First attempts at recording/mixing...any advice/comments would be awesome!

[BryanMoore]

Here are the first two songs that I've written and managed to record all the parts for. I recorded Lord It's Me first and it obviously needs to come up in volume overall, but I think I did better on Too Much Love in that regard. I realize though that I have a long ways to go when it comes to recording/mixing/mastering and even song composition. So, feel free to rip me apart in all of those areas.

Any and all comments are greatly appreciated, even negetive ones.

 

[Flubly]

Lots of pitch problems. Guitar is very out of tune in both recordings. Your singing is also quite flat.

You're in the ballpark, though, which means you're not tone deaf. You may need visual reinforcement in order to learn proper pitch. I've heard people have good success with this: Sing the right note - Home

As far as the recordings go, they sound muffled. What's your gear line-up?

 

[TripleM]

I listened to Too Much Love. Yeah there are some pitch problems.

My first impression of the mix overall is that's pretty muddy. Lot's of low end and low mid-range. And correspondingly it's missing a lot of high end. So there isn't any sparkle or detail to the mix.

 

[BryanMoore]

Lots of pitch problems. Guitar is very out of tune in both recordings. Your singing is also quite flat.

You're in the ballpark, though, which means you're not tone deaf. You may need visual reinforcement in order to learn proper pitch. I've heard people have good success with this: Sing the right note - Home

As far as the recordings go, they sound muffled. What's your gear line-up?

Thanks for the feedback! For some reason, I find it very difficult to sing with recordings. I've been told that I sound much better live. I will definately give that resource a shot and hopefully it will help. Perhaps with my guitar being out of tune, I was naturally following some flat string too closely without realizing it. I will certainly remember to tune my guitars first next time and put on some new strings (my old strings probably didn't help much on these two songs). Either way, I at least know where I need to start improving, so thanks!!

My gear line up is this: MXL990 condenser mic (cheep, low end I know, but all I can afford for now), Bheringer x2442 USB mixer, Adobe Audition. I plugged the guitars (Takamine acoustic, Cort electric, fender bass) directly into the mixer although I plan on playing around with amp micing for my next song intead of DI. I just remembered that I recorded the vocals sitting down (big mistake I'm sure). Also, I recorded all the parts except the drums in my dining room. I now have a little studio setup in my garage which is treated a little bit, so that should help out in the future as well.

Also, I mixed through low end headphones (not designed for mixing), but now have some actual studio monitors (KRKs). So, I'm sure that will help as well when I go back to mix these songs again. Also, I may re-record them and try to get rid of the pitch issues.

 

[BryanMoore]

I listened to Too Much Love. Yeah there are some pitch problems.

My first impression of the mix overall is that's pretty muddy. Lot's of low end and low mid-range. And correspondingly it's missing a lot of high end. So there isn't any sparkle or detail to the mix.

Excelent advice, thanks! I didn't do much with EQing on these songs, mainly because I didn't feel that I knew enough and would just ruin it even further. I have learned alot since these two recordings though, so now I need to go back to these songs and play around with EQing a bit more.

 

[Flubly]

I'm not so sure the muddiness is something you've directly done wrong. It bothers me that your mic is sounding that muffled without you affecting it in anyway. That's really odd. Even if the mids are too high, there should be a lot more detail than there is. It almost sounds like a headset mic.

Are you sure everything is set up correctly? I couldn't really tell you where to start in troubleshooting, but if you look up MXL990 reviews on youtube, you'll see that it sounds like a night and day difference with your recording. I would almost attribute it to the pre-amps or A/D converters, but the Behringer can't be all that bad.

 

[BryanMoore]

Interesting....it could have been the Behringer actually. I had just bought it and shortly after recording these two songs had to send it in for repairs. They couldn't fix it, so they sent me a brand new one (TG for warrenties). I've yet to record anything with the new mixer though. So, we'll see if it still sounds that way once I can re-record with the new mixer. Is it possible that the pre-amps or A/D converters built in to the mixer were bad along with the other issues I had with it?