Can someone help me fix a bad sounding audio file?

[primativ]

I am trying to get some help improving the sound quality of an electric guitar recording which sounds off, for lack of a better word.

I am wondering if anybody could help give it some polish with compression, EQ or whatever.

I am hoping to learn how to do this on my own so if you have an audition file, if you could save to CS6 that would be great or if you could just explain your settings if you’re using a different program.

Thanks

 

[RFR]

Info please

What is the chain?

But first off, you got quite a bit of noise. Gotta fix that.

 

[TalismanRich]

Agreed! Is that noise coming from a high gain setup (amp or pedal)? If it's a pedal, you might be able to put a gate after the pedal. If it's from the amp, there's not much you can do except change your gain settings on the amp.

If it's coming from your mic, you've got a problem and need a new mic!

 

[primativ]

Two amplifiers mic’s slightly off center of the cone into a mixer into my PC. Some of that noise is a byproduct of the treble booster I’m using. I’m not too worried about the noise just because I can always mute it or use a noise gate.

 

[TalismanRich]

Specifics!

Marshall JCM800 or Tweed Deluxe?
Tubescreamer or SD1?
Rangemaster or JHS Germanium boost?
SM57 or TLM103?
Strat or ES335?


Otherwise NOBODY can tell you anything.

 

[primativ]

I’m not interested in re-recording it. I was just hoping to see if anyone could tweak it into a more usable sound so my equipment is what it is for the time being. Not trying to sound rude I’m just not looking to buy anything new at the moment.

 

[RFR]

No one is saying you need to buy new gear. But recording it well is kind of important.
People would be more inclined to help you with that, rather than’fix it in the mix

 

[TalismanRich]

Having absolutely NO idea what sound you are looking for, all I can do is clean it up and remove some of the peakiness, the icepick in the ear sound.

 

[primativ]

Sounds better, definitely less noise. Let me check it out on some headphones. I’ll try to post again later tonight.

Thanks for everyone’s help so far.

 

[primativ]

Listening with headphones this time, it seems like whatever took the noise out also took away some of the punch in the more distorted section near the end.

What kind of EQ did you apply?

Did you add reverb?

 

[Papanate]

Sounds better, definitely less noise. Let me check it out on some headphones. I’ll try to post again later tonight.

Thanks for everyone’s help so far.

I used Dynamic and Regular EQ - Compression - Imaging and a Stablizer to wrangle it in - and I don’t know what you are looking for - I would re-record the guitar and figure out your gain structure

 

[HumanPlanet]

I am trying to get some help improving the sound quality of an electric guitar recording which sounds off, for lack of a better word.

I am wondering if anybody could help give it some polish with compression, EQ or whatever.

What are you trying to use this for as it's a very poor recording without a lot of room for 'polish'

 

[primativ]

I used Dynamic and Regular EQ - Compression - Imaging and a Stablizer to wrangle it in - and I don’t know what you are looking for - I would re-record the guitar and figure out your gain structure

On first listen, I like what you did here less noise, but no loss of tone. That's all for now, off to bed.

 

[TalismanRich]

Listening with headphones this time, it seems like whatever took the noise out also took away some of the punch in the more distorted section near the end.

What kind of EQ did you apply?

Did you add reverb?

It was a Pultec plugin, with a small boost around 150Hz, and a cut around 5K. I thought the guitar was just hard sounding, plus the the noise profile that I used for the removal was at the end, which had some high frequencies so that's going to cut things. For me, the guitar was just sounds shrill, especially in the first half. That's unpleasant to me.

There was no reverb, just EQ and noise removal with a gate set at -60dBFS to catch any artifacts from the noise removal in the quiet parts.

 

[rob aylestone]

The snag here is just signal to noise ratio. Way too much noise in the pot. The stuff people have done to it seem pretty good, but when you say you are not interested in re-recording it, I wonder why? The clip we had is just noodling. Is there a bit before or after that is vital to the song? Maybe a solo or something? It’s a bit like making a cup of tea with salt instead of sugar by mistake, and trying to add something to disguise the taste? You might be able to drink it, but it wont taste like leaves grown in a foreign country, dried in the sun.

 

[Slouching Raymond]

The recording is pretty awful.
You need to sort out your signal path, and re-record.
Expecting someone else to polish a turd is rather lazy.

 

[Papanate]

Okay more polishing a pigs ear….what’s the purpose of this small noodling guitar track?

 

[primativ]

That is the best fix so far you really got the noise out of there, but those ice picky frequencies are still kind of overpowering, not something I noticed when I’m playing, but the recording is really picking it up.
I enjoy the sound I get when playing with my rig set like this, so I don’t want to change that, but capturing the tone seems to be a problem. Treble boosters add a lot of hiss, I don’t really notice it when I’m playing, but the recording is bringing it out.
The purpose of this recording is to see if I can make this rig work with some smart EQ or noise reduction.

 

[TalismanRich]

We can tweak on this thing endlessly, but until you are ready to put it all in a mix, you really don't know what's going to work. It has to be done in context. There are lots of instances where you take an isolated track and it sounds like crap, but when combined with the other tracks in a mix, it just works great.

When you said you didn't want to rerecord this, I figured it must be part of a complete track. If you can fix the worst portion, then apply the same correction to the entire track. If it's just noodling around, then it will have little bearing on a real take. If you are going to actually record a track then you can make adjustments to your setup.

You took a practice lap around the speedway. Now you need to run the whole race!

 

[primativ]

Okay more polishing a pigs ear….what’s the purpose of this small noodling guitar track?

What did you use on it to get this result?