Tinny, electronic, unnatural sound!

S

Spillenger

New member
I’ve just finished a recording session with another musician. We’re both musicians and not sound recording engineers or computer whizzes. The sound quality of our recording was lousy.

Specifics: Both vocals and acoustic guitar sounded tinny, distorted, boxy, electronic – not natural and acoustic. We were unable to get the signal going into DAW (Sonar) strong enough without getting this tinny, distorted, electric sound.

We used a C1000 mic for the guitar and the SM58 for vocals. We ran these mics into the Mackie mixer (channels 1 and 2). Trim and gain for each was at 12 o’clock. Everything else was flat. The tape outs from the mixer ran to inputs 1 and 2 of the LX6’s breakout box. We set levels from there using the meters on the Sonar interface, trying to get as strong a level as possible without clipping.

Our Sonar input for both tracks was left ASIO Aardvark; the output was “master.”

When we heard how crappy the sound was, we fooled with the trim and gain controls on the mixer, and sometimes it sounded a little better, sometimes not. Every time we improved the tinny, boxy sound, our trim levels were so low that we didn’t get a strong signal. We switched microphones to see what that did, but no results.

Questions:

What is a basic troubleshooting checklist we should run down to isolate and solve this problem?

Could it be related to the way I’ve set up ins and outs to and from the mixer?

Could these be the wrong mics to use for recording?

What is the best way to set trim and gain levels, and what’s the difference between the 2 (layperson’s language, please.)?

Are there threads on aspects of this problem I should read?

Thanks a lot for any help. We’re eager to stop fussing with the basic technology and start making music.

Paul S.

My system:

Dell Pentium 4 (Dimension 4600) running at 3.06 GHz, with hyperthreading technology; 1 gig RAM; 120-gig HD; Windows XP Home 5.1

Sound Cards: Soundblaster Audigy 2 for Midi; Aardvark DirectPro LX6 for audio

Mackie Micro Series 1202 12-channel mic/line mixer; Sonar 3.1.1 SE; Tapco monitors

Mics: AKG C1000S condenser; Shure SM57; Shure SM 58; Shure Beta 57S supercardioid dynamic

I/O – mixer main outs to speakers; mixer tape outs to LX6 ins; LX6 outs to mixer line ins.
 
You should be able to get a usable sound with that setup.

Does the mixer have direct outs or inserts on each channel? If so use these instead of the tape outs.

If not, use the Main Outs from the mixer. Pan channel 1 hard left, channel 2 hard right so you get the channels on seperate tracks in Sonar.

You usually set the channel faders on 0, and adjust the preamp trim to get a decent level in Sonar.

That tinny sound might be the result of a feedback loop in there somewhere. How are you monitoring?

Edit: Hang on I've just reread the last line of your post. Don't use the Main Outs for monitoring. Does the mixer have Control Room outs? Use those instead
 
The mixer has 2 stereo aux returns (I don’t know what those are).
It’s got 2 aux sends (which look like mono).
It’s got a stereo tape input (RCA) and a stereo tape output (RCA).
It’s got left and right main outs.
No control room outs.

That’s all I’ve got on the Mackie 1202 in the way of outputs.

Maybe I should route the signal to the speakers in some other way and use the main outs to get to the mixer?

When you say set the channel faders to zero, do you mean set the gain knobs to 12 (straight up) or completely off (all the way counter-clockwise)?

Monitoring – I turn off the monitor speakers and listen through headphones plugged into the phone jack on the mixer. I can’t see where feedback would be created.

Hope that helps. Thanks.

Paul S.
 
OK try unplugging the LX6 outs from the mixer line ins, do a test recording and see what that sounds like. You won't be able to monitor like this but we'll see if feedback is your problem
 
Sounds like you have a gain staging problem. First of all, that Mackie mixer doesn't have fader sliders, it has fader knobs. I think you are confusing the fader knobs with gain knobs. Do this:

*plug in one microphone

*set the fader knob (the knob closest to you at the bottom of the channel strip) to 12 o'clock.

*push the solo button for that channel

*Play the instrument and adjust the gain knob (the black knob farthest from you right under the microphone input) unil the lights on the right side of the board fill up half way. Now your gain is set for the Mackie and you can turn off the solo button for that channel

*Hook the Mackie to your computer (the tape outs should be fine) and play the insturment again.

*Without touching any gain settings on the Mackie, adjust the gain settings on your computer until you have a healthy level without clipping.

That should do it. It sounds to me like the way you were doing it before had way too little gain on the Mackie (since you were using the fader knob instead of the gain knob) causing a tinny sound.
 
Thanks for the replies -- some very helpful info. I unplugged the LX6 outs from the mixer line-ins, and the problem seems to have gone away. But of course now there's a new problem -- I can't monitor what's coming out of my LX6 while I'm recording. For example, I use Band-in-a-Box MIDI-type files as an accompaniment aid. What I usually do is save these song accompaniment files as MIDI files and then open them in Sonar. Then I play and record breaks against the rhythm section. Now I seem not to be able to do that, which is a bummer. Not to mention I can't hear my other audio tracks to record against! Which kind of defeats the purpose...

How can I hear music coming out of the computer at the same time as I'm recording myself without creating feedback? And while we're at it, why is there feedback here in the first place? Shouldn't the mixer be keeping these two things hermetically sealed away from each other? By the way, would turning down the gain all the way on that line-in input accomplish the same thing as unplugging the cables?

Thanks.

Paul S.
 
The easy solution is to plug the LX6 outs straight into the monitors.

That mixer has Control Room source buttons that let you select from the main or tape inputs, or Alt 3-4 which I don't understand. However there doesn't seem to be a Control room out, so it looks like all you've got is the phones jack.

If you plug the LX6 outs into the tape ins, you might be able to use that control room source to prevent the monitor signal getting onto the Main bus. If you can, then use your Main outs as inputs to the LX6.

Alternatively if your Lx6 outs are going to the mixer line ins, you'll need to output from the mixer's tape outs or aux sends
 
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