mic levels, background noise

[Bristol Posse]

You seem to be discribing background noise that is present and relative to the volume (at the mic) with your voice- This relative amount of noise won't change with how hot you track, or whether you turn it up before or later in Sonar. If that's the case you need to get away from the noise, get some isolation, or get closer/sing louder.

Not necessarily
Fast track pro is very entry level gear and the preamps are just about OK for consumer gear.
If you add a lot of gain those preamps can become noisier so it would be better to track lower and then turn up in the DAW rather than track loud, you'd most likely end up wit less system created noise that way and a cleaner vocal

 

[Harvey Gerst]

You don't "master" the individual tracks; you "master" the finished product. Every response you've received here has said exactly the same thing: "Turn down the backing tracks". Leave all the effects and normalizing and Master Suite for later (when you "mix" the tracks).

1. Record all the tracks.
2. Mix the tracks down to a stereo wav file (adding effects).
3. Master the finished stereo mix (using Master Suite).

 

[Kerose]

You don't "master" the individual tracks; you "master" the finished product. Every response you've received here has said exactly the same thing: "Turn down the backing tracks". Leave all the effects and normalizing and Master Suite for later (when you "mix" the tracks).

1. Record all the tracks.
2. Mix the tracks down to a stereo wav file (adding effects).
3. Master the finished stereo mix (using Master Suite).

i know i don't master the individual tracks......i never i don't think said i do, or should, i would master the beat in Reason, and that's what i was asking about. and there are no "backing tracks", i have one track that is the beat, and one track with vocals, that is it, so are you just saying yes then to what i asked

i make the beat in Reason, sorry when i say beat maybe you all think i just mean drums and that i am adding instruments that i record in Sonar, that's not the case, i make the entire musical arranfement in Reason, where i will not do anything besides mixing the tracks and adding effects to individual instruments, being i can't adjust those after i export a wav file and import that into Sonar,

so what things would you do to the individual tracks and what would you wait for using on your final stereo mix

i usually do compression on my beat track and eq and all that, and then separately do the same on my vocal track, then i just set the levels individually and export as a wav file and i guess that's not really right way to do it

sorry this somehow turned into a mixing, mastering clinic!!

 

[Kerose]

Recording levels: http://www.massivemastering.com/blog/html/blog_files/Proper_Audio_Recording_Levels.html

Monitor calibration: http://www.massivemastering.com/blog/html/blog_files/Calibrating_Your_Monitoring_Chain.html

Room setup (which should really be first on the list): http://www.massivemastering.com/blog/html/blog_files/Basic_Room_Setup.html

thanks, i bookmarked your site, i will get on that

 

[buckkillr8]

i usually do compression on my beat track and eq and all that, and then separately do the same on my vocal track, then i just set the levels individually and export as a wav file and i guess that's not really right way to do it.

Not if you plan to track your vocals using sonar. You want to leave all EQ and compression and such off that "beat" track then export it from reason. Import it in Sonar, then add your vocals. When you're finished either mix it down in Sonar adding your comps and such.

 

[Kerose]

Not if you plan to track your vocals using sonar. You want to leave all EQ and compression and such off that "beat" track then export it from reason. Import it in Sonar, then add your vocals. When you're finished either mix it down in Sonar adding your comps and such.

that is all good, except one small thing, i will do eq in reason to INDIVIDUAL TRACKS, like if a frequency in my strings is conflicting with my piano, i will eq that to, but no, i won't apply any affects to the beat as a whole, i will only mix the levels

i don't see why not to do effects and such to each track individually in sonar, like i might eq my beat, but not want that same eq applied to the vocals, so wouldn't i want to do those effects Before i Mix them down to a stereo track, that to me makes more sense, which is why i have been doing it that way, i mean yeah i can put compression and such on the final mixdown, but before that, i need to make specific adjustments to each track individually, why ain thtat right??

 

[buckkillr8]

That's alright to do. I'm saying don't mixdown your "beat" in reason then go to sonar. Leave your beat raw in reason and take it to sonar. When you start EQ different tracks in that beat in reason you're mixing it which is what you don't want to do unless you're going to finish everything in reason.

