Help!! No balls!

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Slackmaster2K

Slackmaster2K

Gone
So I finally got a bass to complete my "band" and have been playing around with recording in general.

I'm very amature at this, and really need some help. I have two big problems.

1) The guitar sounds too clean....or too 'smooth' if you know what I mean. Through the amp it sounds the way I want it which is "clean dirt". Oh man it's hard to describe this shit. Any tips on capturing a natural sound? (see more explanation below)

2) The overall mix. There's absolutely NO PUNCH. Everything's just kind of "there". While I have read a bunch on recording here and there, I have a terrible ear! I'm just getting a real yawner of a sound. :(

I'll post links to two small samples of what I'm talking about. Please don't feel 'obligated' or whatever to help if you have a slow internet connection. Both of these samples were mixed to mp3 at 256kbps and are 1.5 to 2.3MB...I wanted to capture what I'm hearing in .wav as well as possible in the mp3 format.

The following should be listened to with headphones as that's how they were mixed:


I'm not looking for anyone to comment on my playing on these samples as each instrument was done in a single take. I'm more concerned with the recording here than anything.

My setup for recording these samples:

The Bass (pawn shop Peavy) was recorded running through my guitar amp, close-miced with a Shure SM57. I recently purchased a SansAmp DI box for the bass and am hoping it will give me more punch.

The guitar (LP custom) was was miced in the same manner as the bass, but the volume was only at 3 or 4 (Peavy Studio Pro 60). Would cranking the volume help *that* much in overall sound quality? I will eventually do this when it's possible.

The drums were done using Drums! 2.0. On mixdown you're just hearing a short loop, but on trainmix2 they are done totally by hand to give a more realistic sound. (time consuming process...holy crap!)

I'm using my Fostex X28 4-track as a mixer running into an SB16 (ick) on my PC. I'm using n-Track Studio 2.0 for recording. I added some n-Track reverb as well as a bit of EQ (mostly low end) to the drums. There's nothing on the bass or guitar at all.

I'm mixing with headphones which is a big no-no...but that's my only "good" option right now. These mixes don't even sound good through headphones. If I could get just that far then 'yea is me!'

My main problem: just an overall "blah" sound. No punch where you'd expect punch. While I'm playing I "feel" and hear the punches....but when I playback...nothing!

Hints, suggestions, help! Go easy on me, I'm a knuckhead with a horrible ear.

Thanks,

Slackmaster 2000
 
I listened to both cuts twice each thru Event 20/20 passives and a set of SONY MDR-7506 headphones with no EQ added. No fancy amp setup- just a SONY consumer receiver. It definitely sounded better on the Events. But I don't know what you mean about "no balls." Those mixes were thumping! They rode the 0 dB line as close as Sonusman's samples. There seemed to be a bit too much (unnatural) stereo separation when heard thru the headphones. Other than that, it sounded great! Are you waiting for the cones to just jump into your lap?
 
I agree with drstawl - if anything, I'd say the mixes thumped a bit much. I listened on several monitor sets and thought that the bass guitar and kick drum needed to be tamed a bit. Other than that, I checked the EQ on "mixdown" with freefilter against that of a similar Buddy Guy mix and the filter wasn't radically different - Your monitor setup is probably just fooling you. :)
BTW, nice playing.
 
Yeah, n-Track supports DirectX plugins. That's how I applied reverb and EQ to the drums. I think that n-Track has just about all the features of the big boys at a fraction of the price.

I guess you're right about no rules. I'm just really new at all this and thought that maybe what I was asking would be totally obvious. I guess not!

I pleased to have had enough positive comments and great suggestions to know that I'm somewhere on the right track. I recorded each of those samples during the first two nights after I bought my bass. It was my second time using n-Track and my first time playing bass so I wasn't sure what to expect. Point being, I'm very inexperienced with all this stuff and am glad that this forum exists.

I guess now what I'll have to do is just play around and experiment until I get what I think I want. Unfortunately it's almost harder to figure out what you WANT to hear than it is to get the final sound :)

Slackmaster 2000
 
I will speak here. I have never done a review, so take it with a grain of salt.

I would say that the fidelity of the sources with outstanding. But, to a fault. While you accurately captured the sonic landscape of the instruments, it really lacked a certain amount of ambience. It was kind of obvious that you DI'ed the Bass, and the drums really sounded like a drum machine.

Now, don't take offense to these comments. This is a very critical ear here. All in all, if a demo was what you where after, and you didn't spend a whole lot of time on this, then you really made a nice sounding demo here. But, if you are after something that has some realism to it, you will need to "dirty" up the sound a bit, especially in the case of so many direct instruments.

I would recommend a nice reverb on many of the sources. I have a Lexicon LXP-1 with MRC controller, and still find that even though this unit is hopelessly dated compared to the "new" school stuff out there, you really can't beat it for very natural sounding reverbs!!!

