One instrument masks another...

[Robert S.]

I'm *real* new to home recording and could use some advice here. I've been recording some MIDI's into digital audio using CWP 8 with the objective of burning them onto CD's, not for commercial distribution but for myself and friends. I still want them to sound as good as I can get without going into more professional equipment.

I'm using an SBLive for MIDI playback and digital playback and recording. The instruments, specifically, are organ and piano. The sequence in which I'm doing things (knowing no better) is:

1) Recording each instrument to digital audio
2) Making a submix of each instrument using realtime effects as necessary (a bit of EQ in the midrange on the organ and reverb on each instrument)
3) Mixing down the tracks created in step 2 for export as a stereo .wav at 48,000 hz.

Have I got the above sequence anywhere close to right, or should I be using a different approach? The final result isn't really bad, IMHO, but I end up during the mixdown either reducing the faders with the piano tracks to the point that it can barely be heard, or else losing a good deal of definition in the organ. Is there something simple I'm missing here?

Any suggestions on other hardware/software that might help would be appreciated too, although as I said, I'm not really looking to get into anything like a real home studio. Still, I'm willing to shell out a few hundred if technology (and not my lack of knowledge) is the problem.

Thanks for any help.

 

[Dragon]

Welcome, Robert...

First off, I take it you're unaware that there are programs that enable MIDI effects (and possibly EQ) directly, so you can do plenty of work on your sound before you "print" to audio.

Second, why in heaven's name are you using 48 KHz? Did someone misinform you that you would get "better resolution" or something? You're not...because you're now going to have to reconvert all those big WAV files back down to 44.1 to get them onto CD-R. And in the conversion, you'll probably lose plenty. I suggest you just stick to 44.1 KHz...it's not just a good idea...it's the standard!

Other than that, you're not doing anything wrong, but your instruments are probably in the same frequency range and so they will tend to mask each other. I'd also bet you're using too much reverb. Use different kinds of reverb instead...and once you get the right level for each instrument, turn the reverb down by about a third and it will be just about perfect.

Try that and see what happens...

 

[jelly]

I'd like to know which program can do a midi f/x and eq? sounds very interesting..

 

[drstawl]

I think Dragon is talking about enabling the effects that are available on particular MIDI synthesizers via software. CW has this capability if your synth does, and many do.

 

[Robert S.]

Actually, the only software I'm using is Cake Professional 8.04 and SoundForge XP 4.0. Cake can do realtime effects as you submix audio tracks, including parametric or two-band EQ, reverb, flange, and a few more.

I'm using 48,000 for printing to audio for two reasons:

1) I read somewhere else hereabouts that you always want to start out as high as possible and resample down to 44,100 as the last step (I *did* read that, didn't I?), and;

2) When you're running an SBLive as your midi and audio card, the folks at Cakewalk say it won't work right for the audio tracks at 44,100 because the card's internal timer which is what control's Cake's timing is set to 48,000.

I know you have to resample for burning to CD. For a 3:30 min. song, SoundForge takes about 4 minutes to do it.

Thanks for the suggestions, though.