OR you could just do everything in Sonar.

 

[Kerose]

That's alright to do. I'm saying don't mixdown your "beat" in reason then go to sonar. Leave your beat raw in reason and take it to sonar. When you start EQ different tracks in that beat in reason you're mixing it which is what you don't want to do unless you're going to finish everything in reason.

OR you could just do everything in Sonar.

maybe you haven't worked with reason before,
the only way to bring what i make in reason into sonar is by exporting my reason song as a .wav, then i import the .wav into sonar, so you see i cannot alter the individual tracks of the beat once i get to reason, which is why i would do as much as i can in reason before bringing it to sonar, cuz then it is pretty static. so if eq'ing and compressing my tracks individually is fine, then i see no reason to not do all of that in reason before i export a .wav. Then i have the finished product in sonar and do not have to slow down the system with a bunch of plugins and such in sonar. I will do effects and whatnot to my vocal track, mix down my semi-finished beat and vocals to a separate stereo track and make final mastering adjustments on that. Then when i export my complete song out of Sonar, I will only export the "Master" track, not the individual tracks i bounced from. Sound right??...and thanks a freaking million, there's so much to learn, i've read and read and read, but sometimes actually talking to someone directly is so much better. A million appreciations to you my friend.

 

[buckkillr8]

so if eq'ing and compressing my tracks individually is fine

This is what we're talking about. You DON'T want to do any of that until you're mixing down. I'm not familiar with Reason but if it's a recording software like Sonar then you should just make all this easy on yourself and do EVERYTHING in Reason.

To give you a simpler idea of what I mean is this. If you record a guitar amp with the amps reverb, you're stuck with that reverb on the track. There's no taking it off. If you EQ your tracks on your "beat" in reason then export that to go into Sonar there's no fixing or removing anything once in Sonar. You're stuck with that. Now why would that be bad? Because now your vocals or whatever else you want to do in Sonar isn't going to be "part" of that imported track.

There's a lot of other people here that can explain it and help you better then I can, I'm, kinda of basic with my replies.

 

[buckkillr8]

Something I forgot to ask was. Saving in Reason. What formats can you save a project in? Check the specs for your sonar version and see if one of the formats is the same as reason. If it is then all you need to do is load your tracks in reason without doing anything to them. Next save your project as that format, then go into sonar and load that project in there then do all your effects in sonar?

At least in my head it seems to work.

 

[sonnylarsen]

maybe you haven't worked with reason before,
the only way to bring what i make in reason into sonar is by exporting my reason song as a .wav, then i import the .wav into sonar, so you see i cannot alter the individual tracks of the beat once i get to reason, which is why i would do as much as i can in reason before bringing it to sonar, cuz then it is pretty static. so if eq'ing and compressing my tracks individually is fine, then i see no reason to not do all of that in reason before i export a .wav. Then i have the finished product in sonar and do not have to slow down the system with a bunch of plugins and such in sonar. I will do effects and whatnot to my vocal track, mix down my semi-finished beat and vocals to a separate stereo track and make final mastering adjustments on that. Then when i export my complete song out of Sonar, I will only export the "Master" track, not the individual tracks i bounced from. Sound right??...and thanks a freaking million, there's so much to learn, i've read and read and read, but sometimes actually talking to someone directly is so much better. A million appreciations to you my friend.

Is there some reason you can't use rewire? Rewire would allow you to bring each track from reason into its own track in sonar without any exporting/importing at all. Even failing rewire a good idea would be to export each reason track individually and bring it in as a separate track in SONAR. This will give you more control over your mix in sonar.

As far as your levels go, turn down your background track(s) so you can track your vocals at a good level. I track most stuff between -18 to -12 and when I bring in reason tracks they are usually set pretty far below zero.

 

[Kerose]

This is what we're talking about. You DON'T want to do any of that until you're mixing down. I'm not familiar with Reason but if it's a recording software like Sonar then you should just make all this easy on yourself and do EVERYTHING in Reason.

