reverbbb
11-24-2004, 12:59 AM
I am so excited. After 20 years of home recording, I had a break through tonight.
Last week, I recorded an original song. I performed all the instruments except for the pre-programmed drum machine. I sang all the parts (my voice is still too weird for my comfort). So, I mixed down to a CD to share with some folks at church. They all seemed to like the tune. But I began to be embarrased at the way the over all sound came out. Everything sounded flat (as always), like it was in a box - very un-inspiring. I knew that my mix-down skills are nearly non-existant.
So, tonight I set out to fix the mix. I have heard the advise of "don't add too much EQ - less is best". So, I have always steared away from moving too far off center, especially with MIDI modules and MIDI drums. But tonight was different. I took each track (20 tracks total) and began to be very discriminating on the way each track should sound. I jumped off into heavy boosting into the highs on some things and cutting a lot of the mids on several things, including my voice. The mid sweep on my recorder has the ability to expand or compress the bandwidth of the mids, and shift them way high or way low. This was a revolation to me. I have never had this type of control over EQ before, plus it is graphically displayed. I was able to set all of my backup vocals to exactly match the lead vocal EQ.
Now after I had done this tweaking for each track, I began to work on the stereo monitor mix. It needed just a little more tightness. And then whalla. It was sounding fairly decent to my ears. But I had lost my reference of the original EQ. There is a feature of turning the EQ on and off with out ruining the EQ settings. But this is done per track and on the stereo mix, so I did not do too much A/B comparisons (too much work).
I re-master the mix and played it back. Then, it occured to me that I had the previous mix on CD. So, I compared the two. WOOOOWWWWW!!!!! What a break-through! The difference was as big as an old cassette tape compared to a digital mixed CD.
I remember reading a tip on a recording forum. That is, that you need to push and pull the instruments tighter into their sonic range. Don't "crowd" any particular bandwidth. With the graphical display, I was able to see what frequencies were being "filled" on each track. I simply shifted a non-compatible instrument to a different band width. THAT WAS THE KEY TRICK TO MY MIX-DOWN. Holy smoke batman! Now, I need to go back and remaster several other songs that I have done recently.
As soon as I rip the .mp3, I will post it with a link.
I am not saying that the music is perfect or that my vocal talent is in perfect pitch. I am just saying that the clearness has boosted my enthusiasm. This is a big step in my quest for polishing my song writing for demos usage.
Mine ears are open now!
Last week, I recorded an original song. I performed all the instruments except for the pre-programmed drum machine. I sang all the parts (my voice is still too weird for my comfort). So, I mixed down to a CD to share with some folks at church. They all seemed to like the tune. But I began to be embarrased at the way the over all sound came out. Everything sounded flat (as always), like it was in a box - very un-inspiring. I knew that my mix-down skills are nearly non-existant.
So, tonight I set out to fix the mix. I have heard the advise of "don't add too much EQ - less is best". So, I have always steared away from moving too far off center, especially with MIDI modules and MIDI drums. But tonight was different. I took each track (20 tracks total) and began to be very discriminating on the way each track should sound. I jumped off into heavy boosting into the highs on some things and cutting a lot of the mids on several things, including my voice. The mid sweep on my recorder has the ability to expand or compress the bandwidth of the mids, and shift them way high or way low. This was a revolation to me. I have never had this type of control over EQ before, plus it is graphically displayed. I was able to set all of my backup vocals to exactly match the lead vocal EQ.
Now after I had done this tweaking for each track, I began to work on the stereo monitor mix. It needed just a little more tightness. And then whalla. It was sounding fairly decent to my ears. But I had lost my reference of the original EQ. There is a feature of turning the EQ on and off with out ruining the EQ settings. But this is done per track and on the stereo mix, so I did not do too much A/B comparisons (too much work).
I re-master the mix and played it back. Then, it occured to me that I had the previous mix on CD. So, I compared the two. WOOOOWWWWW!!!!! What a break-through! The difference was as big as an old cassette tape compared to a digital mixed CD.
I remember reading a tip on a recording forum. That is, that you need to push and pull the instruments tighter into their sonic range. Don't "crowd" any particular bandwidth. With the graphical display, I was able to see what frequencies were being "filled" on each track. I simply shifted a non-compatible instrument to a different band width. THAT WAS THE KEY TRICK TO MY MIX-DOWN. Holy smoke batman! Now, I need to go back and remaster several other songs that I have done recently.
As soon as I rip the .mp3, I will post it with a link.
I am not saying that the music is perfect or that my vocal talent is in perfect pitch. I am just saying that the clearness has boosted my enthusiasm. This is a big step in my quest for polishing my song writing for demos usage.
Mine ears are open now!