The hallmark of amateur.

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tjohnston

tjohnston

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I have struggled with the following problems in my own recordings. These things are just screaming amateur product. I don’t care how expensive a system is, if these things are present it will sound undeniably cheap. Feel free to add to the list.


Vocals
Intonation problems
Loud breathing
Lip and tongue noises
Way to much reverb

Acoustic guitars
Strings too new or too old
Uneven balance between treble and bass strings
Electric pick-ups on acoustic
Too much pick noise
Too much reverb

Bass
Too muddy
Fret buzz "guitarist trying to play bass"
Loose playing or minute timing problems.

Drums
Timing problems
Bad tuning
Uneven balance between cymbal and drums

Of course cheap instruments don’t help a whole hell of lot either.
 
How about an electric guitar fuzzily distorted and plugged straight into the mix? That always annoys me. It can be funny if done on purpose, but it always sounds bad.
 
I second that!

Add "fuzzy-buzzy electric guitars" to the list!!!
 
I have an addition to the list:

recorded and/or mixed by mbuster
 
The high end swimmy sound of noise remover plug ins.

The entire mix sounds like it's playing from the next room.
 
For me its been foot tapping picked up on mic, hitting the mic stand, Sync tone/ click track/ headphone leakage and clearing my throat. You might find a phone or two ringing in a few of my mixes too. (which is always a disaster because it sounds like someones cell!!!!.)

Good topic :)
 
Add: really funky compressor artifacts

(usually do to bad/extreme attack/release settings -- you can really hear this shit on accoustic guitars).
 
Dont forget about the ratio between hi hat and snare. Ususally cant even hear the snare because of crazy lound-a hihat at full blast.

Signs of ameture drummer...
Hitting the stupid tom mic on a roll, not once but twice. Took me 7 takes to get a good set. And still not completely happy with it.
 
Haha. This is like a checklist of every feature of my recordings.

I truly belong to the body of people who call themselves Amateur
 
Here are a few

Here a some from my own experiance.

overly busy parts(pick your instrument)

4500 guitar layers

3 million percussion parts on each tune no matter what the style

drums that sound like you are hitting paper bags
 
Drummers with no meter. Drummers that can't tune their own instrument. Drummers who NEVER change their heads. Stick collisions. Drummers that play the same fill at the end of every measure (does it sound like I'm a bit harsh on drummers?):D
 
On another note........quips amateurs should know...

Bands don't play live with 30 guitarists, does it really make any sense to use that many guitars on your recordings?

The "Steely Dan" preset really DOESN'T make your recording sound like Steely Dan.

The Autotune doesn't replace singing ability. Technology is no excuse for lack of talent.

EQ knobs aren't a good rationalization for bad mic selection/placement.

If it doesn't sound good going in, it sure as hell ain't gonna sound good coming out!

And my fave -
You can't polish a turd... all you get is a shiny piece of shit, if you do!
 
- Using every plugin you have.
- On every track.
- Telling people that you only have 15% cpu load when you do that.
- Thinking that you need the newest and fastest bad-ass CPU in your computer to get some recording done.
- Rather spending $200 bucks on a few extra % cpu power instead of $100 worth of room treatment.
 
not having compression or a quality preamp for recording vocals, not knowing how to work a mic all that well, and ending up with huge level differences and obvious changes in the recorded sonic space due to the audible room echo changes from my head being closer or farther from the mic :rolleyes:
 
Funny how a lot of these checklist items could also apply to some professionals I know of . . . particularly the part about the autotune, turdpolishing, 30 guitar layers, poor drumming technique, too much verb . . . etc. etc.
 
um, what's wrong with behringer?

german engineering can't go wrong, can it?

i've never used any of their gear, i just wanted to know if anyone else felt like their stuff is considered amateur, or whatever.
 
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