Need help... Recordings don't sound so good...

[timandjes]

My recordings on my Tascam 414-MKII don't sound quite clean & clear enough. There's a lot of low tone. I keep my bass & treble maxed out in my car and all my cd's & the radio sound good that way. However, when I play one of my recordings, I have to back off a good bit on the bass to get a decent sound.

Here's what I'm doing. I'm recording the piano directly with an instrument cable from it's output into a direct box, then from the direct box into track one. I'm recording the guitar @ the same time on track two by micing the amp. After that, I'm recording the drums on track 3 with my 3 pc Nady drum mics & my one overhead Bearinger ECM8000. Next, I bounce all three of these tracks onto track 4. (I listen to tracks 1 - 3 on my Alesis monitor one studio monitors and adjust channel faders and eq to a desirable sound before I bounce). Since I only have one Shure SM58, I next record one singer on the now vacant track 1, then the other singer on the now vacant track 2. Then I again listen to the whole thing, adjust channel faders & eq, then mix down.

Still, not a pro sounding recording. Too much low tone. I went back and mixed down again completely dry, (no eq at all except what was set on tracks 1 - 3 & bounced onto track 4), and still... not much better. Then, I re-recorded another song with only two parts; piano direct wired to track 1 & drums miced in to track two. No guitar; no singing. I mixed this down and the result was a little better.... Less of the low frequency but still, there's a big difference in my recordings from what I hear on my CD collection... Can anybody tell me how I can improve this? Is this pretty much what my 4-track is limited to or is this user error on my part?

 

[Track Rat]

All of the above. The 414 can't produce "pro" sounding recordings but you can get decent recordings from it. More than likely, it's your monitors that are misleading you. You have to get to know your monitoring system intimately. Listen to LOTS of commercially made CDs of the type of music you're doing on them and try to memorize the way the bass sounds, where the guitars are (level and EQ wise), etc. If when you play your mixes on other systems and they sound bass heavy, that's telling you that your monitors are bass shy, and so on. If you know where your monitors are lying to you, you can compensate. Bass heavy mix, don't mix in as much low EQ on instruments. It takes a lot of trial and error on test mixes to learn your system. Keep at it.

 

[timandjes]

Thanks Track Rat- Most of the music I have is on CD's. I don't have a CD player as a part of my recording or PA equipment. I do have a standard boom box with a CD player. If I run a cord from the headphone jack of the boom box into a line in of my amp, will I get a sound I can trust or do you think the headphone jack on a boom box won't produce a good quality sound?

Also, should I line in directly to my amp or should I line in to my recorder?

One final question.... I just got my Alesis Monitor 1mk2 Studio Monitors. From what I read about them.... They're supposed to be good ones. They have a very flat response which is the main feature my Tascam porta-studio user video recommended. I'm using these monitors with an old Realistic amp. Will the amp I'm using make any difference in the sound I'm hearing from the monitors? It's got plenty of power and it can drive the monitors pretty good. I don't hear any noise or unwanted sounds using it. But, my porta-studio user video recommended a Tascam PA150 amp.... I'm not sure if that would really make a difference of if they, being Tascam, are just trying to make another sell.... In my thoughts, as long as the monitors are good, the amp that's driving them should have little to do with sound quality as long as there's no obvious noise while using it.... Does that sound right to you?

 

[Track Rat]

Well you can only use what you have available to you. The headphone out wouldn't be my first choice but if that's all you have. Make sure it doesn't have any kind of "bass boost" or such, as you want as flat an output as you can get from the CD player. I'd run this to the input of the amp and then do a whole lot of critical listening.
I'm not a fan of the Alesis monitors but you can mix on damn near any monitor IF you can become familiar with the systems short comings. It takes some time and a lot of experimentation.

 

[chessrock]

Timandjes,

Two terms you need to familiarize yourself with: 1) proximity effect and 2) bass roll-off.

When close-micing things like guitars, vocals, drums, etc. most microphones will naturally exaggerate the lower frequencies. You can try micing from a greater distance, but then you won't be getting as intimate of a sound, more room noise, poor S/N ratio, etc.

A couple of things you could do: 1) look at some microphones that have a bass roll-off switch. Some lower priced options I can think of include the newer Studio Projects C1's, the Behringer B1 and B2, and the Marshall 2003/v93's. Out of the bunch, I prefer the Marshall's because of their lower price tag and versatility.

Anyway, that's the simplest thing I can think of for now. Your next step / option is to become more familiar with the EQ on your Tascam . . . or look at some outboard preamps or EQ's that give you greater flexibility.

Remember that while tracking individual instruments, you won't necessarily be able to hear a lot of the bass that your tracks are kicking out . . . but as you mix the tracks together, it all adds up / accumulates to create a lot of unwanted mud.

It's a natural part of recording and mixing that we all have to learn to deal with and manage at some point before our mixes start improving.