Conclusion = LOST

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MrStitch

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Well... I've been trouble shooting my audio problems for months now, and not getting anywere.

Till today...

In a pool of depression, I realized that most of my audio problems were not from equipment issues, cables, computer, or studio... the problem lies with me. And I think most people are having the same problem I'm having. We're getting the sound into the computer, read all the faq's and tip 'n tricks, but somehow missing all the really fine details of what it takes to get that music file from point A to Z.

Such things like what effects should I apply to the track first, or should I use this setting on an EQ because it works best for this instrument in this particualar situation.

So I ran a couple of tests.... I recorded a real quick plain jane short guitar track.

Then I used a gate to try and get rid of some noise. Don't know if it worked, but it seemed to something.
Next I tweaked it with the Timeworks EQ, and boosted the level some.
Not sounding to bad, but still missing something. In the spectrum anylizer, I don't see any of the frequencies reach it's peak. Is this the problem?

Hell, just like 99% of the people at this forum.... "I've never seen an actual studio track to tell if I'm doing it right"

After that I don't know. I know theres got to be some sort of "plan" or "stratedgy".

I'm not doing midi, or anything else thats out in left field... I have a band with mic's, and a mixer. Running to my system with an Echo Mia audio card.

Pretty straight forward eh? Well thats it. Oh yeah.. specs =)
AMD 1700+
256 Ram
7200 60 gig drive
Sonar 2.0 XL

I know that none of these things are the best, but I've finally realalized that they ARE good enough. Now it's just up to me.

So how can I (and many others) figure this out step by step?

Maybe I should post a link to a small untouched file in my web space... then have someone do one small altercation to it, or just plain master the thing.

Then me and everyone else can take a look at the file in the spectrum analyzer, and see whats going on?

Perhaps the anylizer is the wrong way to go about it. Maybe it sounds better than it seems to me. Maybe I just don't know what the hell I'm talking about cause I'm waaaay over my head here. =)

One problem I see with some of the answers given here, is the people that answer don't know exactly where in the process the song is. Telling someone to do one thing might be the right thing in one phase of the whole mastering process, but totally wrong in the other 10 steps. Of coarse, things like this are nobody's fault. Simple questions and answers, all in good faith.

Perhaps i'm rambling =)

I don't know... just lost here, and nothings coming together.

If I can just actually see it done, then I'd have a much better grasp on it. I'm sure others would too.

Like I say, I don't think my equipment is the problem. I KNOW that it could be tweaked to get out some wrinkles, but I don't think they'd make any real MAJOR impact on the recording.

Alas...

I'm just another guy, lookin for a plan =)
 
MrStitch said:

Hell, just like 99% of the people at this forum.... "I've never seen an actual studio track to tell if I'm doing it right"
Click to expand...
Maybe not, but I'm willing to bet you have heard quite a few. And maybe that's the point your missing. Music is done with your ears, not with spectral analyzers.

It's been said a million times on these pages, get yourself several commercial CD's of the type of music you are trying to record. Play them back through your system, until you have a pretty good idea of what "professional" stuff sounds like on your particular equipment. Then strive to make your stuff sound like that.

It's not gonna happen tomorrow. But hopefully you will little by little get better with each attempt. Unfortunately, with home equipment and closet recording booths, you will never quite get there. But if you take a listen to some of the stuff in the mp3 clinic, you'll see people getting pretty darn close. Ask questions. Did you compress that bass to get that sound? What reverb are you using on those vocals? Were those guitars double tracked?

Well, you get the gist. Have patience and keep at it.
 
Maybe you're right.

1) Spend more time at the clinic.

2) Don't set goals to high.


Baby steps I suppose. I should really take a week off from work, and devote it to my studio.

Hard to get these kinds of things done when you got a wife and two kids =)
 
MrStich, dachay2tnr is right on. It took me 2 years of listening and comparing my stuff to the big boys to develop an ear for what is happening.

Three areas to concentrate on to get good quick are:

1. Frequency locations of instruments and how to use a parametric to carve the right sonic space in the mix; at the same time leaving a target space for the vocal.

