My recordings sound like booty hole

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realestninja

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I need mad help with my recording + mixing, my songs sound like bird shit.
It can be heard here, http://www.myspace.com/mcnameless
The first 2 are the songs I recorded 2 days ago. It took me 4-6 hours per song. And it still sounds like crap.

http://www.harmony-central.com/Newp/2002/Tube-MP-Studio-V3-lg.jpg
That right there is my PREAMP/PHANTOM POWER for my mic

http://images.google.com/imgres?img...ages?q=shure+ksm32/sl&svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&sa=G
That right there is my CONDENSOR MICROPHONE

http://www.eks.lt/img/sound_20.jpg
My SOUNDCARD / INTERFACE

http://www.adobe.com/products/audition/main.html
That right there is my RECORDING SOFTWARE

I have Nuendo 2 but I don't use it because everytime I record, There seems to be a delay.

HOW I SET IT UP
Anyways. An XLR goes into the CONDENSOR MICROPHONE, the other end of the XLR cable goes into the INPUT of the ART PREAMP/PHANTOM POWER.
A monster cable 1/4 inch goes into the OUTPUT of the ART PREAMP/PHANTOM POWER, the other end of the 1/4 inch goes into the AUDIGY 2 SOUNDCARD/INTERFACE



If professional engineers or master can teach me that'd be gangster. Thanks b. My e-mail is Realestninja@yahoo.com
Or aol messenger is aloneatsupper
 
Here are a few quick notes that may be helpful:
1- Make sure you're not clipping going into your sound card. There should be an option within Adobe to monitor your record level before you even hit record, that way you make sure you're not clipping, which causes all the distortion.

2- After you have a take that you like, and when you go to mix, make sure you compress the vocal track. This will even off the volume differences from your voice as you perform.

3- I don't really listen to any rap music, so I can't give you much advice on how to mix it further, other than to try a couple things if you don't like the presence of your voice or how it's sitting in the mix. The first would be to try adding a small amount of delay to your vocal track, enough to make it stand out better if that's what it needs rather than mixing it louder, but not enough for the average listener to hear all of the delays. You can try finding a good setting for this within Adobe my adjusting the digital mix while previewing, I believe (I'm not a digital guy, I record analog, which is much easier to mix). Then, after the delay, try adding reverb to even things out. Again, enought o make it sound fuller, but not a ton of the stuff. Make sure you do these effects after you compress the vocal track.

Also, experiment, experiment, experiment. Find what works best for you. Probably the most improtant piece of advice at this stage in the game is to just make sure your levels going in aren't too hot. Digital is fairly quiet, so you don't have to have it going in full blast to still get a decent signal to noise ratio.

-MD
 
Thanks maddog

Thanks dawg, you're a great help. Yeah boss on adobe audition, they have a monitor on the bottom that shows you clipping, if it clips the bar goes beyond the red (danger) zone.

I tried recording in low volume, and it does not sound like radio quality. I was wondering if there was a way to make the bar consistent, where no matter how LOUD I shout, or how LOW my voice is it'll always be .2 millimeters behind the clipping zone, is there a way to do this?
 
You have a shitty preamp, a shitty soundcard, and no monitors. That's probably your problem. It sounds okay, sounds like it clips in a few spots like maddogg said. It's still an okay mix, just work on your mixing, and save some dough to upgrade your equipment.
 
Sup

Haha them cats at musicians friend told me those were tight items, so they're lying to me? Them cats claimed to "engineers" and that it'll be tight. why don't you help me mix this?
 
The "engineers" at musician's friend are first and foremost salespeople. Of course they'll tell you the stuff they want to sell you is tight. If you want help with the mix, you should post this in the mixing forum.
 
Don't listen to the people here about gear too much. You've got a good mic and a decent pre. Your sound card is so-so, but I've used a Sound Blaster which was pretty similar to your's and got decent results.

Record the vocals at a lower volume, even if it's kind of lower than your think it should be, you just don't want them to clip at all, otherwise you'll have problems. After you record the vocals, compress them like I was telling you. Read the help file in Adobe about compression, because it kind of is a complicated topic. In short, a compressor takes the sound and makes the soft parts louder, while making the loud parts softer, that way it's more flat, even, and easier to mix. But, there are a few stages and ways to do this, so you'll definitely want to read about how it's done in Adobe. I use Cool Edit Pro 2.0 for mix downs from my reel to reel, which I'm pretty sure is the predecessor to Adobe, and it came with a pretty decent help file within the program. Read as much as you can about compression, reverb, and anything else you can from the Adobe help file. The more you read and learn about this stuff, the better your music is going to sound. After all - nobody said becoming a recording engineer was easy, did they?!?

-MD
 
realestninja said:
I tried recording in low volume, and it does not sound like radio quality. I was wondering if there was a way to make the bar consistent, where no matter how LOUD I shout, or how LOW my voice is it'll always be .2 millimeters behind the clipping zone, is there a way to do this?
Click to expand...
Radio quality is a myth. Radio sounds like crap compared to the CD.

What you need is a compressor and some mic technique to smooth out the dynamics of your performance.

The compressor will turn down the loud stuff and bring up the volume again for the quieter stuff.

Even though it is counter-intuitive, when you shout loud, you want to back away from the mic, when you get quiet, you want to get close to it. It's kind of the opposite of what you naturally want to do, but that is one of the ways you control the level of the performance.

There is no reason to record your levels that hot. If at any time in the song there is a peak of -6dbfs, you have used up all the bits available. Any more level is just asking for trouble. If the vocal sounds weak, add more compression. If you can't get the vocal over the music, turn the music down to match the vocal.

The over all volume of a CD happens in mastering, not mixing. Trying to do both at the same time will screw up more than it fixes.
 
Can I send any of you pros my .ses file and can you show me what you can do to make it good quality? I would like to see.
 
I you upload a clip somewhere we will be able to give you better advice. You're recordings should be ok (nothing overly amazing but definately better than any booty hole).
 
realestninja said:
It took me 4-6 hours per song. And it still sounds like crap.[/COLOR]
Click to expand...

I may not be typical, but I often take 4-6 hours just to set up, practice, and record one track of a tune. That's not much time for an entire effort, especially if we throw final mixing into the picture, which can take me a weekend or even more. I know I'm slow, but I'm no expert either and find that rushing things gives me poor results at my current skill level.

J.
 
jeffree said:
I may not be typical, but I often take 4-6 hours just to set up, practice, and record one track of a tune. That's not much time for an entire effort, especially if we throw final mixing into the picture, which can take me a weekend or even more. I know I'm slow, but I'm no expert either and find that rushing things gives me poor results at my current skill level.

J.
Click to expand...


...........................+1
 
Yup - birdshit....

The tracks sound very muddy and very distorted.... sounds like you need to get a handle on both gain staging/signal levels as well as proper recording and mixing techniques............
 
Read this article, which is very important:
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/oct00/articles/soundcard.htm

Your Nuendo problem will be related to you not using the right ASIO drivers, which have much less latency (delay) than other drivers.

Just listening to "FuhukShiht" ... you NEED to use a pop filter in front of your microphone to deal with the sibilance and p-popping. But they're only cheap.

There's no reason you can't make decent enough recordings with the gear you have, but in the longer term you will need to upgrade your soundcard and then buy some monitors so you can actually HEAR what your music sounds like. :)
 
Why don't you sell Nuendo and get some monitors. Too bad you spent $1200 on something you can't figure out how to use.
 
Uh-oh

Farview said:
Why don't you sell Nuendo and get some monitors. Too bad you spent $1200 on something you can't figure out how to use.
Click to expand...
Now things are going to get ugly!
 
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