To give you a simpler idea of what I mean is this. If you record a guitar amp with the amps reverb, you're stuck with that reverb on the track. There's no taking it off. If you EQ your tracks on your "beat" in reason then export that to go into Sonar there's no fixing or removing anything once in Sonar. You're stuck with that. Now why would that be bad? Because now your vocals or whatever else you want to do in Sonar isn't going to be "part" of that imported track.

There's a lot of other people here that can explain it and help you better then I can, I'm, kinda of basic with my replies.

yeah, sorry, that's what i was trying to get across, Reason is not a recording type software, it's more like a midi sequencer, it has samplers and all that as well much like vst plugins in sonar or whatever, but no, it doesn't actually have a record function, you can only export as a wav file, so

i HAVE to make the individual track eq and such within reason, THEN i can export and make eq adjustments to the ENTIRE mixed down beat in Sonar,

what i don't get is, what's the matter if i eq the entire beat in Reason before i bring it into Sonar, all i will have in sonar is recording vocals, and any eq i do on my beat is probably not gonna be anything i want to include on my vocals, not at least until the final mastering phase,

Unless you are saying that you don't want to eq a track that has already been eq'd, in the case that i would perhaps want to adjust my eq levels of my beat after hearing how it sounds in conjunction with my vocals,

you are brief, and i'm terribly long winded, sorry

 

[Kerose]

Is there some reason you can't use rewire? Rewire would allow you to bring each track from reason into its own track in sonar without any exporting/importing at all. Even failing rewire a good idea would be to export each reason track individually and bring it in as a separate track in SONAR. This will give you more control over your mix in sonar.

As far as your levels go, turn down your background track(s) so you can track your vocals at a good level. I track most stuff between -18 to -12 and when I bring in reason tracks they are usually set pretty far below zero.

i was actually gonna bring that up, but i could tell buck wasn't familiar with Reason...

the thing is, I've used Rewire before, the problem i had was that i had some terrible latency with my midi. So for the purpose of creating my beats and arrangements, it would not work for shit. I didn't spend a lot of time trouble shooting the issue cuz i didn't really feel i wanted to do it that way anyways, I like the track sequencer in Reason a lot and have a good report with it. However, i guess i could once completed with my beat as far as the arrangement is concerned i could rewire it to Sonar and get into the mixing and further sonic editing of each individual track, and if need be, still make adjustments to the sequence of patterns and arrangements, like changing up the drum beat and whatnot. At that point i won't really be using my midi controller to lay down any melodies, so a point and click approach would work, which hopefully would keep me from experiencing the midi latency. However, if not, then we will have problems with tracking the vocals if my midi is delayed, but i don't think that is a problem, cuz i think since i am not sequencing midi in sonar, the only thing coming into reason is the actual audio data and then i should be jesus. Reason 3 has no dedicated Spectral analysis and also doesn't support plugins. Sonar has MUCH better on the end of proccessing, especially the infinite plugins, so i think you have got me back on the track i need to be on. Sorry for writing this all out, it was basically me thinking out loud.

 

[buckkillr8]

what i don't get is, what's the matter if i eq the entire beat in Reason before i bring it into Sonar, all i will have in sonar is recording vocals, and any eq i do on my beat is probably not gonna be anything i want to include on my vocals, not at least until the final mastering phase

Let's see if I can say it a different way.

When you EQ those tracks your essentially mixing them. You don't want to do any mixing until the very end. By doing this you're making the track louder then what you'd be doing you vocals at.

-Get all your tracks down including your vocals
-mix everything down. This is where your EQ, effects etc etc. come in
-master it

Just like that in that order.

 

[Kerose]

Let's see if I can say it a different way.

When you EQ those tracks your essentially mixing them. You don't want to do any mixing until the very end. By doing this you're making the track louder then what you'd be doing you vocals at.