Also, you may play around with getting your mic back from the source a bit. This is hard to do sometimes because it tends to lose some of the nice fidelity you have going on there, but, realism is what it is all about. If you are not dealing with top of the line pre-amps,mics, and really nicely tuned rooms, you will have to settle with sounds that are a bit shy of the real thing to gain some realism. No real way around this.

Also. Listening to the drum tracks, maybe a little too perfect!!! Try some slight tempo changes between parts. Also, it is very important to do all of the small things that a drummer would do in a song. Things like keeping the hi-hat going on the quarter note while playing the ride. And a kick drum on the 1 and 3 while playing a fill. Think like a drummer (what a oxymoron there.... :) and you will get very realistic drum tracks.

Also. I think that maybe your Bass guitar sounds lack a bit of the sub-harmonic frequencies as a result of running it through a guitar processor. You can easily kid yourself with Bass tones on digital. With a frequency response that goes way on down to 5hz, there is the tendency to not record the stuff that Bass is made of. Digital is different than analog in regards to low end!!! You will go a long way towards getting great mixes if you don't try to sound like analog through your digital system.

Anyway. Being a blues lover (I even mixed some live shows for Guitar Shorty and T-Bone Walker about 5 years ago), I enjoyed the playing.

Good luck.
Ed Rei
Echo Star Studio www.echostarstudio.com
 
I would have stayed out of this... but I thought that first song sounded familiar...
I whipped out my Jimi Hendrix "Blues" album and sure 'nuff.
Recording other peoples music is lame...
Yeah, I know he did it but... He was on lots of drugs and was black and stuff...
Blues is all about taking a song that has been a hundred times and writing different words... I know that... but...
I think I would have at least changed it up a bit and claimed it was my own...
The sound was great but come on...
Maybe I can retype "Moby Dick" with a different font and say I am the creator...
I don't know... That's just lame...
 
Leave it to Satan to be an asswipe. :)

Wow, you're familiar with popular blues! Yeah, I covered a few seconds of a couple tunes. The question was not "how's my playing" it was "how's the RECORDING".

Why were those clips only about a minute long? Because they were one minute recordings! I ripped out a short bassline and I ripped off a quick guitar lead. If you can't find it in yourself to help someone get a good *recording* because he/she is doing a cover song then maybe you should've kept your "mouth" shut or maybe I'm asking the wrong group.

Portions of that Hendrix album, particularly the Born Under a Bad Sign clip (the full length version is incredible BTW), is the SOUND that I'm after. My end goal in this matter is to capture that SOUND...not to immitate. And I'm not even a pimple on Hendrix's ass so I couldn't immitate even if I wanted to.

If I had posted, "Check out my cool tunes!", then you'd have an argument. But that's NOT what I did.

I should have known to stick what I was playing in the original message to avoid asswipe messages from people who have the uncanny ability to recognize popular blues recordings.

And, maybe I should warn you now that I am going to do a "Hear my Train a Comin" mixed with "Voodoo Child" cover for realsies once I get this recording thing figured out a little better. No it won't be a ripoff because it will be original to some extent.

I guess Hendrix ripped off Albert King and SRV ripped off everybody and everybody just rips off Robert Johnson. No the blues isn't about "taking someone else's song and writing different words". SRV didn't change Voodoo Child much on his Couldn't Stand the Weather album, but it was definately his own.

Regardless of your opinion in this matter, the point of my posting was not to "show off" or have anyone validate the originality my playing, it was to get some help getting a good sound. The only way I'll know when my sound is "good" is when it's close to the Born Under a Bad Sign clip on the Hendrix blues album. The bass twangs out clearly, the drums are nice and heavy, and of course the guitar....

Unfortunately I'm not a studio engineer so I don't know what I'm doing. I also lack the songwriting ability of greats like Dylan and Morrison. And on top of that I lack the ingenuity of guitar greats like Hendrix and the Kings (just about all of em :).

Sorry man, I'm just a white guy in Montana trying to record some tunes in the spare bedroom when he actually has some free time. I appologize if asking a sound question requires that the clip be an original masterpiece.

Later,

Slackmaster 2000
 
I'm just going to respond to drstawl, jitteringjim, and sonusman in this one message to keep things simple :)

*****************
drstawl:

Do you frequent the alt.guitar newsgroup? I think I've seen your handle before. Anyhow, what does "unnatural" stereo seperation mean? How do I fix it? I guess what I meant by "no guts" is that I'm having a hard time capturing dynamics. It should have more kick when the guitar comes in, but I can't get that by simply upping the guitar level. I'm not sure I'd be happy if my cones flew into my lap, but it'd be pretty cool :)

**********************

jitteringjim:

I agree that the bass is way too "bassy" when played through just about anything but my own headphones. Unfortunately I don't have monitors other than a couple cheap stereos...for which I have to go to tape to play through (hassle). I'm definately going to make a note to calm the bass down a little more than what sounds good via the headphones.

**********************

sonusman:

Thankyou very much for your long critic. That's exactly what I was looking for.

