How do I get the clarity of this song?

  • Thread starter Thread starter alex0203
  • Start date Start date
alex0203 said:
http://www.imeem.com/jukeboxmusic34/music/bkKUrvOo/madonna-i-deserve-it-album-version/

If you listen to it with your headphones, you'll notice that EVERYTHING sounds very clear and clean. How do I get that sound? Oh yeah, and please don't just tell me "You have to have good equipment." Be more specific than that. Let me know what exactly do I have to do to get that clarity in my songs.
Click to expand...

i cant hear it with out loging in and making an account... any other link?

and to make a recording sound good, you need to get great mics, a VERY good sounding room with proper treatment, high end compressors and preamps, a great set of ears, some one to master the tracks, AND MANY MANY MANY MANY years of experience with your gear.

its not like we can say "ohhhh you want it to sound good? ok well just do this little trick and it'll sound amazing"

...well we could say something like that, but we'd be lieing
 
You have to have good equipment.


While that's a good start, you need to know what youre doing. Learn good tracking, mixing, room treatment, listen to lots of music for tones, read everything you can, record anyone you can, practice recording yourself, listen critically to everything, even the sounds of your car running and birds chirping, try to recognize what frequencies youre hearing so that you can apply it to tracking/mixing make sure you can play your instruments very well and the people you're recording can too, experiment different ways to get different sounds, see what effects can enhance your recordings, search this forum for every question you have, buy another book, make sure the vibes are happenin', turn on the lava lamp, dont drink too much beer, and if youre under 21, don't drink it at all, turn your amp up to 11 it sounds better louder, move around the microphones you dont have to close mic everything, use a pop filter, mix after tracking a loud session.

Theres a lot of stuff you can learn to make a good recording. Good equipment isn't necessary to make a good recording. Learn everything you can and your skills will culminate into a better produced recording. Be critical of yourself.

I didn't listen to your recording. But maybe they have worse gear than you and a lot more knowledge invested. I can't directly answer your question. Maybe the person who recorded it can. But if you start doing some of the things on that list, you'll get started learning and things will come easier.


If all else fails, put a high end shelf around 2k and boost it 18db. That should be pretty clear.:)
 
Scratch that, Glen said it was a Madonna recording. You don't have as good of gear as that engineer.

But that doesn't stop you from learning all you can to make the best recording from the gear that you do have. Read Glens list, then read mine, then read a lot of stuff on this forum. Then post a mix of your own in the mp3 clinic and then maybe we can more directly help you.

Good luck.
 
To be honest 90% of the final quality is a good engineer and producer. Before i started recording my band had been in several different studios most of which were not state of the art. However we did have the chance to record in one of the nicest studios that i have ever been in. The quality that came out of that studio was absolute shit. I mean they 3 different control rooms, a sick SSL tons of HQ mics and pres but he just was not a good producer at least for our genre. We've also put out albums where drums were done in a barn and everything else was done in a basement and we won #1 unsigned band from DJ Rossstar. So you really just gotta know the genre in which you are recording that is key. I mean a kick drum in a country song is gonna sound a lot different than one in a pop punk song.
 
mentonium said:
To be honest 90% of the final quality is a good engineer and producer.
Click to expand...

Nice numbers you have there. So you think only 10% goes toward songwriting, perfomance, composition, room, and equipment?
 
I think he was asking about quality of the recording not quality of song. And yeah the gear and room can have a lot to do with it unless the engineer doesn't know how to properly use them to the bands advantage which i find happens more often than not.
 
mentonium said:
I think he was asking about quality of the recording not quality of song. And yeah the gear and room can have a lot to do with it unless the engineer doesn't know how to properly use them to the bands advantage which i find happens more often than not.
Click to expand...
Both the TITLE of this thread and the content of the OP indicate that he is asking about achieving the kind of CLARITY in the recording he indicated by example.

I'm with you in the general principle that "it's the ear and not the gear" and that seasoned technique will take one farther on mAudio toys than a Neve will take a monkey with no technique. But that said, room acoustics, mic quality, preamp quality, converter/clock quality and monitoring chain quality will all play a HUGE role in this question. One is simply not likely to get Madonna-like (or anything close) "clarity" out of a vocal track recorded in a basement bedroom via a SM58 into a $50 tube pre and SoundBlaster-quality interface unless the vocalist has good studio and mic technique and The Fates just happen to be in in a great mood that day from getting laid the night before, no matter who is sitting behind the glass.

G.
 
Well yeah madonna and her prducers obviously have loads of talent, money. experience, and great equipment and all of those together is why she sounds that way. However i think a guy starting out trying to acheive that quality will get far better results with practicing, recording a shit load and working on his technique rather than buying $5000 pres and mics. I mean once you get up to madonna standards, everything counts but when you at the home studio level i think technique far out weighs equipment.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top