Still sounding homemade . . thoughts?

W

wespaul

New member
Here's the story. My buddy decides our band can record its own stuff with the equipment available nowadays. He goes out and buys:

an Alesis 24-track hard drive recorder

Cubase SL 2.0

a 4-DSP card with decent plugin software for his PC

So we lay down some tracks, and it's pretty exciting, but when he mixes the song (levels, EQ, compression, panning), it still sounds homemade. We have talked and tweaked and experimented for over a week now, and though it sounds pretty good in its own way, we still can't get it to sound like a professional CD.

Question is: Can we ever get there with this equipment/software? I know I'm a little short on specifics here, but maybe someone has a thought. I don't have a web site to post the mix in MP3 format, but I could clip a little of it and email it if anyone was interested in hearing it.

Sorry for any rules broken/dumb questions/etiquette breaches.
 
Odds are it isn't the processing, it's the tracking. Tell us about your space, your mic techniques, and your equipment. Also what is your monitoring situation?

Good news is that it's probably just a gap in knowledge, which can be easily fixed for free :)
 
....and that is good news indeed. Recording space is (this is so cliche) a basement. Two adjacent walls are about 60-70% exposed concrete, opposing walls and floor are carpeted. Ceiling unfinished - joists and duct). I know drum mics are substandard. Equipment is generally decent. Mixing room uses Bose satellites w/sub woofer. I keep telling him to get cheaper speakers to mix on, cause it sounds like a million bucks in there, then we burn a CD, take it to another system, and then you can hear differences between us and the pros (besides just talent, I mean).
 
wespaul said:
....and that is good news indeed. Recording space is (this is so cliche) a basement. Two adjacent walls are about 60-70% exposed concrete, opposing walls and floor are carpeted. Ceiling unfinished - joists and duct). I know drum mics are substandard. Equipment is generally decent. Mixing room uses Bose satellites w/sub woofer. I keep telling him to get cheaper speakers to mix on, cause it sounds like a million bucks in there, then we burn a CD, take it to another system, and then you can hear differences between us and the pros (besides just talent, I mean).
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The basement thing can be overcome easily enough. Go into the studio building and display forum on this site and check out room treatment threads. As far as you monitoring chain, any speaker which accentuates the bass will give you a false reading. There are studio monitors out there that won't kill your wallet that are much better than those bose monsters. But remember that you get what you pay for. And also, professional quality is hard to reach because they have professionals doing the mixing and mastering. It takes time to reach that level. Don't be frustrated if you can't get it right away, because (not to burst your bubble) you won't. Pro studios spend a lot of money to treat their live rooms, there are separate rooms for vocals, drums, acoustic pianos... The list goes on. The gear you have will give you great results, though. Be patient with yourselves because it will take time to get it right.
 
OK: probably you want to record with the mic aimed at the carpeted corner, that is with vocalists/guitarists/drums a few feet out from that corner. Or experiment with a half carpeted/half concrete corner. Just keep trying different stuff. Try adding a 'room' mic aimed into the concrete corner.

For specifics on miking each different instrument, just search the Microphones board with terms like "guitar", "drums", "vocals" together with "placement".

The carpet will knock down some high frequency reflections, but won't do anything for bass. Fill the joists in the ceiling with regular ol' roll insulation, that should help. You don't need to cover the insulation. There is an encapsulated insulation product that has a very thin paper wrapper around the insulation, that keeps bits of pink stuff from falling on your head. It's a pretty cheap fix for bass response.

The bad news . . . as for mixing . . . I hate to tell you, but Bose satellites really sound like crap, and I speak from experience. They are not accurate, not flat, have little high-end detail, and have a gaping hole in the mid frequency response, even with a sub. In an untreated room, placement of the sub is going to be tricky at best. You can learn to use the Bose, but you're going to have to get the sub placement and balance right, and learn the limitations of the cubes.

Please describe your mixing room--dimensions, wall/floor surfaces, location of speakers . . .
 
First of all, let me say I am delighted by the constructive responses in here! Thanks, guys for answering a rank beginner's questions so thoroughly. Now the mixing room is a home office - a 12' by 15' room with drywall walls, plenty of crap on 'em (pictures, shelves, etc.), carpeted floor, textured plaster ceiling. Bose satellites up on a shelf at the corners of the room shooting past the mixer's ears 4 or 5 feet either side to the back of the room, slight angle inward. Sub down in the corner somerwhere.

I understand what you are saying about these speakers not being flat, and we are trying to compensate for that by burning a mix to Cd, taking it out to car stereos, home stereos, cheap boom boxes, and at each place, comparing the sound with a commercial mix. I don't know how to explain the differences I am hearing. Is there a way to post a clip somewhere on this site? I have no web space to post to (or at least don't know how to do that w/AOL). I could post to a newsgroup, I guess. Anyone here use NNTP? Thanks again for all the response!
 
wespaul said:
First of all, let me say I am delighted by the constructive responses in here! Thanks, guys for answering a rank beginner's questions so thoroughly. Now the mixing room is a home office - a 12' by 15' room with drywall walls, plenty of crap on 'em (pictures, shelves, etc.), carpeted floor, textured plaster ceiling. Bose satellites up on a shelf at the corners of the room shooting past the mixer's ears 4 or 5 feet either side to the back of the room, slight angle inward. Sub down in the corner somerwhere.
Click to expand...

