Hello and a (not so ) brief introduction...

[LDS]

Hello. Recently found the site, and within the last week my recording and mixing have shown quantum leaps in quality due to the excellent advice and shared experiences on this forum. I'd like to compliment those who run the site and thank them for providing such an outstanding resource.

First of all the Cliff Notes version for the time and attention span challenged:

I live in Nashville, TN., and have an extremely modest "studio" in my basement. The majority of the equipment was assembled about ten years or so ago, and until recently it has languished pretty much unused. I play bass, a little bit of guitar, a teeeny-tiny bit of drums, and can sometimes peck out a melody on keys. My main focus currently is producing a decent demo for the group I'm playing with, but would like to eventually do demos and projects for others.

Now, for more boring details...

I'm currently using Adobe Audition (just upgraded from my ten year old copy of Cool Edit Pro), a MOTU 2408 (with the obsolete PCI324 card), an Alesis Studio 32 Mixer, and an assortment of microphones from MXL, Shure Samson, and AKG.

My main musical interests are blues and older rock, I'm a huge fan of just about everything that came out of Chess Records.

My background includes many years of working as an audio repair tech, doing warranty work for makes like Bang and Olufsen, McIntosh, Studer/Revox and others. I was fortunate enough to do quite a bit of work in and around quite a few recording studios, and got to watch some really excellent engineers and producers practice their craft, as well as having some pretty in-depth discussions about how they got specific sounds.

I'm very familiar with analog recording, and have owned several multitrack tape machines in the past, such as Yamaha, Teac, Tascam and Dokorder. There's still a Yamaha 4-track cassette packed away in the closet, along with hours and hours of live recordings from many of my old bands. And speaking of tape, I still have my old Tascam DA-20 DAT, as well as more hours and hours of tape from live performances.

My intro to the digital world was a little over 15 years ago, when I got to help a studio in Huntsville Alabama set up some Mac Quadras to work with Digi/Pro Tools. At the time I thought it was pretty cool stuff and destined to change the way people record and produce music. Little did I realize at the time just how much impact it would have and how quickly...

Anyway, I don't really have anything worthy of tossing out there for a listen, but there is one tune that I mixed after reading some of the tips from this site. I just upgraded to Adobe Audition last week, and this was the first set of tracks I've started mixing with it. I know the bass is real boomy. I used an old Gibson EB3 with the flatulent front pickup since we were recording basically live in a small area at low volumes. The sound of that particular bass fills in the bottom really well at conversational volumes, but evidently it doesn't record very cleanly. I plan on going back and re-recording the part with my old Rickenbacker. I know the vocals aren't great, either. But, if anyone would be kind enough to critique it and offer some tips for improvement (or just flat say it sucks, if the case may be) I'd be highly appreciative.

Thanks!

 

[MMensch]

Anyway, I don't really have anything worthy of tossing out there for a listen, but there is one tune that I mixed after reading some of the tips from this site. I just upgraded to Adobe Audition last week, and this was the first set of tracks I've started mixing with it. I know the bass is real boomy. I used an old Gibson EB3 with the flatulent front pickup since we were recording basically live in a small area at low volumes. The sound of that particular bass fills in the bottom really well at conversational volumes, but evidently it doesn't record very cleanly. I plan on going back and re-recording the part with my old Rickenbacker. I know the vocals aren't great, either. But, if anyone would be kind enough to critique it and offer some tips for improvement (or just flat say it sucks, if the case may be) I'd be highly appreciative.

Hey LDS, pleased to meet you.

You seem to be bothered about the bass, but I don't mind it one bit. There's a difference between "warm and enveloping" and "boomy", and your sound certainly gravitates towards the former. The vocals are reasonable, though slightly underprocessed for my ear. I had a problem with two other things though, namely the rhythm guitar, which is just too muffled and just sort of sits in the background droning away, and the drums, which are too upfront and, more crucially, not played very well - at least in the beginning, the rhythm is all over the place, and this hurts the song way more than any recording/mixing shortcomings.

 

[MMensch]

Hey LDS, just to let you know, your track has grown on me. I didn't delete it, and today it came up at random and since I wasn't listening for mixing mistakes or other faults (actually I didn't even remember where it came from or that I slagged it just two days ago), I found myself digging it. I also took the liberty of downloading other stuff you have for sharing, and there's another song that I like, "Father of Light". I don't know, there's just something about the mood of these two that won me over, and the vocals on "Sleep" feel more honest to me every time I listen to it, which doesn't happen to me very often.