Mid-High End Gear, Low End results....? WITH SAMPLES

[Folded]

Hi guys, how you doing?

I've posted a question a while ago and got no answer and i hope someone will shed some light on this one.

Let me first introduce myself, I'm a young recording hobbyist with some mid-level to high end gear. Started recording a good few years ago with some amateur gear and bad room and got some mileage out of those before I made the jump to some quality gear thanks to the recommendation from this site. So let me first list my gear I use to record:

Lynx Aurora Converter into PT
Avedis MA5
Buzz Essence
Peluso P12 with RCA NOS 6072
A Small Bedroom with Auralex Treatment

The question is about getting that radio sound. I did a little sample of me recording a female friend (we're no great musician), and before anyone says the music comes first then you worry about tone, I want to say for now I'm ONLY worried about the tone and sheen. You can have some really crap singers but recorded so well there's a sheen on them, I want to know how it's done? And I want to know how far my raw recordings are from being usable in a commercial release?

I recorded this using the gear above and Ivory. Within the file there are mixed stuff by me, and some commercial samples that will show how thin and lifeless and without sheen my mixed recording is and also the raw track. I used a SHIT LOAD of plugins, EQ, Inflator, Compressor on individual tracks and also the master. I doubt people use this much.

If anyone think they can somehow turn the recorded vocal into something usable, I'd be more than happy to post the raw tracks to be taught how...

What a long post, I'll stop for now....

Folded

[dkelley]

wow - that's quite the post.

I don't know what to say about it but will have a listen when I'm in my room next time assuming I have the time. hang in there...

by the way - needless to say, if you're a good engineer with good ears, skills and talent you can do great mixes that sound radio friendly with freeware and a radio shack mic.

just thought I should remind you of that... gear won't get you there, skill gets you there.

also, I think you said that you think you used more plugins than others would...

while you shouldn't "need" any processing to get a great sound (some fantastic performances have very little processing), when mixing many of us use a ton of plugs and hardware processors, you'd be surprised. but adding them doesn't help if you don't know why yo'ure adding them (you probably do know why you did them, but I'm not certain based on your statements just how much you know about what you're doing :-) I'll assume you know what you're diong though).

I'll get back to you when I have a chance to listen.

Cheers,
Don

[rhodesp04]

the recording sounds good only the "turns to" words are a off in context with the song (i don't know if you tried to tune those). a lil' bit too much verb IMO but not bad overall

[u b k]

the first thing the pro's have that you probably don't is the ability to hear the truth. this means multiple sets of reliable monitors, properly positioned and set up in a well treated room... and auralex is the wrong way to go in bedrooms.

the second thing pro's have is experience, and there's only one way to get that. you're reaching for the right things --- air, tuning, compression --- but you're doing too much of the wrong things in the wrong ways, so your results are overly processed and still miss the mark.

the clip you provided seems to shift gears towards the end, like all the processing on her voice suddenly is bypassed. from what i could hear of that, it sounds like your raw tracks are quite good (and they ought to be, the p12 is one of my favorite mics).

fwiw, the things you hear on the radio are generally done by teams of people with tons of experience, skill, and gear. the ones that aren't probably aren't the ones catching your ear as an engineer.

my advice: back off on everything. less hi freq spike, less autotune, less digital limiting. chasing fashion is a fool's errand; by the time you learn to nail the sound you're after, it'll be passe. instead, work on balances and mood, and focus on learning to hear what the music wants to be rather than forcing the music to sound the way you want.

iow, make it sound 'beautiful' rather than making it sound 'right'.


gregory scott - 'ubk'
.

[GorillaToast]

First of all, depending on the genre you are listening to on the radio, commercial recordings have s-o-o-o much more processing done to the vocals than you can imagine.

There was a great thread I read here a few months ago, but I can't find it. It really opened my eyes up to the complexity of mixing.

But here a couple of interesting ones to start with:

why do my vocals sound like crap when i mix them?

Why So Many Tracks?

Also, this book is very enlightening:

Amazon.com: Mixing Audio: Concepts, Practices and Tools: Roey Izhaki: Books

Plus, understand that the radio stations are adding a sh**load of compression using multi-thousand dollar equipment. A/B a song from a CD with the same song on the radio. You'll hear the difference.

Trying to make a track sound like the radio is like trying to catch a puff of smoke in your hand.

[Folded]

Wow...Thanks for the reply guys! Let me first clarify the clip,

First sentence, recorded and mixed by me.."i know there's something..."
Second sentence, a commercial record with the sheen and openness and weight I'm after..."I get a notion"...
Third sentence, recorded and mixed by me again..
The end of it is the raw tracks I mentioned, non processing whatsoever....

And second, I probably used the wrong words on radio, I meant the sound that comes from a CD, radio limits all things to death and I don't like sounds coming from the radio.

