Hiring out versus keeping it in the family

  • Thread starter Thread starter dkerwood
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dkerwood

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Here's the situation:

Usually I do all my own recording. It's a fun hobby. Before we went on tour this summer, however, a guy I knew offered to record us for free. My recording machine was down with a faulty motherboard at the time, so I accepted.

My recording gear: MXL 990 condensor, MXL 991 condensor, Behringer mini mixer, stock soundcard (2 channels). I do all my compression, EQ, reverb, etc, in post.

His recording gear: 2 MXL 990 condesors, MXL 991 condensor, Behringer mixer, USB audio interface (I don't recall the specs on that, but also 2 channel). He also used some sort of rack compressor (Behringer, as I recall).

Anyway, we did three tracks with him and it seemed to work alright. I never gave it another thought until I installed iTunes a couple weeks ago. His version, recorded in June, came up right next to a recording of the same song that I had done in January. To my ears, my version sounds "bigger". My girlfriend insists that his version sounds more "mature". So I thought I'd bring it to your blind ears, and see if I should continue to use his services (he's offered 2 more tracks for free, and then a ridiculously low price after that) or do it myself.

Which do you prefer (and why)?

Track A

or

Track B?
 
i guess track b just cause its louder :D

both are ok but seem way to over compressed.......
 
Neither link worked for me - can't find server message 5 times.
 
Track A is a far better mix.

Track B was well mastered.

I go with A.
 
B sounds like it's intended to be METAL & has no air to breathe
A sound more dynamic, less heavy & well to use a terrible word it's just BETTER.
I just relistened - hence the edit.
To my useless ears B sounds compressed to the max & probably what a lot of people want but A has space, air, dynamics yet still rocks & there's some significant difference when the heavy guitars come in rather than swapping places within the same crowded room that B represents.
 
I go with "A"...B sounded like shit to me compared to "A".
I guess its all whatever works for each of us...same with guitar tones.

left out why? the cymbals are harsh on B, the guitar sounds mushed and it has an overall "live bar club" sound imo...which is worthless really.

"A" was frkn amazing. I don't see how this is done so well in HR land...it still eludes me, many years past. :confused:
 
A here too. I'm about to hit the sack so I'll leave my reasons tomorrow.
 
his is obviously B. he said that his sounds bigger.

The biggest problems I hear in the A mix:

1. The kick and snare are kind of missing in action. Hihat and cymbals are too loud.

2. Two guitars but can only hear one.

3. Where's the bass?

4. Vocals are too forward / sounds like someone is singing to a karaoke backing track.


Overall, I thought the tracks were well recorded in A, espcecially the guitars.

For B:

1. Overall mix is boomy and over compressed.

2. Too much of the double vocal (which has performance issues)

........it's hard for me to comment on anything else in B because of the over eqing and over compressing. Maybe B would win out if the extreme eqing and compression was removed. I can't tell if the tracks were well recorded or if the mix is well balanced because of the eq/compression.

I'd like to hear your version uncooked.
 
Travis nailed this one right on the head.

i'm goin with A.

the A version is open and flowing, except that high hat was pissing me off. and being a bassist i would have to agree whole hartedly on the were is the bass comment.

to sum up----Track B sounds like somthing i would end up with. Track A-is were i'm heading someday when i figure this whole game out.
 
Meh. You guys are right. Mine IS B... Which is probably why, to my ears, the guitar tone is better in B.

I accidentally posted the version that was my attempt at mastering... I posted it along with a relatively "uncooked" version on this site back in January. Here's the "uncooked":

UNCOOKED

As to the "A" version... The reason that you can only hear one guitar most of the time is that there really only is one guitar most of the time. We're a power trio, but he wanted me to do different tones on different takes, rather than stomping pedals on the fly like I do live.

I'm not sure what happened to the bass, honestly. He miked up the bass cab and got a pretty representative sound from it in the recording, but it just got lost in the mix. In the engineer's defense, my bassist does like a very dark, woody tone that's hard to capture.

Keep going with your opinions. After this thread runs its course, I'll post the other two tracks that we recorded with him and see what you guys think. Ultimately, I liked recording with him far better than doing it myself. I don't have the patience to sit through two dozen takes when someone else is doing the playing. I was able to do about three guitar takes, about four vocal takes, and we were done. Then I could go while the drummer spent two hours on each song... :-) I just want to have some feedback for him in the future.

Oh, and I guess also in his defense, we were running on a time crunch, so we recorded all of this in two days, and he mixed it all down in just 24 hours. He says that he's been tweaking the mixes and he likes them even better now. Who knows? I might even be happy with the "new" mixes!
 
I don't think either mix is very good frankly, but A is MUCH MUCH MUCH better than B!!!

It IS more "mature".
 
Ford Van said:
I don't think either mix is very good frankly, but A is MUCH MUCH MUCH better than B!!!

It IS more "mature".
Click to expand...
What could be done to improve track A? My biggest nits are that the guitar sounds nasty to my ear, and that the overall effect isn't as full as our live sound.

Thus why I've overused compression in my version, I suppose...
 
uncooked B was'nt much different than the cooked version. i think the guitar sounds much better in A than B. B guitars are muddy with no definition.
 
they both don't sound so great. A would sound better with more lows, the vocals sounded thin, and the reverb was too obvious, and I'm a guy that loves reverb.

B sounded bigger, but in a "i'm trying to sound proffessional but just can't seem to do it" kind of way. Sounds bad probably because of bad compression, and poor tracking.

If I had to choose I'd probably rather listen to A, but I'd say go to someone that knows what they're doing rather than record either way again.
 
A sounds like is being played in a box sitting next to the singer. It's is so much smaller and the vox are too up front. The mix is probably a better mix.

B sounds like something I usually end up with trying to make my guitars sound big. :D

:)
 
BRIEFCASEMANX said:
If I had to choose I'd probably rather listen to A, but I'd say go to someone that knows what they're doing rather than record either way again.
Click to expand...
Ah, but then we'd have to go get our advice from studiorecording.com, and what fun is that? ;)

No, but I'm totally agreed with you here. When we get ready to lay down a full length CD, it will be in a real studio, and not somebody's home studio. For now, though, we're just trying to get a reasonable EP together so that people can hold onto the music after we get off the stage, you know?
 
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