-Get all your tracks down including your vocals
-mix everything down. This is where your EQ, effects etc etc. come in
-master it

Just like that in that order.

well i understood all of that, to a point, i was just trying to get past the limitations i had with the software i was using. Now that i found a way to bring my tracks into Sonar from Reason via ReWire, I am able to mix and eq everything in Sonar. But I will still be applying eq and such to individual tracks in Sonar. Then will I bounce all the tracks to a separate stereo track and master that. That doesn't seem to make much sense to me, it seems that i would just eq and add effects or whatever to each individual tracks and when i get the overall mix and sound of those tracks then i would just put some eq, compression, etc. on the master out bus, and do my final mastering. I'm starting to think the line between mixing and mastering is very blurry, hmm.

 

[stealth_prod]

Worry about the mixing. Basically what im getting from your posts is that IMO you are mixing to early. You are mixing before your vocals are even recorded which is only going to add to your problems. Think of it as another instrument. You have to sit your vocals basically like your instruments. Get all your tracks into sonar then record your vocals. Not saying you cant EQ anything but if you start to mixdown before your vocals or anything else is done then you are doubling your efforts. I dont use reason but I know the concept. Try it out, if im off then just ignore my comment lol. Good luck.

 

[sonnylarsen]

I think that's the best idea. I do everything but guitar, bass, and vocals in Reason and I usually do 90% - 100% of the midi work in Reason before I open my DAW to record vocals and guitars. This workflow works well for me plus I think the summing engine in SONAR will probably end up haveing more clarity than Reason's.

 

[Farview]

well i understood all of that, to a point, i was just trying to get past the limitations i had with the software i was using. Now that i found a way to bring my tracks into Sonar from Reason via ReWire, I am able to mix and eq everything in Sonar. But I will still be applying eq and such to individual tracks in Sonar. Then will I bounce all the tracks to a separate stereo track and master that. That doesn't seem to make much sense to me, it seems that i would just eq and add effects or whatever to each individual tracks and when i get the overall mix and sound of those tracks then i would just put some eq, compression, etc. on the master out bus, and do my final mastering. I'm starting to think the line between mixing and mastering is very blurry, hmm.

Mixing and mastering are two separate processes.

Mixing is when you take all the individual elements and make them blend together in an appealing way.

Mastering is when you take a bunch of stereo mixes and make them sound like they belong together and prepare them for replication.

Don't confuse making a song loud with mastering.


The original problem you were having was caused because you created your beat too loud. You made the mistake of making an element of the mix as loud as you wanted the finished product. The final mix is not made from a bunch of finished products, it is made from a bunch of pieces that come together to make up the whole.

Worry about making it sound good while you are mixing. Then take a day off and listen to the mix to see what sort of 'mastering' it needs.

 

[Kerose]

I think that's the best idea. I do everything but guitar, bass, and vocals in Reason and I usually do 90% - 100% of the midi work in Reason before I open my DAW to record vocals and guitars. This workflow works well for me plus I think the summing engine in SONAR will probably end up haveing more clarity than Reason's.

i think you are the only one who understands what my limitations were with having to mix down my tracks before bringing them to sonar, Everyone keeps saying don't do it, mix your tracks and vocals together, but no one was realizing that i can't, because when you export a wav file from reason you are done, you can't touch the tracks individually at that point. ReWire solves all that. I just hope my system doesn't have a problem running like that, especially when i get into mixing and mastering, with all those plugins and such, i think that's another reason i shied away from using ReWire. We'll see, maybe i'll hijack the wife's Mac!! Anyways, now that I have solved the issue of bringing my music into sonar to mix it properly, i'm on to learning much more about mixing. Thanks to everyone for there help, especially Buckkller. I plan on spending much mroe time no this site, by far the best recording/production site i've seen to date.

 

[Farview]

i think you are the only one who understands what my limitations were with having to mix down my tracks before bringing them to sonar

I understand that, but there is no reason to mix it out at a high volume. Back the volume off and all of your problems go away in Sonar. Once you put the vocals over it, you can then worry about the overall level of the mix is.

Even though you have to mix the beat down in reason, it is still not a finished product. It is only a part of a finished product, so it shouldn't be at finished product level.