Having Trouble Recording Over A Certain Beat

[GoatsTheAnswer]

First off this is a HipHop Track (I know some may not be interested) Well tonight a friend of mine brought over one of his older beats with hopes in recording over it. I don't think the track is perfectly mixed when he created it, but it should still be good to record over (Mind you this is old so he no longer has the master). Its funny I almost never have trouble recording crisp clean vocals and this track is giving me fits. The vocals seem to crackle, or maybe its just the track itself. I deleted the track we started in hopes to start it within the next day or two with a little help.

http://www.zshare.net/audio/phatnastyhitstheovenlilwaynelovethisforcarter3perfectintro-mp3.html

Theres the beat, Should I dampen the sound with something? maybe a plugin or something (I know it isn't always great to do but maybe it can help)

my setup is Cubase Sx3
Firebox
AKG Perception 200

I feel like the beat is fighting the vocals. I appreciate any help from you guys, just looking for some ideas. If not I will try and work with it as is. Thanks alot

 

[danny.guitar]

Just about the whole song is clipping. When recording don't let the meters go into the red.

There's nothing that can be done to fix this if the tracks clipped while being recorded (especially this bad).

Unless you raised the volume on mixdown or something and that's why it's clipping.

 

[metalhead28]

I don't think the track is perfectly mixed.....

You think?

Yes, that is clipping to the extreme. Dreadful.
Did you do this or is the backing track you're working with already in that condition? How one does not detect that I do not understand....

You could just roll with it and pretend that it has built in trunk rattling sound effects!

Seriously, if you are stuck with a track like that - nothing much you can do.

What do you mean by "dampen the sound"? I'm just curious.

 

[bknot1]

if your vocals is cracking..they are fighting with someting in the same Freq. on the beat..IMO.. (so some EQing might help)

and if its clipping in red ..like the others said..you need to maybe put a limiter on the beat or something..if you really want to record on it...

Im at work..and only heard it on office speakers..

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I just gave it a listen, and Danny called it correctly right off the bat in post #2. The entire mix is either recorded or dubbed waaaaay too hot, there has to be a good 40-50% distortion level there...and not the good kind .

You can pull the overall levels down, and get rid of some of the harshness by cutting some high freqs on the 4k - 12k range, but frankly it's still going to wind up sounding and mixing like crap; it's still going to be over-distorted and it's still not going to have any dynamics to it. It'll be flat-topped and solid no matter what volume you bring it down to or how you process it.

It's not going to leave much room for vocals at all unless you bring the volume waaaaay down and use it as a distant backdround groove only. But if you want to have it riding high in the mix, you'd have to re-do it from scratch; that copy you have is going to eat up your mixing room like a brick wall.

G.