Im new - some guidance would be appreciated!

G

guitarmonky55

New member
Alright first off hello all Im a newbie and I plan on being very active and learning as much as I can here from now on, and hopefully someday ill be wise enough to contribute back :D please stay with me this will be a long winded post:

So I am the guitarist in a rock band and Ive always kind of screwed around with recording. We recently decided to move into an empty room we have available and build a practice space/recording space for ourselves. I write and record so much music(at mediocre quality I might add) that I decided to go ahead and purchase a killer recording rig for my own use as well as the bands.

The heart of what I bought was a digi 003 rack+, and I got a digimax fs pre so I can run 16 mics(we like to jam and record to disk with vocals, guitars, basses, and the whole drum kit miced up so we use most of them alot to write songs and such)

As far as the rest, Im using an intel iMac thats loaded spec wise, pro tools 8, and I have some plugins outside of what came with the digi like the autotune studio bundle and izotope ozone 4 (I dont use autotune for the band, Im a poor singer so I use it for me!). I have a pretty good mic collection ive accrued over the last ~2 years(I used to mess with an mbox 2). Ive got an sm57/58, an at3031, a rode nt1a, a sennheiser e609, and an audix dp7 drum mic kit.

ok so now that you have a general idea of my equipment, onto why im starting this thread! my band needed a basic demo to get booked on a big band showcase in Houston and the deadline happened to coincide with the week I bought all of this stuff. So we spent 4 days recording 3 songs and not really having any idea what we are doing, it came out well enough to land us the gig and be generally entertaining to listen to, but in the end I have no friggin clue how to really mix this stuff to sound as good as I know it could get.

you can listen here: www.myspace.com/radioark its the tracks do it live, skylight observatory, and under the radar. prince charming was recorded at a gig on a zoom h2 so ignore that(unless you just want to rock out to it!)

I dont even know where to begin asking questions, so I figured it would be best to ask what blaring problems seem present and how one would generally start addressing them. My biggest complaint is the lack of clarity of all of the recordings, everything is competing for the same space and it results in you not being able to clearly hear anything. I dont know how to address this problem so I need help! also the kick drum and bass guitar are giving me hell, they seem to battle each other and you end up not being able to hear either. the bass guitar in some parts is missing where the bassist played higher notes, it simply disappears in the mix.

I could go on with the problems i know of forever, the point is I would love some criticism and advice here because I dont even know where to begin, and its time to learn i think!

Thanks all!
 
Hi there and welcome.

If your instruments are battling you need to separate them. You can do this two ways: 1) panning 2) EQ.

If you aren't panning your tracks you should be doing that. Find the right spot for each instrument. I usually do guitars on the far outside, bass a little closer in, then vocals in the middle. Drums fall all over the place to give it that drum feel.

Now you say the bass meshes with the kick. Try eqing the kick drum. I can't give you exact frequencies to adjust because I don't know what you are looking for(and I can't listen to your tracks right now due to the necessity of me being silent at this time.)

Also try to separate the bass guitar. Split the track into two mono tracks and pan them over 15% or whatever sounds good.

These two things should hint toward your success.
 
tdrusk said:
Also try to separate the bass guitar. Split the track into two mono tracks and pan them over 15% or whatever sounds good.
Click to expand...

That accomplishes absolutely nothing other than making the track louder.
 
Best second post of all time.

Try to get the mix in front of the mic.

I mean, select instruments and phrasings that complement one another frequency-wise. EQ is a fix you can avoid by proper instrument selection, technique, and mic selection/placement.

If the guitars and bass are fighting, rewrite one or both lines to leave space.

Later on, things like compression and reverb can be used to move sounds "forward" or "back" into the mix.
 
Had a chance to tune in to yer goodz and they don't sound bad at all dude! Some good in yer face jams.

A couple questions...and these come from my opinion only...

What're your mics positioned like on your drums? OH's etc...
I'd think you'd want a bit more click to your kick for this style.

Where's the kick mic located?
I put mine (Beta 52) inside, about 3 inches from where the beater hits and angled slightly so it's not direct on.

How'd you position your snare mic?
I usually put mine about 2 - 3 inches above the rim, roughly 40 degree angle and pointed at the center of the snare but so it's shootin across at my floor tom to lessen hi hat bleed.

One other thing thats helped me was lo-cuts (hi pass) Like say on a driving rhythm guitar track, ya know that the fundamentals aren't gonna be down in the 80hz range or even up to 150hz. So I usually roll off the lows as I'm listening to the whole mix. These numbers may not be right but you get what I mean. Roll off the rumble to help clear up a mix.

One other thing I thought of was getting it sounding right as a mix . It doesn't really matter how that bass or guitar part sounds solo'd. How it plays with others is what yer lookin for. That's why almost all of my EQing is done as a mix.

Keep in mind dude...I'm still learning about this stuff so take what you can use and discard the rest.

Peace....Kel
 
the drum mics were placed the most haphazardly of all because none of us really know how to approach micing a kit. the OH's I had equidistant from the snare drum one almost above the snare and one to the drummers right. my snare was about the same as yours. the kick drum definitely needs more click, and i didnt have the mic near as close to the beater head as you say you commonly do. I had mine much farther out, maybe only ~4-5 inches inside the hole.

i totally forgot about using hp filters, i had been doing that for a while on other stuff i was doing and didnt even think of it this time around!

a big thing is i dont really know how to eq stuff - where do i get started learning about how to use specific frequencies to taylor the sound of the instruments? i know the kick needs eqing, but i dont know where to start!
 
guitarmonky55 said:
the drum mics were placed the most haphazardly of all because none of us really know how to approach micing a kit. the OH's I had equidistant from the snare drum one almost above the snare and one to the drummers right. my snare was about the same as yours. the kick drum definitely needs more click, and i didnt have the mic near as close to the beater head as you say you commonly do. I had mine much farther out, maybe only ~4-5 inches inside the hole.

i totally forgot about using hp filters, i had been doing that for a while on other stuff i was doing and didnt even think of it this time around!

a big thing is i dont really know how to eq stuff - where do i get started learning about how to use specific frequencies to taylor the sound of the instruments? i know the kick needs eqing, but i dont know where to start!
Click to expand...

hey if your interested, you can zip your session folder and upload at MegaUpload.com and send me the link, and I could give your mix a try!
 
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