need advice

[DFMJoe]

Ok, this has to do with mastering and mixing yet it doesn't. Ya see my band is trying to get a 6 song EP recorded to sell, send to radio, and labels. We have been recording on a fostex mr8 but no matter what we cannot get the songs to sound anywhere close to professional as they need to be. If it were you.. would save money to go to a studio... or just try to have someone master what we already have? The studio we are looking at is really good and they only charge 150 bucks for 8 hrs. I just need some ideas... we are very serious and we want our cd to sound better than our live show.. because right now we sound better live than on cd.

 

[Stealthtech]

Home mastering is almost impossible. If your tracks are good, Id send it to amastering house. Studio time will cost you a bundle. That 8 hrs is an understatement when it comes time to get things done.

 

[jazzrich9]

If you're tracks aren't getting close to where you'd like them to be, then go to the studio. you'll get an overall better sound, and if it's a demo, then you don't really need it to have the commercial punch of a professionally mastered cd, you just need it to sound good and clean. A mastering engineer isn't going to work miracles if what you're giving him/her is useless. Besides, if you're confident in this studio, and they're confident they can get the job done for you in 8 hours, 150.00 is much less than what you'd pay a decent mastering engineer to fix your tracks.

Just my 2c

hope this helps, and good luck

 

[DFMJoe]

yeah

the studio is run by a friend of ours who is prolly gonna kinda cut us a deal. He's not in it for the money, he's also in a band so he's kinda trying to help us out in a way. basically he charges 18 bucks and hour

 

[DFMJoe]

oh..

also.. I was just saying that they charge 150 for 8 hrs.. didn't say we would finish it in 8. but I mean even if it took longer.. we could always do some one day.. and save up and do the other 3 later. These guys are flexible and their stuff really sounds good to me.. i think u can dl there stuff at www.badelement.com

u can get our stuff at http://www.nowhereradio.com/singles/dfm

dl theirs and ours and tell me the difference...

we want a 3 song demo for clubs and stuff.. but I don't know if what he have is even adequate for that.

 

[jazzrich9]

you're link didn't work... but this sounds like fun... so repost it.

 

[DFMJoe]

just go our site.. http://www.dontforgetmonroe.tk and click on music.. it will take u to it

http://www.badelement.com and click on discography

 

[jazzrich9]

cool, I'm doing it... the popups on your site are real nasty man... real nasty, trying to install dialers on my system... it's warezsite stuff.

bygones...

big difference (this is hard with nowhere radio streaming only)

Room sound... you're drums sound closed off and hollow, and this is probably location, and not close micing right. Your guitars are groovy when they're heavy, but the clean is all twang and no tone... (are you DI'ing the guitar or micing the cabinet for the clean guitar?) bass isn't too bad, and could be tweaked to sound fat... and finally the vocals are all over the place level-wise

actually, the second track has an okay guitar, but it needs a little bit of a sweet compression on it, the dynamics are all over it by the stroke and by the string... (and the reverb kinda has to go on the vox)

These are things that could probably be messed with, but they would be easier to handle in a studio with lots of toys.

Your songs are cool though... and are worth the effort.

Good luck.

 

[DFMJoe]

thanks

I think we are going to go the studio route.. and just use home stuff for a scratch pad for new songs..

alot of the problem is #1 I have no experience mixing

#2 every single prgoram i have crashes...

n-track, cool edit won't even open without crashing.. so now i have to use cakewalk which is my least fav, pro audio 9. The only effects plugins i have are the blue series, and the crap that came with the software.

 

[bdbdbuck]

Joe,
It looks like the problems jazzrich9 pointed out are relatively easy to fix. Even if it involves doing something to the room to get it more suitable, you're gonna have that for future use. Spending the money for studio time may be a good idea, but I would think about addressing my own shortfalls and getting the techniques down as an option too if I were you. Sounds like you're giving in pretty quickly. Your recordings will get better over time, and you will have to address that computer problem eventually anyway.

bd