2. Really understanding reverb and delay so you can intuitively make changes to create a mix ambience. i.e. how to create a sonic room with the different instruments in different locations.

3. Compression, compressors and compressing. There are lots of them and they all color sound in a different way. The quickest route to a great sounding vocal is understanding how to shape sounds with a compressor.

I have a wife and 2 kids too and it is difficult to put in alot of time to learn. I usually take 1 Saturday a month to get deep. I put in about an hour or two a night also.

Finally read this book, "Recording Engineers Handbook" by Bobby Owsinski. It explains 90% of what you need to know and the information comes directly from the mouths of those doing the top albums today.

Today, other than some obscure sound effect, I can usually hear the compression levels and reverb/delay on most instruments and vocals I hear on pro albums. As well I can pick out the frequency ranges too. This has helped me to hear my own creations and know instintively how to make modifications to get quality results.

Regarding gear, I don't know what level of outboards you have but unless you have some quality outboard gear, you are not going to be able to come close to a quality sound.
 
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And don't forget confidence!!! That could be your problem when you bring your "master" out to the real world first time. But when you passed that problem, people will get used with your stuff, and will see your serious willing after times of attempts, they will make an opinion of your work (critique and hints).

FYI, if you are kind of "No MIDI" recordist, then make sure you hear exactly what you want when tracking particular instruments/vocals. Comp and Eq won't give you much when you're not getting it right first place.

Garbage in --> Garbage out.
Gold in --> *COULD BE* Gold out.

(...Dachay is an exception. He can always fix that in the mix... right ? :D )
Always use your ears when mixing/monitoring your work (thru the best monitor you can get !!). THEN use analyzer when you're not sure about something heardable. Remember, if it sounds good... then it is good! Keep goin' friend :)

;)
Jaymz
 
The most important thing of all is a good, strong, clean signal sounding like you want it in the 1st place. No ifs, ands or buts... get it right going in, and with a little bass rolloff on some tracks you can make a dry mix that just fine without a bunch of other shit. Gain staging is super important at this point... look for my post on gain staging under the newbies section from a year or so again, one of the tip-o-the week or month deals... it might help you out a bit.
I prefer a nice dry mix with minimal effects anyway, and if you cant use effects properly, then a dry mix is definately the way to go. Compress your levels a little on the way in if you need to, and worry mostly about mic technique and you are on the way... people say "ahhh, dont compress too much, dont compress going in, dont compress during mixdown...."
Compression is your friend, use it, abuse it... I rake off as much as 12db going in on some vocalists, hell there isnt much ele you can do sometimes. Sounds fine too. Learn what the attack and release timees, threshold and ratio buttons do. Look at the way different presets are and get an idea of what kind of settings to expect for certain things.
 
I get and Australia/New Zealand Recording Magazine every month. The 'Last Word' page is written by a respected Mastering Engineer in Australia who masters quite a few Australian and Internation act... the likes of Madonna etc.

Anyway, from the recordings that he hear's, a majority of 'home' recordings don't know how to use EQ correctly.

For what it is worth, there was an album release in Australia recently by a 'star' off one of those reality programs. Now usually I wouldn't have bought the CD, so I got my mother to buy it :D and had a listen to it. From the whole album, only one track was recorded in a propper studio (301 if you have heard of it). All the others were recorded in home studio, with the lady singing in the bedroom and the guy recording it sitting in a cupboard. What did I notice between this one song and the rest of the album? There was way tooo much bass in the home studio tracks!!

My wife also put this to me on Saturday night... I was talking about the upgrade to Sonar (which I'm going to put the order in for this week ;) ) and my songs etc. Then I mentioned I wanted to get Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys etc, then she said to me, however about you don't get the upgrade and work more on your song, consider this the tools which we have in our hands today is soo much more than what was available back then, what makes those records so good? I said, it comes down to the song and the arrangement. People can correct me if I'm wrong, however back then EQ was not used as much.. nor was compression, it all came down to the tracking.

