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#282702 by meathead510493
Sun Feb 11, 2018 5:47 pm
Hello. My name is MEATHEAD 510493. Looking for people interested in recording original music. See my thread RECORDING SOFTWARE.
#282711 by schmedidiah
Mon Feb 12, 2018 1:22 pm
not interested in recording software so i'm replying to this one.

listening to Tornado now on your player. good stuff. clean mix. drums could use some variation in programmed pattern to mix things up some. this is the kind of mix that could benefit from some embellishments from a dirty lead guitar panned way off to the side. oh no. blank tape at the end. OUCH! :mrgreen:
#282717 by meathead510493
Mon Feb 12, 2018 2:56 pm
Yeah I know about the drums. There like that on a couple tunes. That was before I figured out my BOSS DDR 5 drum machine. Used a drum program on my foot pedal. Also before I had mixcraft. So I don't have individual tracks. So I cant do anything about it. As far as blank tape at the end . Thanks i'll fix it. Can do that with mixcraft. Thanx for the compliment. It's more difficult producing a tune than people might think. That is to make it sound good. Especially for CD's because things sound a lot different on somebody's CD player than on the computer.
#282718 by meathead510493
Mon Feb 12, 2018 2:56 pm
Yeah I know about the drums. There like that on a couple tunes. That was before I figured out my BOSS DDR 5 drum machine. Used a drum program on my foot pedal. Also before I had mixcraft. So I don't have individual tracks. So I cant do anything about it. As far as blank tape at the end . Thanks i'll fix it. Can do that with mixcraft. Thanx for the compliment. It's more difficult producing a tune than people might think. That is to make it sound good. Especially for CD's because things sound a lot different on somebody's CD player than on the computer.
#282725 by GuitarMikeB
Mon Feb 12, 2018 8:53 pm
Especially for CD's because things sound a lot different on somebody's CD player than on the computer.


Good thing for you, though, is that no one is buying CDs anymore, it's all digital! Well, really, its 'superfans' and other musicians buying CDs, that's it.

But getting your music to sound good on other sytems ("translation") is key, and probably one of the hardest things for homerecordists to get right.
First - you need good monitors, then you need a good room (acoustically treated), then you need to train your ears, and not let ear fatigue color your mix decisions.
#282751 by meathead510493
Wed Feb 14, 2018 4:46 am
Hello. Yeah I do all the playing and mixing on my laptop. mixcraft 8, DIGITECH RP 355 foot pedal, interface . Don't have a studio. I would like to. un parallel walls and all that. A good friend used to build studios in the Nashville area. Knows a great deal about their construction. Said he walked in on the Traveling Willburys one time. By mistake. But what you hear is simple recording. Nothing fancy. Don't even use my Roland JC 120. I make CD's for my friends. They like it for the most part. The problem I have is making a CD that sounds good on peoples house and car CD players. It's really hard to EQ everything so it sounds good on them. The tunes and CD's I make sound good on my laptop. I have managed to make a few good ones. But I go through a lot of CD's in the process
#282752 by meathead510493
Wed Feb 14, 2018 4:51 am
Also it's all done on headphones. So maybe that's the problem. Definitely problems with the translation as you put it.
#282760 by GuitarMikeB
Wed Feb 14, 2018 1:38 pm
meathead510493 wrote:Also it's all done on headphones. So maybe that's the problem. Definitely problems with the translation as you put it.


yeah, headphones don't five you a good idea how the mix will translate to another system:
1) You lose the left-right "cross-bleed" you get from speakers, i.e. sound form the left side heard by your right ear and vice-versa.
2) Most headphones do not have a neutral frequency response - on purpose, because the small transducers have to be hyped to respond to bass frequencies and the closeness to your eardrums affects the overall frequency balance too.
A home studio does not have to be a 'designed from scratch' room. Acoustic treatment - full-frequency absorption panels (usually called bass traps) in the correct positions can do a lot to help this. Y ou might want to head over to the forums at homerecording.com and do some reading.
#282777 by meathead510493
Wed Feb 14, 2018 6:47 pm
Hello. I have a good set of headphones (sure srh440) supposed to be studio quality. When they first came out they cost 400 $. Doesn't mean a whole lot. I talk with an old friend in Las Vegas Nevada. He has some really good sounding stuff man. He calls it alternative. I think it's borderline rock and roll. He says when he mixes he used cheap CVS headphones. Because he feels that most people use them. I don't really agree with that. His reverbnation page is WHO ME ? Just incase your interested. Has some really neat ideas. His tunes lack a bridge and a chorus. And their kinda short. But they sound killer. Don't know what kind of translation he has or whatever. I'm going to ask him. My mixes are pretty decent but the EQ is beating me up pretty bad as far as translation goes. I have 8 songs on my profile on bandmix. You might want to check a couple out. And see what I'm doing wrong or whatever. They sound good on headphones. This may sound strange but I get close to the proper EQ by opening my mouth. If the sound doesn't get trebly when I do that and stays the same I'm real close. But I just can't get it quite right. I record a CD and take it out to the car and try it, it just doesn't sound great. And great is what I'm going after. Anyway thanks for all your help.
#282814 by GuitarMikeB
Thu Feb 15, 2018 2:03 pm
Hi Meathead, listened to some of your songs quickly this morning. The first one's mix was pretty good, but the next 2 were extremely 'high end-y', then the next couple of songs had very harsh guitar in places. Listening on a computer's speakers or in cheap earbuds, this might not even be noticeable as the low end's all cut from those anyway.

