brings out the raunchy highs of the guitar even more (the tone - not the playing! :) )

I guess EQ and compression (fast attack/slow release) on the guitar could balance it a bit. Also maybe you're mixing in a 'dead room' where you recorded causing you to send too much guitar into the wash ?

It's a bit hard for me to hear all of the vocal nuances right now since the guitar eats up so much real estate (frequency wise) but I bet you could add some 'ess' to your vocal track by putting a dB or 2 of 8K or 10K on the track using a parametric.

I think you can probably roll off the guitar track at 40Hz or so with a low-shelf EQ since its not really adding anything except too much thump when you palm-mute on your rhythm strokes. I'm not saying remove the 'thump' that's a cool rhythmic device - just harness it a bit and allow it to exist a little higher up.

What did you use to mix the piece ? A multitracker in your DAW, which one ?

Cool Piece ! :cool:
 
I am using Cakewalk XL with really crappy computer speakers. Doesn't do justice cause I don't really get a good feel for sound. Makes it really hard to get decent mix levels. I try hard and that's about all I have going for me in the recording department.
 
Just computer speakers, I also have some stereo headphones that came with the MR8. I like My MR8 but having to plug a guitar directly into it kills some of the nuances in guitar playing. It does the job it said it would on the box.
 
guitarhunny said:
Just computer speakers, I also have some stereo headphones that came with the MR8. I like My MR8 but having to plug a guitar directly into it kills some of the nuances in guitar playing. It does the job it said it would on the box.
Click to expand...
Maybe someone could recommend a condenser mic (and placement) to record your guitar along with the direct piezo track - that could get more of the actual real guitar sound in there.
 
I have a MXL990 condenser that I may give a try. It sucks for most vocals but maybe with acoustic guitar it will serve a purpose. As to mic placement I haven't got a clue when it comes to micing instruments.
 
Tell me honestly. With my set up do I have any chance for a decent sound. I have been struggling with this crap for a year now and still am not satisfied.
 
For a bright, thinner sound (with more zing) place the mic near the neck past the body joint and aim towards the sound hole.

For a deeper, more full-bodied sound (but you have to watch for honk) aim at the soundhole....

Also over the shoulder sometimes works well - more closely approximates what you're ear hears....
 
Guitar Hunny . . . Damn, you can really whale. :D

I agree w/ Bluebear on most of the comments.

And in all honesty, you might not find yourself fully satisfied with what you're doing untill you're prepared to make a full-on jump in to the world of audio engineering. I'm afraid this means having a "true" monitoring setup, and a properly-designed / treated monitoring space and tracking space. You also might want to invest a little more on some gear . . . and maybe a few more years of experience under your belt.

By the time you cover all those bases, you'll be broke like a lot of us here . . . and you probably will have forgotten what your guitar (and daylight for that matter) looks like. :D

Take what I say with a grain, obviously. I'm just one of those guys who thinks musicians should play . . . and engineers should engineer. It's a very good and functional division of labor that seems to produce much better recordings and better music by and large -- with a few exceptions here and there, I'll admit.
 
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