Summary.. GIGO, work on arrangements and recording techniques, work on mic placements etc.

Porter
 
Thanks guys... I just need a lifter there.


Gunna talk to my boss today, and see about taking a whole week off. Hit the studio like a brick, and post a link to my file to get feed back. Constant revising.

Thanks for the gain article. I really gotta go through my whole setup now to find other problems.

For instance... I have a 3 band eq on my amp, and a 4 band eq on my mixer. How do they relate to the recorded signal?

I do have an old compressor there, and possibley another mixer.

Hmm.. come to think of it, I got some boom stands that might work well for recording in other areas of the room.

Plus, I think I have some new ideas for that damn spectrum analyzer. I think I'm overdoing it a bit, and should be cutting out some signals that should be taken by other equipment.

"Damn the smiley face eq!!"

I think that might be whats killin me.

Hmm.. I got one question here tho....

Lets say I got a signal at 500hz that reaches -10db. Then I do another recording, on a different instrument, that contains the same signal that reaches 0db. Will my first signal be burried, and essencially a waste of time?
 
Fuck!

Just had another thaught. I'm using my Alt 3-4 on my mixer to my computer, but i'm not so sure that my +4db is attatched to that.

I suppose I should swap the cables from my poweramp and see what happens!


God damn it... how come I come up with all these ideas when i'm NOT at home.
 
MrStitch said:
Lets say I got a signal at 500hz that reaches -10db. Then I do another recording, on a different instrument, that contains the same signal that reaches 0db. Will my first signal be burried, and essencially a waste of time?
Click to expand...
I think you're loosing the point. In theory that's true. Well, at least the 0 dB-sound will sound twice as loud as the one at -10 dB (3 dB means doubling in efficiency, 10 dB is doubling in experienced level).

But so what? No instruments consist of only sine-waves, you know (expect for those ugly synth tones ;)). Get away from the theory and mix with your ears. It's great to be aware of what's going on, but most sonic problems is easiest to solve with your ears. If it sounds crap, then do something else. If it sounds great then do it! :)
 
Conclusion

Not that I know dodo squat... but seems to me that music is a HUGH HUGH deal.

If you were schooled in pro audio production, and had all the latest equipment, and all the time..etc etc.
Once you get your music tracked and sounding good, you are then faced with (I couldn't even count how many) millions of different directions, you could feasiably travel, shaping and molding your sound.

In just the rock genre, which I started listening to in the early eighties, there were then, so many styles and sounds, that I personally enjoyed, that it wasn't funny.

And there is always "that perfect sound" that catches on to the "masses". And even that "perfect sound" is always changing over the years.

(Actually, there was alot more non top 40 music, that didn't hit the charts, that they didn't push down our throuts, that was incrediably good music.)

I guess my point to all this rambling is that music is music. It moves, it breathes, it is alive. Who can really say what good music really sounds like, except what we really like. Sure there are the masses, but I'm not altogether sure they always know the best place to be.

It sounds to me like there is no plan there is no strategy, except make it sound good to you. Again, the possibilties there are endless. If you have the knowledge to fix it in the mix then probably more people will give you poitive feedback about your tunes.
If not? Whats a man to do?
I'm not saying that we should not read and study and learn and experiment with what we are doing. But I am saying what is our goal? To reach the masses? As far as I can see that takes an act of God. Being in the right place at the right time. And certainly most of your time.
I will never be able to go to college and learn this stuff, and as of yet, I don't know anyone in the "professional" music business that can sit down with me and show me what I'm doing wrong. I haven't been so lucky.

I think some people just have a knack for making really good music with, SEEMINGLY very little effort.

If your wife and children enjoy your music, do yourself a favor and don't leave your greatest fans behind. Find some way to involve them in your music.

I own a painting company by trade and my motto is this: If you can't hire 'em...breed 'em. And I'm currently trying to incorporate this motto into the music realm with my wife and 5 little ones.


I hope this post is not out of place!

dana
 
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