Jul 02, 2009 11:48 pm Welcome to HRC first off. And I'll have to get a listen to these either tomorrow or Saturday.
Need Opinions Thanks
Posted on Jul 02, 2009 08:25 pm
Relic1882
Member Since: Jul 02, 2009
Hello. I am still pretty new to mixing and mastering. My recording setup in my basement is as follows:
5 piece drum kit miced with 4 drum mics into a 6 channel Peavey mixer.
Vocals, Guitar and Bass going through a TOA MX-104. I'm using the pgm levels for the vocals only to perform through and the FB levels to mix the vocals, bass and guitar for recording.
The FB out from the TOA is going to the remaining input on the Peavey mixer and the stereo out on the Peavey is going into my PC using Cakewalk to record.
the songs I've done so far with this setup are on our myspace page at
www.myspace.com/bandrelic
in the soundclick playlist.
Can someone tell me how my levels are and how the sound is going so far? I'm still learning a lot, and being I don't have a lot of money to buy better stuff, this is the best I think I can do for now. If anyone has any ideas on how I can alter this setup for better sound, please let me know! Thanks!
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Jul 02, 2009 11:48 pm Welcome to HRC first off. And I'll have to get a listen to these either tomorrow or Saturday.
Jul 03, 2009 12:06 pm i'm kinda impressed with this actually.....first off, yer levels are HOT which is good, and i don't hear any clipping...you'd be surprized how many ppl push into the red just to get their volume up there with commercial cd's.....
it does sound like what it is, which is more or less "band practice" sounds like everything was tracked at the same time, in the same room....this is good because for a "demo" this says "this is who we are, and what we sound like"....alot of times bands will track their "dream album" and call it a demo which is full of production, that the live show doesn't quite live up to the sound of the album..
i can hear every thing pretty clearly, including vocals (which is important)....as far as "fullness" of the recording goes, it needs some work....how much control do you have over the individual tracks? you can really push yer sound to the next level with a bit of work.
Jul 03, 2009 02:50 pm Well, most of my levels are still in the blue zone at least -6 or lower. I have tried to up my levels for a fuller sound but it's hard to get in that level where the instruments combined won't clip. Can you give me any advice as of what decibal levels each instrument should be at? I have control over each instrument and mic as far as volume level and equalizing. Effects are not an option yet unless you're taking about the guitar or bass. I can add a sheen of reverb with Cakewalk if I need to. Any advice is appreciated! Thanks for the reply!
Jul 03, 2009 02:53 pm PS. What does it mean when the levels are "HOT" I'm new at this stuff lol :)
Jul 04, 2009 07:33 pm So if I'm getting this straight you are recording this all live in one take to a stereo track in Cakewalk?
It does have a pretty raw live room sound to it for the most part.
To be honest you are not going to get much of a change in the sound unless you can record 8 separate tracks and have individual control at the track level for each instrument and the vocals and drums. To ber honest the way you recorded them it isn't half bad really. Other then some oddity's with the drum level's going up or down while the track is playing and the same with the guitar and bass, just not as often.
I guess if you could find someone that really knew their stuff to ride the fader's on the mixer's to make quick adjustments, but that is not a real fix either to be honest. Adding an overall reverb is only going to muddy the natural sound that is already there. Everything is at a set level and could only be set into the mix differently by adjusting it IN the mix if it were all on separate tracks.
You could maybe try tweaking the vocal down a little bit to settly it in the mix a bit, but unless you can sing consistently at the exact same volume throughout the entire song that won't work out real well either.
What Cakewalk recording software do you have right now?
Jul 04, 2009 10:11 pm I'm using Sonar 6 Professional.
Are there any recommended settings to help my 3 instruments sound a little fuller? I know I'm not going to get an orchestra out of it but just to fill it in a little more.
Also there is an Alesis USB 2.0 mixer I really want that will enable me to record all seprate tracks, but I don't have the 300 bucks and I'm not going to for a while. :'(
Jul 05, 2009 06:50 pm Well, I wouldn't try to add anything more to what is going in from the mixer as there is already a natural bit of reverb and anything on top of that will only muddy the sound you are getting. Maybe try experimenting with tweaking the mixer EQ a bit for the drums or bass to record them with a bit more punch to the sound. I know it iwn't much but it could help give a little more definition to them. The guitars for the most part sound pretty good.
You won't get away from the live garage sound though doing it that way. Unless you were to record each thing separately to their own track meaning you would each play your part alone and record that. Then that would allow for tweaking each track with the great processor's available in Sonar.
You could record the whole thing as you have been to use as the guide track. Then feed that out to headphones to each player who would then record one track at a time of their own piece which is just duplicating what is already there but giving you more control over each track or instrument.
Jul 06, 2009 05:03 pm Ok. Sounds alrigh so far. I guess there's no more eq'ing needed on the overall mix then. I'll try to get some more punch to the bass and drums. My bass player just bought a new electro harmonix compressor/eq pedal. Thanks for all the help so far!
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