Classic Rock band, newbie recordings

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PokerDude422

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Hey this is only the third band that i have recorded and this is a definite improvment from my last recordings so tell me what you guys think of them and what you think needs to be improved, any tips are help are greatly appreciated

the band is called 'Destined to Fail'



 
well some stuff of the top of my head...the first lines of the lyrics reminds me of "piano man" by billy joel.

"It's nine o'clock on a Saturday
The Regular crowd shuffles in
There's an old man sitting next to me
Makin' love to his tonic and gin"

the guitar and drums seem to really go out of sync at times. they need to be tightened up. the drums (especially the cymbal crashes) meed to be balanced better i think. the vocals need more conviction.
 
wow i didnt even realize that when i recorded them, they nearly stole that whole verse, but whatever im hear for the recording, yeah i definetly recorded the cymbals way too loud which i regret but i dont see how i can fix that now that i have recorded them already, and what do you mean by conviction
 
ahh thanks, you have any tips for the second song, it sounds like crap if you ask me, it just doesnt all go together and i cant figure out what im doing wrong
 
First song: Mix is nice, good balance in overall eq. I like the mood of the song a lot, kind of an Eels-song. Good job!
 
thanks, the second song is what im having trouble with though
 
I hear a lot of good stuff going on. With more playing together you guys definitely have a future.

Before I comment and/or make suggestions on fixing up the recording, can you give me a brief run-down of gear and the process you use for making the recording?

As an aside - the top frame on your rabbitholerecords website needs to be taller - it's chopping off the bottom row of links in my ie 6 browser. :)
 
PokerDude422 said:
and what do you mean by conviction
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That guy is so tonedeaf that he should get a conviction for even attempting to sing. :D
 
UnNamed Song 2 - yeah the first few lines are a definite rip off of "Piano Man" by Billy Joel. Tell the writer to redo that, the writing is good so I'm sure that he can come up with something pretty quick.

The key is low for the singer, and as such the vocals lack punch and sound too mellow. Options? - change the key to higher key, or lower the key and sing a full octave higher.

The bass tends to overpower the lead towards the end.....

Pretty nice mix on this overall.....good job on songwriting/playing too.....
 
this isnt actually my band though, just a bunch of my friends,

to record it i have a soundboard that i ran eveyrhting into

i have a set of CAD drum mics

C2000b mic for vocals

from the board i used the two RCA outputs and ran it into a 1/4 inch input into my laptop and used adobe audition as my program
 
Pokerdude, then I think the problem is with some mixing fundamentals.

http://www.homerecording.com/bbs/forumdisplay.php?f=1

The instruments all seem to have the proper frequencies captured by the mics (and line inputs if that's how the guitars are captured). The problem is in using the soundboard, which is a very difficult task. It's also why good engineers were so hard to find prior to when digital recording was cheap enough to reach the common man.

I learned most of my mixing stills from years and years of error. I'm still not that great at it, but knowing how something should sound is more important than actually getting the recording to sound perfect (since there's a lot of things you can't control).

For my productions the first priority is a balance between the instruments. Compression helps a lot in keeping everyone at the same level. Isolating the instruments and/or recording them independently exponentially increases your odds of getting a good overall recording. Good "live" studio recordings, like Mad Season's "Above", are rare. 99% of the music you buy in the store, if not a live concert performance, are very scrutinized multitracked recordings. Every single instrument, belch, and hiss is recorded on its own track and managed completely independently from the other tracks.

You could start by using various google searches for some FAQs and how-tos:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=using+sound+board+mixing+techniques

I'll assume you're doing the whole live recording gig for ease, but if you really want to produce high quality recordings you're going to need to multitrack the instruments, then do some serious digital post production processing. With today's software and PC technology, you don't HAVE to buy expensive rack mount equipment if your skills with the software are good and the base track for the instrument is clean/recorded properly. I'm actually a fan of recording stuff dry then adding everything afterwards. It gives me a lot more control. The exception is the distortion for guitars, I still haven't found a convincing software post-processor.
 