Have you tried using a spectrum analyzer on your master buss? I have to admit I had looked at these before, but really didn't know what to look for or how to use one correctly, but recently watched a video tutorial which quickly explained the way to use one.
If you don't already have it, download the Voxengo SPAN plug-in. Put it on your master buss and select the 'stereo mastering' preset. It 'rounds off' (over a short time span) and does octave summation, and will show a moving curve. Look at the bottom curve (it's actual two blended together, left & right channels). A good mix is going to look something like this: http://masters-of-music.com/wp-content/ ... alyzer.jpg - a smooth curve that is highest in the low-mid area, and gradually tapers down towards the high frequencies.
A bad overall EQ might look like this one: https://www.pluginboutique.com//system/ ... 1459437461 which you can see has a sharp peak at 300Hz and a build-up of high frequencies from 1K up to 10K.
To 'fix' a bad overall EQ you can put another EQ plug-in your master buss, but its really better to go into your mix and figure out what tracks are causing the build-ups (or lack of frequency in certain areas), and EQ those tracks. You can find the 'suspect' tracks by muting other tracks or soloing tracks while watching the spectrum analyzer. Usually a very subtle scoop or boost of EQ on a track will tame a 'bulge' in the spectrum curve.

Also on your mixes, I noticed the following:
The reverb on your vocals sound very much like a garage room. What plug-ins are you using for reverb? I use Re-Verb, and use various IR files for reverb. A plate reverb is a good one for lead vocals, and you don't need much compared to a 'room' IR, which I use on the instruments and drums and BU vocals.
'Width' - I don't like wide-panned instruments, it doesn't sound natural to me, I prefer a sound that is more like you'd hear if you were listening to a band playing in front of you. However, with your mixes everything seems to be centered, hardly any panning at all - this might be an effect of using headphones for mixing.

Hope this helps!
BTW, 'Baby Moon' was my favorite of your tunes I listened to, but it suffered that bad EQ. If you have this saved as a Reaper project, you could dropbox me the whole project, and I'd do a quick re-mix for you. Otherwise, you'd have to render each track to WAV (remove any EQ or other plug-ins before doing so).
#282818 by Displaced Pianist
Thu Feb 15, 2018 4:05 pm
Dunno how much this might have helped meathead, but I learned quite a bit. I've noticed the same issues when I try to record/mix something--and I'll admit my methodology is nowhere near what either of you are doing--and am forever trying this and that to make it sound passable regardless of the playback device. But alas...
#282832 by meathead510493
Thu Feb 15, 2018 9:46 pm
Hello. First of all I've been on computer a short time. Don't know how to deal with plug ins. Also I have only had mixcraft a short time. Baby moon is all 1 track. Your probably wondering how I got all that on 1 track here's how ; first Jimmy would send me a vocal track. I used a 3.5mm male stereo to male XLR cable. Mix it of course Load the vocals along with everything else onto my multi track, burn it to CD then rip it to my computer. Primitive but it worked. Jimmy said he never heard of doing it that way.
I started playing music for 1 reason, to play original music. Had to learn cover tunes to play out. Didn't enjoy it much. However I have been trying to record forever with the wrong equipment. Have very funny story about that man. Started recording before I really knew how to play guitar. Just started playing and recording at the same time pretty much. Had a lot of neat ideas, just couldn't get a good recording. But I kept trying and trying to this day. I don't even use my Roland JC 120 amp anymore. All I use is a DIGITECH RP 355. Best unit out there in my opinion. Has all the cool features, sounds good. Easy to use. Used to have 3 of them sold 1. They don't make them anymore.
Most of the tunes on my profile are 1 track. I have a few tunes in multiple tracks. 1 comes to mind, ROLL ON GYPSY. Don't know it that is on my profile or not. Anyway thanks a lot for the offer. I have a number of tunes tracked waiting for vocals. Jimmy doesn't have a lot of time to do this stuff. Thanks again.
#282874 by GuitarMikeB
Fri Feb 16, 2018 1:26 pm
Well that explains a lot. At least you're not dealing with generation degradation like when I first started recording using 2 cassette decks.
Unfortunately, your method with the outboard recorder leaves you in no position to greatly improve your tracks (although it should have the ability to export the individual tracks to the computer - have you investigated?

You started out by talking about translation of your mixes to other systems. Doing it your way, you're just never going to get there on a consistent basis. One advantage of using a DAW (software recording package) is you can develop ways to get consistent sounds.

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