Loudness and soundcards...

[charon17]

OK I'm not altogether concerned with making my music blow speakers, but when I compare it to alot of the stuff made by fellow homerecording.com musicians I can't help but notice some things..

my bass seems to not nail that great frequency of tightness and bounce but instead seems to be too heavy (despire filtering for subsonic bass) and dead sounding.. or generally it sounds weak..
umm...
the ambient space created by my song is some what "closed" compared to other songs..
and the general volume is low despite wav form often being maxed out...

I'm working with cooledit..
I know the program isn't at fault, I've heard some great stuff produced on it..
I think it might be my soundcard..
I'm using a yamaha syg20. it's the beast that came in the box with my computer (which was a multi-media type 4 years ago)

I try recording everything really quite to give me lots of room to bump up the sound and this seems to have an effect (much better than recording at a louder level) but it doesn't quite cut the cake for sound quality..
if I get a new soundcard and record say at 24bit and dither down to 16bit (instead of 16in 16out) will I notice any significant improvement in sound quality and loudness?


Thanks for any help..

Charon

 

[Shazukura]

wow, that's a lot of questions.

Here is one recommendation: next time you listen to a post in the MP3 Mixing Clinic that you like for one or another reason, post and ask how they got such-and-such a sound. Also, be sure to use the MP3 Mixing Clinic to post your own music -- you WILL recieve critical commentary, so just be ready for it.

When I record, I try to get my levels as high as I can, without ever clipping. This provides the most dynamic recording possible, and gives you a nice start with a low noise floor. TO get more "ambience" you need to learn to use the sonic space effectively; just like mixing red green and blue makes $#!^ brown color, improperly mixing the sonic palette can make for "muddY sounding recordings.

Try to think of your sonic palette somewhat like a 3-dimensional space. You have left and right, near and far, and high and low -- if too many of your signals intersect in the middle you get $#!^ brown sounds. Obviously PAN controls left and right. Also, EQ is how you control the "altitude" of any given track. Finally, good use of reverb allows you to set tracks "further away" in the mix.

Good luck!

-Shaz