Hi there folks. First home production all wrapped up as best I can do it. All instruments recorded at home the gear I used was:
Aston Origin,
Focusrite Scarlett 2i2,
Shure SRH440 Headphones,
Edifier R1280DB speakers,
HX Stomp, (Helix guitar amp)
Logic X,
ALL THE PLUGINS, (I have loads bought outright and no idea how to properly use them)
So, I've been writing for years, and performing professionally live with tribute acts and so on for a long time. But I want to home produce my own music, that's my aim right now. I want to be able to produce good enough home tracks for like YT, Spotify, FB, so I can get a set of tracks together, and help get bandmates interested, and of course make some nice records. I am not naive as to how steep this learning curve is so I need all the help I can get. Of course I work on a tight budget, but I am not afraid of investing in the gear I need if it's necessary. So, here's my first track, I picked the song at random from mine, I'm not sure it's a great single but I'm also not bothered too much since I'm not even sure it's releasable in this state, although I did have fun making it.
My problems I ran into were:
Tracking vocals.
I bought a 'good' reflections filter from Universal Acoustics, but then recorded in a bare, reflection filled room. I've since invested in a pop up tent thing that just about fits into my room to try and treat so I can record in that. But that's still a work in progress. So all the vocals didn't compress well and sounded really tinny. Also, Because I wanted a very airy feel to the singing I moved in too close to the mic. It sounded fine through the Direct Monitoring, great even, but the result was a weird filtery sound which didn't match the bridge, which I had to back off (distance wise) for. So I suppose they're lessons learned but, I must admit I found myself in experiments after learning all this that the Aston into the Focusrite seems a really bright mix, is that a known thing? Or is it just going to be that way until I improve my 'vocal booth' situation?
Reference.
I need monitors. But I'm in a rented house I can't treat acoustically. No good place to put them, and also a bit tight on the budget since I invested in everything else. I cut this corner purely because A: I was hoping to find a friend with a good setup I could pop over and reference with, but then I didn't really contact anybody. B: I bought Waves' Abbey Road Studio 3 plugin to see if I could mix a little in the van on tour, and I saw it had dedicated EQ curves for certain headphones so I got a pair that matched and hoped that would do. I guess problems I hear using those are the same problems that kick in on other devices - Vox sounding squashed and weird etc - I just don't know how to fix them. So I'm not certain this is a worse reference than budget monitors in an untreated room. Anyone else use a method like this? My speakers for my turntable are hi-fi and again in an untreated room, and showed the same issues as my DAW reference so I guess they don't provide much help either. Anyone else found a good monitoring solution in rented house?
Mix/Mastering.
Of course I struggled with this or I wouldn't be here but. I did find the master a lot more squashy and unpleasant than the mix, but my mix was quiet and needed a lot of boosting (I used mostly the Fab Filter L-2 for this). Also I wasn't sure how to shrink the dynamic range, so some sections came out much worse than others, but I wanted some feedback before going back in, going in circles now. Would you automate the master fader to do this on the mix? Or maybe the one on the track when mastering? Any good tutorials on mastering would be useful. In the mix I tried to 'Brauerize' in the box which obviously was far too advanced for me because once I'd set up and calibrated the multi bus compression to 0 on a VU meter (-18db) I could not, for the life of me, get the compressors to do anything, which told me my gain structure was off, but I tried to fix it, then decided to de-calibrate the compressors and just try and get them doing between 1-2db each. And if you're wondering why I even tried It's just because He's mixed a whole bunch of my favourite sounding songs. So I wanted to know what he did, and the idea made sense - separate your bus compression out so you can target like groups with more precision - and it was useful to send BV's and reverb into the stereo field with the D-bus set up, but it's all moot cos' you can absolutely tell Brauer did not mix this track and it caused me more problems than it solved. I understood the concept but had none of the practical experience to make it work. At all.