I guess the question I really wanted to ask is, would it be possible to achieve sonics near the second phrase in the clip with what I've recorded with the tools I have already? Does it really take a 1176/MC-77/CL1b you name it big name compressor and some expensive EQ and then more expensive compressor on the 2-buss and then more limiting and eq and compression during master just to sound open, full, weighty and well, good? I mean, it's just a piano track and a vocal track!!!

It was a nice thing to read that you think the raw track sounded "good".
I know this question must have been asked tons of times and i've seen threads here and there (and believe me, I've read a ton on this matter), but it's easy to read that you have to try and sweep and cut the low, add some 15k for air, compress to make it sit better, make transients stand out, add reverb for sense of space/life.....

But where are the limits? How "good" can you expect to get with what you have? You keep comparing to today's standard and you find out your stuff is nowhere up to par! Then you keep trying and trying and it sounds nowhere near anything released commercially.....Or maybe I've concentrated too much on getting a CD-like sound i lost the ability to tell when the music and the balance is right..

And this raises a point, how can it be beautiful when it doesn't sound right to yourself?

ANYWAY, that's a big rant, cos I've been trying for sometime and still feel I'm stuck....

Back to the clips, problems I know is there:

1)Vocal. I'm not worried about excessive pitch correction here. As I said, you always hear these CDs with immense autotune and no emotion but sonically it still sounds so good. First thing, it's so small sounding, added too much air I suppose but the main problem is with the low mids, cut enough so it's not muddy, it's thin, leave it on and it's allllll mud.

2) Weight, fullness of the track. This happens with every track i've done, there are two things, low-mids again, I never seem to be able to judge them right. Then, there's always this dullness to my tracks that seems like something is missing anywhere from 800-20kHz....yet there are no boost you can do to fix this and it's just the sheen you hear on CDs.

Any advice that is dedicated to the clips I posted would be realllllllllllly nice. I'll never end my search to sonic goodness, and I'll be reading more as suggested by Gorilla Toast.

Folded

[u b k]

too much low mids usually means you're too close to the mic. back off to where the tonal balance is right, problem solved. except that you can now hear the room for what it is, which in most bedrooms = 'suck', which is why people go back to eating the mic.

the correct way to go is to get your room in order acoustically, so that you can be a foot off the mic and it doesn't sound distant or hollow, it just sounds balanced. if you can't put a source 2' off a mic and have it sound good, your room is the biggest problem.

add to this the fact that you're also mixing in this room, which means all that low-freq mud is compounded and doing double duty to cloud your ability to hear what's really going on in your tracks. if you can't hear it properly, you can't address it properly.

i know you want tips on what to do with gear to make your tracks sound better, but the unsexy truth is racks and plugins can't help you here. you are looking to fix what's broken with processing, but you will never ever find peace until you fix the things that are breaking your sound in the first place.

acoustics, monitoring, acoustics, monitoring... repeat this mantra, it is your salvation.


gregory scott - 'ubk'
.

[TonyBelmont]

Originally Posted by Folded

The question is about getting that radio sound.

At this point, the actual gear doesn't really matter. It's all about the mixer's talent, and shaping the sound into that ultra polished sound.

[GorillaToast]

Originally Posted by GorillaToast

Also, this book is very enlightening:

Amazon.com: Mixing Audio: Concepts, Practices and Tools: Roey Izhaki: Books

Seriously, this book is worth the $$. It comes with a CD full of tracks that illustrate the point the author is making. He also explains the plug-ins and EQ used on each track and their settings.

[lcressy]

"acoustics, monitoring, acoustics, monitoring... repeat this mantra, it is your salvation. -UBK"

Dittos to this. UBK is right, it's not "sexy" and there are no buttons to push on bass traps, they just hang on the walls and ceilings - but if you want the sound, it is a must.
I was in the same boat, and then a friend was working on an album with Johnny Bush over at Sugarhill here in Houston and I tagged along. I looked around ( it's an older studio) and I'm seeing that they have the same computer, some of the same basic things that I have ( just a lot more of it!), so what's the difference - acoustic treatment - all over the place! That's when I came to realize, there must be something to this stuff. Started reading up on it (acoustic forum here at gearslutz), built some traps, started measuring my room, and voila, my mixes started traslating properly. I can actually hear what is 1) going in and 2) what is coming out. Now, I can hear what the plugin is really doing, not what I "think" it's doing and if I even need it to begin with.

I would rather have $2,000 worth of Owens Corning 703 rigid fiberglass than a $4,000 collection of plugins.

[danoan522]

Originally Posted by Folded

Hi guys, how you doing?

So let me first list my gear I use to record:

Lynx Aurora Converter into PT ...
...

Folded

I need some help with a couple of questions

1. What interface really are you using with Protools?

2. Can the Lynx aurora be used as an Audio interface all on its own or with an add on? - so that i can hook it up to say: my digi 003 rack+ for 16 recording channels into protools?

or if i were using Logic Pro for example; would i be able to use the Aurora on its own as an interface?