I should first say that the bass was not DI'd, though it does sound that way. It's actually miced being played through my guitar amp...which doesn't sound much better than DI. I bought a DI box that makes it sound a lot better *through my amp* so I might have solved that problem. It's a SansAmp Bass Driver DI that works suprisingly poorly for its main purpose, but adds a much bassier sound when I run it through the amp.

Yeah the drums do sound fakey....and I think that has a lot to do with dynamics. Drums! is some pretty cool software but adjusting individual drum levels is a time consuming process. It's funny that you mentioned that because I was actually thinking of writing the author and requesting some sort of "naturalizer" routine that would kind of make the drums sound more human. Basically just randomly adjust where the beats are played VERY slightly...add a little error. I'm also working with a drummer friend that I have out in Seattle. I'm hoping that he'll be able to give me some pointers about playing drums...and, as you implied, I should also pay more attention to drum parts that I like the sound of.

Reverb reverb reverb....should I use reverb on the bass?? I didn't think I was "supposed to" so I didn't. I did add quite a bit of reverb to the drums...but maybe I should add more since they're fake? For guitar I had the reverb on my amp set at about half. Would you recommend adding reverb to the entire mix? Is that a common thing to do? Thinking about it, it seems like a great idea for a more natural sound.

As far as micing goes...I have a cheap radio shack mic that I've experimented with to get some ambient sound. The best sound I've gotten with it was when I stuck it in a plastic cup behind the amp...added a real airy sound. That was a while ago, I'll have to try it again and play around some more. I like using my SM57 close though. I'm thinking about getting another one and that might help capture a more natural sound.

******************

Thanks to everyone who responded so far...even S8-N. I respect and value all of your viewpoints even if I disagree with some of them. Thanks again,

Slackmaster 2000
 
I don't think there are any real "supposed to" moves when you're recording your own stuff - You can do whatever you want - that's the beauty of it. "If it sounds good, it is good." Back in the 70's a lot of folks used to put a chorus on the bass to give it better stereo separation. It's practice for a lot of people to add a small amount of reverb to the final mix for the same reason. Make your own rules... experiment a bit.
I have most of my mastering stuff automated now, so when I get through with mixing the levels, I put on my cheap set of headphones and go to it. I'll check the final results on a set of monitors, but I already have a good idea of what it's going to sound like. Perhaps some mastering plug-ins would help you get the sound you want. I think Sonic Foundry is/was giving away fully functional versions of Vegas Pro on it's website: http://www.sonicfoundry.com I don't know if n-track supports DX plugs or not, but Vegas does. It also may have some tools like compression/limiting already installed. That would help you on your way. Oh, and have you tried the bass direct?
Again, just my 2 cents - I'm not a pro at this.
 
The un-natural sound I mentioned is an artifact of the headphone playback. In a speaker playback or live (another speaker playback, really) left and right channels don't achieve complete separation. Headphones <can> up to the separation capability of the electronics in the sound chain. The fix is to back away from hard panning any channel. But just because it sounds weird in headphones is no reason to change your mix. Losing the headphones is a better solution. No I haven't checked out alt.guitar; you mean there's another drstawl running around? I'm usually over at alt.drugs.chemistry getting a chuckle out of amateurs trying their hand at doing pharmaceutical synthesis and asking questions in a forum much like this one. If you thought that the newbie forum here had some silly questions, you've gotta see the A.D.C newsgroup.
 
Uh...
Maybe I had too many Jager shots last night...
Usually when I want to launch personal attacks on people I don't know for no good reason, I go to the pixelite Cool Edit forum...
Oops...


P.S. My Ex-bassist moved to Montana... If you ever run into a skinny long-haired freaky looking bassist named Paul Hillman... Kick him in the balls for me...
 
I thought he blew his brains out in a very messy puddle that left you without a ride to practice. Just a dental floss tycoon. They're just too undependable.
 
Satan,

Ahh the 'meister'...when it's good it's good but when it's bad it's still kinda good. Tastes like black licorice going down and black licorice coming back up. The best of both worlds. Nothing stranger (or maybe sadder? :) than passing out over a toilet thinking "hey....that wasn't so bad."

Anyway, out here in Montana we usually kick every skinny bass player with long hair in the nuts, so he'll probably get his eventually.

Strange though, I'm looking for a skinny long haired bass player who moved OUT of Montana...presumably...man he was good. No I'm not talking about Jeff Ament either... poor dude had to drag is deflated testicles out of Big Sky country when he couldn't take it anymore....our rampant kicking of the crotch that is. You should see what we do to drummers who do that twirly whirly crap with their sticks....or bitch every time they have to move thier set more than 12 feet.

No hard feelings. Later,

Slackmaster 2000
 
So, is that why bass players like Michael Anthony, Timothy B. Schmidt, Geddy Lee, and Chris Squire all sing soprano??? I know they are not from Montana! Maybe all bass players, no matter what state, get cranked in the nuggets on a regular basis.
 
Hey Doc,
When I said that our bassist "committed suicide" what I meant was he Moved to Montana...
 
why is it that all the good threads have broken links to the music?
 
How long did it take you to even FIND this thread?
 
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