I recall the Bose system uses a 6" woofer in the sub. That's not going to produce much bass below 100Hz, and what comes out is mud. So first off, realize that you won't be hearing much low bass, so be very cautious about boosting bass in your mix.

You probably need to get those cubes closer (5' or so) to your head, and aimed at your head, at ear level. By aiming the cubes behind you, you are bringing more of the room sound into what you are hearing, which could cause you to make some bad mix decisions.

Other than that, yeah just check your mixes on other systems until you learn how the Bose really sounds.
 
With regards to JKestle for his suggestion, I floundered around and figured how to post to AOL ftp space. Go to ftp://members.aol.com/wbecker101/
and download the mp3 DMOR.mp3 to hear a bit of a song we are working on. Perhaps those of you with better ears can hear what this lacks in terms of EQ, etc. Apologies if country music offends anyone.
 
Howdy

Not a bad first attempt. You have problems with a few things here that could help fix up your mix. A common mistake when first mixing is use of effects, you have way to much reverb on your tracks in general, not only too much reverb but the decay time on the verb is too long tighten it up and use less. Your kick drum is almost non existent, probably due to the fact that your mixing over a sub in an unbalanced and untreated room. Your snare drum is too load in the mix and once again has too much verb, and too much compression for your style of music. Your backing vox sound like there mixed mono up the middle. Pan them hard left and right, if you have to, make copies of them and offset the copies slightly from the originals then pan one set left, one right and lower them in the mix. Also how did you record your drum overheads, not really hearing a good stereo image of the kit. Did you pan your overheads? Hope this is helpful.

Flip
 
Wow...after reading the thread, I expected much worse. I was floored at the quality I'm hearing from the gear you have. Great job. You could follow the suggestions here but other than that, it sounded pretty damn good! I'm not a country music fan, but this is a quality recording!
 
Hey, how did you record the vocals by the way? What mic? How far was he from the mic? What effects did you put on the vocal?
 
Wow, I wish my first attempt at recording would have sounded that good. Serious that aint bad at all, I've heard stuff from a lot more experienced people that didn't sound as good. With a little experimentation you should be turning out stuff which will rival the pros. BTW the lyrics aint bad either.
 
Thanks for the responses, everyone. I can't spend as much time here as I want to until the holidays are over, but to the vocal mic question - it's a Rode NT1A. I think it's supposed to be a nice vocal mic. I have a feeling we are going to learn a lot from this forum.

After Jan 1st, we can get serious about trying mshilarious' and flipmedia's suggestions. You guys are just great to help newcomers like this! Thanks again!
 
Since I am a newbie, I'll try this question here. Change of topic (slightly - should I change forums when I do this?). About the song itself, if anyone here likes country music, can we get away with just steel guitar and fiddle for lead instruments, or is music so guitarified that there Must be an electric guitar lead? Any opinions welcomed.
 
Depends if you're going old school country or new country. I'm not much of a country fan but I definately see country going more guitar driven as opposed to steel guitar and fiddle. But I also listened to your song and it's a throw back to the old school. I'd say go with whatever YOU think sounds good. Maybe even have all three playing a solo at once...you know, the Skynyrd method.

When it comes down to it, it's all about what you like.
 
Generally good news- The recorder's good enough. You have given me all the info on the back end of this signal chain. The front end is where the sound comes from- mics and preamps. Don't let them tell you gear isn't a factor- it is. Engineering skill is huge also, but you can't put sound there that isn't there. You can only take sound away in post-production. I bet I can get the pro quality sound you want out of that band, using the recorder you have. But- I will use several thousand dollars worth of mics and several thousand dollars worth of preamps to do it. If you want pro sound, start with about $20,000. Spend a third on mics, a third on preamps, a third modifying your room. Then plug it all into that HD24, and it will work.-Richie
 
Richard Monroe said:
Generally good news- The recorder's good enough. You have given me all the info on the back end of this signal chain. The front end is where the sound comes from- mics and preamps. Don't let them tell you gear isn't a factor- it is. Engineering skill is huge also, but you can't put sound there that isn't there. You can only take sound away in post-production. I bet I can get the pro quality sound you want out of that band, using the recorder you have. But- I will use several thousand dollars worth of mics and several thousand dollars worth of preamps to do it. If you want pro sound, start with about $20,000. Spend a third on mics, a third on preamps, a third modifying your room. Then plug it all into that HD24, and it will work.-Richie
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Scary, but true...
 
Give me Alison Krauss & Union Station over anything they play on the typical country radio stations! All you need is a fiddle, banjo, guitar (preferabbly a pre-war D28), upright bass, and dobro (preferrable Jerry Douglas)
:)

wespaul said:
Since I am a newbie, I'll try this question here. Change of topic (slightly - should I change forums when I do this?). About the song itself, if anyone here likes country music, can we get away with just steel guitar and fiddle for lead instruments, or is music so guitarified that there Must be an electric guitar lead? Any opinions welcomed.
Click to expand...
 
First, let me introduce myself as the drummer with WesPaul.
Thanks for all of your thoughts, this is a WAY COOL forum for all musicians and recording people.
The good news is it looks like the band will need to kick in about $6,000 bucks to finish off the stidio in my basement!!! (Wes, looks like the other guys will be working some overtime!!!)

Thanks to all, this is a great site.
 
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