I know that's a long read. And a massive thank you to anyone who does. The track is attached hopefully and I'd love any feedback. Hope you like the song! If you do that's lucky, and I want it to sound as good as I can. And learn how to do this all properly, from tracking to mastering. Thank you, ever so much for any response. I know it's a long post.View attachment Dancing By - Master 2.mp3View attachment Dancing By - Mix 2.mp3
Aston Origin,
Focusrite Scarlett 2i2,
Shure SRH440 Headphones,
Edifier R1280DB speakers,
HX Stomp, (Helix guitar amp)
Logic X,
ALL THE PLUGINS, (I have loads bought outright and no idea how to properly use them)
So, I've been writing for years, and performing professionally live with tribute acts and so on for a long time. But I want to home produce my own music, that's my aim right now. I want to be able to produce good enough home tracks for like YT, Spotify, FB, so I can get a set of tracks together, and help get bandmates interested, and of course make some nice records. I am not naive as to how steep this learning curve is so I need all the help I can get. Of course I work on a tight budget, but I am not afraid of investing in the gear I need if it's necessary. So, here's my first track, I picked the song at random from mine, I'm not sure it's a great single but I'm also not bothered too much since I'm not even sure it's releasable in this state, although I did have fun making it.
My problems I ran into were:
Tracking vocals.
I bought a 'good' reflections filter from Universal Acoustics, but then recorded in a bare, reflection filled room. I've since invested in a pop up tent thing that just about fits into my room to try and treat so I can record in that. But that's still a work in progress. So all the vocals didn't compress well and sounded really tinny. Also, Because I wanted a very airy feel to the singing I moved in too close to the mic. It sounded fine through the Direct Monitoring, great even, but the result was a weird filtery sound which didn't match the bridge, which I had to back off (distance wise) for. So I suppose they're lessons learned but, I must admit I found myself in experiments after learning all this that the Aston into the Focusrite seems a really bright mix, is that a known thing? Or is it just going to be that way until I improve my 'vocal booth' situation?
Reference.
I need monitors. But I'm in a rented house I can't treat acoustically. No good place to put them, and also a bit tight on the budget since I invested in everything else. I cut this corner purely because A: I was hoping to find a friend with a good setup I could pop over and reference with, but then I didn't really contact anybody. B: I bought Waves' Abbey Road Studio 3 plugin to see if I could mix a little in the van on tour, and I saw it had dedicated EQ curves for certain headphones so I got a pair that matched and hoped that would do. I guess problems I hear using those are the same problems that kick in on other devices - Vox sounding squashed and weird etc - I just don't know how to fix them. So I'm not certain this is a worse reference than budget monitors in an untreated room. Anyone else use a method like this? My speakers for my turntable are hi-fi and again in an untreated room, and showed the same issues as my DAW reference so I guess they don't provide much help either. Anyone else found a good monitoring solution in rented house?
Mix/Mastering.
Of course I struggled with this or I wouldn't be here but. I did find the master a lot more squashy and unpleasant than the mix, but my mix was quiet and needed a lot of boosting (I used mostly the Fab Filter L-2 for this). Also I wasn't sure how to shrink the dynamic range, so some sections came out much worse than others, but I wanted some feedback before going back in, going in circles now. Would you automate the master fader to do this on the mix? Or maybe the one on the track when mastering? Any good tutorials on mastering would be useful. In the mix I tried to 'Brauerize' in the box which obviously was far too advanced for me because once I'd set up and calibrated the multi bus compression to 0 on a VU meter (-18db) I could not, for the life of me, get the compressors to do anything, which told me my gain structure was off, but I tried to fix it, then decided to de-calibrate the compressors and just try and get them doing between 1-2db each. And if you're wondering why I even tried It's just because He's mixed a whole bunch of my favourite sounding songs. So I wanted to know what he did, and the idea made sense - separate your bus compression out so you can target like groups with more precision - and it was useful to send BV's and reverb into the stereo field with the D-bus set up, but it's all moot cos' you can absolutely tell Brauer did not mix this track and it caused me more problems than it solved. I understood the concept but had none of the practical experience to make it work. At all.
I know that's a long read. And a massive thank you to anyone who does. The track is attached hopefully and I'd love any feedback. Hope you like the song! If you do that's lucky, and I want it to sound as good as I can. And learn how to do this all properly, from tracking to mastering. Thank you, ever so much for any response. I know it's a long post.View attachment Dancing By - Master 2.mp3View attachment Dancing By - Mix 2.mp3