Help !!!! I must be a fekin idjit

[mjk6string]

Hey all,

I am an expierienced musician, but a newbie to home recording. I just purchased a BR 600 digital recorder for about $400 and while the thing is really cool and I can get up to 64 Virtual tracks, I can't seem to get a polished finsihed product, it really just sounds like a live recording once I've finished with it.

I've spent a lot of time on the net looking for courses on mixing and mastering and to be perfectly honest, I don't want to make a career out of this, I just want to learn how to do it for myself but with a good finished product.

Can anyone either give me some advice on mixing down to come up with a more polished end result or at the very least recommend a decent book on ths subject so I don't have to take a mortgage to pay for a college course to learn mixing.

mjk6string.

 

[danny.guitar]

It's hard to know what the problem is without hearing one of your songs.

The reason most home recordings sound like *home recordings* (besides being recorded in a home) is lack of room treatment. So when recording, you get a lot of that crappy/ambient room sound which makes everything sound "live" but certainly not in a good way.

Do you have any absorber panels in your room? Bass traps? If you're on a budget, I'd recommend building some 2" thick absorber panels and setting them up around the mic when you record to help tame the room reflections.

In addition to that, it could be a lot of things:

You're not using good mic placement when tracking
You're not mixing your stuff as well as you could

What kind of music are you recording? And what kind of mics are you using?

 

[cusebassman]

It's hard to know what the problem is without hearing one of your songs.

The reason most home recordings sound like *home recordings* (besides being recorded in a home) is lack of room treatment. So when recording, you get a lot of that crappy/ambient room sound which makes everything sound "live" but certainly not in a good way.

Do you have any absorber panels in your room? Bass traps? If you're on a budget, I'd recommend building some 2" thick absorber panels and setting them up around the mic when you record to help tame the room reflections.

In addition to that, it could be a lot of things:

You're not using good mic placement when tracking
You're not mixing your stuff as well as you could

What kind of music are you recording? And what kind of mics are you using?

Well put. 10 characters!

 

[Nick98338]

1. Record in a really good room which adds the "polish" as you record. This is not possible for most of us, so...

2. Add the "polish" after the tracks are recorded. Sometimes on individual tracks. Mostly, you add to the final mix. This is usually done with a combination of EQ, Reverb, Harmonics, Dynamics, and Stereo Imaging. These are the basics. There are a few other effects that can be put in.

These things are easy to add in computer software. Honestly, I don't know how to add these things using your digital recorder.

 

[mjk6string]

Thanks sooo much

Thanks Nick, again you've been a big help. Appreciate the support and sharing of your knowledge. This site rocks.

 

[pandamonk]

Hey all,

I am an expierienced musician, but a newbie to home recording. I just purchased a BR 600 digital recorder for about $400 and while the thing is really cool and I can get up to 64 Virtual tracks, I can't seem to get a polished finsihed product, it really just sounds like a live recording once I've finished with it.

I've spent a lot of time on the net looking for courses on mixing and mastering and to be perfectly honest, I don't want to make a career out of this, I just want to learn how to do it for myself but with a good finished product.

Can anyone either give me some advice on mixing down to come up with a more polished end result or at the very least recommend a decent book on ths subject so I don't have to take a mortgage to pay for a college course to learn mixing.

mjk6string.

Live recording makes me think, lots of reverb. Maybe some acoustic treatment is in order. Read this. And you're not an edjit, as far as i can tell... We all start somewhere, and get extremely frustrated by not getting the sound we want.