Pinky said:
I'll assume you're doing the whole live recording gig for ease, but if you really want to produce high quality recordings you're going to need to multitrack the instruments, then do some serious digital post production processing.
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Uh nothing I have recorded has been done live, it has all been multi tracked, as for my equalizing skills with my soundboard, that is proboblly where some of my problems are but yeah, i multi tracked eveyrhing on all my recordings
 
PokerDude422 said:
Uh nothing I have recorded has been done live, it has all been multi tracked, as for my equalizing skills with my soundboard, that is proboblly where some of my problems are but yeah, i multi tracked eveyrhing on all my recordings
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Then there's hope for these particular recordings. Since each instrument sounds okay to my ears I would start with normalizing/compressing the tracks (so the bass doesn't keep falling from the mix, for example) then start working on the levels each instrument has in the mix. Vocals should typically play a central role (don't go by what Tool does on their albums, for example). Then drums, guitar, and bass (in that order unless you're looking for a desired effect). Very few people buy albums because "the bassist kicks arse", unless you're into Rush or Primus. Vocals carry the message, drums keep you in the groove, and guitar is typically the heart of rock music. Bass is an afterthought for most artists, though I'm pleased to say it sounds like this band is actually trying to incorporate the bassline into the melody instead of it just being a second rhythm guitar.

My final mixes are hot (about 14db normalized), so I wouldn't use them as a guage, but if you listen to say APC's "Pet", the music is HEAVY, then breaks into a lull but does so without losing your interest or the instrument's levels. Normalization, used properly, can keep everything up front without anything being TOO upfront. Is this making sense?

I didn't hear much compression or normalization happening in your mix.

Once you get the levels correct, then you can start playing with the instruments in the sound field. It sounds like you had a heavy pan on the bass and drums, when really they should be central and maybe pan the guitar and vocals.

Have you heard of the track doubling trick some of us use?

Here's a link to my explanation, feel free to fire off questions if you don't follow or need more explanation.

http://www.homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?p=1356191#post1356191
 
im pretty sure i had the bass centered and the drums panned slightly to the left, but ill try that technique with the duplicated and delay thing, also what do you mean when you say i need compression and normalization
 
Sounds good, kinda mellow. A few of the guitars are a bit out of tune and overall it could stand to be a bit tighter. You are on the right track, keep up the good work.
 
DavidK said:
Sounds good, kinda mellow. A few of the guitars are a bit out of tune and overall it could stand to be a bit tighter. You are on the right track, keep up the good work.
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what do you mean when you say it could be a bit tighter?
 
PokerDude422 said:
also what do you mean when you say i need compression and normalization
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I'm sure there's technically difference, but for my uses compression and normalization are essentially the same, both of them allow you to saturate the available sound field so no ambient noises, tape hiss, or monitor buzzing affects the quality of the recording. It also helps to equalize the levels across the entire track being normalized.

Example: If you ever noticed a radio broadcast, parts of the songs that are usually quiet when played on your home stereo/PC are beefed up artificially, making the entire song the same volume. I guess the effect is so people don't have to raise/lower their radio controls. The company vehicle I drive (Ford Focus wagon) has an auto normalizing/compression feature built in, so there's never too-quiet a moment in the music (you can always hear what's going on, even in the parts that are supposed to be quiet). When applied to recording it's a great principle, but annoying in this type of application as you still want some degree of change so it's not a continuous stream of noise.

Here's an interesting case study of normalization gone wrong. Rush's last album, Vapor Trails, had issues with post production right off the shelf. many of us fans created our own versions by filtering the clipped (distortion created by over-normalization) sections from the CD. This is a more detailed explanation as to why we did this:

http://www.prorec.com/prorec/articles.nsf/files/8A133F52D0FD71AB86256C2E005DAF1C

This is straight from Sonic Foundry's Soundforge software (I'm using version 6, it's kinda old but does everything I need it to):

"Normalizing Audio Process Menu

From the Process menu, choose Normalize to raise the volume of a selection so that the highest sample level reaches a user-defined level. Use normalization to ensure you are using all of the dynamic range available to you without clipping.

When normalizing stereo data, if the selection includes both channels, normalization is computed on the loudest sample value found in either channel and the same gain is applied to both. If a single channel is selected, normalization will affect only that channel.

When converting to compressed formats, you'll achieve the best results if the audio has been normalized before the conversions occur.


What do you want to do?

Normalize using a peak value

When you normalize to a peak value, you can specify the level to which the maximum detected sample value will be set. Sound Forge applies a constant gain to the selection to raise the peak to this level.


Normalize using average RMS power

When you normalize using average RMS power, Sound Forge will raise the average RMS value of the sound file to a value you specify. This is helpful for matching the apparent loudness of different recordings."
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... and for compression:

"Graphic Dynamics

The Graphic Dynamics effect allows you to precisely tailor the gain at all input levels of a signal. Use Graphic Dynamics to create dramatic to subtle compression and expansion."
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PokerDude422 said:
what do you mean when you say it could be a bit tighter?
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Tighter:

More together, more rhythmic cohesion, more notes in the same place, more metronomical.
 
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