Back after 10 years of music hiathus, but my sound is not great .. need help .

[godinqc]

Hi,

I joined this group about 10 years ago (how time flies) and had great fun following and posting in this group.
But I stopped playing music for quite a long time but now that I'm retired (yeah), I started playing again, I forgot how much fun it is to create music and listen to other people's great songs.

My problem is that my songs do not sound good, I recorded a quick demo to show what I mean.
I use a Godin LG (that's my only guitar now) but I find that I hear a lot of static/feedback regardless of what effect  I use on my BR800. The song I included shows lots of static noise at about 25,32 and 1:16 seconds into the song (I'm using the SmoothLD effect)
Do I need to get my guitar tuned up ?
Are my playing abilities decreased with age 

Any feedback is appreciated.
Also any tips on the mastering is also appreciated, when I listen to the mix via headphones the mastering is not too bad but when I listen to it via speakers there's too much bass .. also I have not used the BR800 that much so I'm kind of new to it. I mainly used the MicroBR80 in the past.

Thanks again ..

[hardlock]

Wow, heck of a "test"! You still have your guitar chops I'd say, wow!

I know what you mean by music sounding fine through one medium but not another. I test on cheap computer speakers, some AV570 Advent monitors (connected to my BR600) and multiple quality headphones. Even on different cars systems. Anyway, it's all a compromise I guess getting the correct balance between sounding good on different systems.

That said, for static, try to isolate it to the guitar, cables, etc. by swapping out items of suspect. Example: I recently kept getting static in my Sennheizer wireless headphones which wasn't in the music or there yesterday. Turned out I'd replaces a light bulb nearby with a florescent one that turned out to be the cause.

Static can be different enemy then hum. I had to add copper grounding shielding around the electronics in a couple guitars to fix hum troubles.

My only criticism about the test track is the gain seems low which can cause a higher noise level in the signal to noise ratio (a guess that others no doubt will have better opinions about).

[BerryPatch]

Your playing sounds great to me Welcome back, I hope more from you soon. Also, I personally think the bass could be brought up a little more. I couldn't tell it was there until I put headphones on. But other than that I think this is a pretty excellent start back up again

[WarpCanada]

I am planning to buy a Godin LG myself,  I own a Godin Shifter bass.   Godin makes GREAT guitars.

Welcome back.

[Bluesberry]

first off, glad to see you back GodinQC...I don't hear what the static you are referring to , sounds pretty darn good to me, nice playing and tone.....

I have recently come back after a few years away also...I also just retired last month so I am getting back into the music again...it feels great

[StephenM]

haven't listened yet...will...but wanted to say...glad you are back!!!!

[StephenM]

listening and I don't hear anything that worried me.... then again... I'm 61 and have 35 db loss at certain frequencies so.....  at the times you mentioned it sounded sort of like something an effect was doing to the signal?  The static may be in your listening device because i don't hear any... second time through...
I recommend you go to LANDR and you can read their quick guides on recording and mastering... I learned alot since i joined this site in august and one suggestion i received is LANDR...there are others as well... As far as mixing to prepare for mastering...  1.  GET A SET OF REFERENCE MONITORS TO MIX BY.... this was the single most important thing in improving my mixes... you can buy a set of Presonus 3.5 inch for about a hundred bucks a set....
2...  Don't mix above -4 db... if you need to hear it louder drive the speakers harder or turn up the headphone volume if mixing on headphones (which can be done but it isn't easy and it takes practice)
3.  The reference monitors will help ensure you don't get too much bass... they are very accurate over the 20 -20k hz range... and there are no low end embellishments like a lot of speakers have (and why you should not mix with home speakers or PA speakers.)
4.  LANDR is a mastering service and you can get 2 free masters a month... I ended up purchasing a yearly subscription around 100 bucks because i do so much music now that I needed it...
5.  There are alot of good tips on this site.... another I learned was to remove the frequencies below 125hz on your guitars if you are playing bass and drums too (or using bass and drum tracks)... the low frequency from the guitar pickup will drown out or mask the bass and bass drum... this tip alone brought my bass to life and there is one other..
6.  EQ everything below about 65 hz off the bass guitar... and everything below about 50 from the bass drum... or drums overall.... you can bump up the bass guitar above 70 hz a bit if needed and the low drum too .... here's an example of drums and bass before I incorporated these concepts (I believe it was Andy R that taught me that)....

https://songcrafters.org/forum/index.php?topic=29876.msg354157#msg354157     no bass hardly or kick drum heard.... bad eqing...

https://songcrafters.org/forum/index.php?topic=30717.msg364464#msg364464   a better eq and you can hear the kick and bass well...

[StephenM]

btw... your playing sounds very good.... can't wait to hear your stuff going forward....

[Greeny]

Hello! I listened closely on headphones and there wasn't any noise I'd consider unacceptable if it was me doing the recording. If that 'Smooth' guitar patch is the same one on the Boss MBR, it's very 'noisy'. So much gain that it has an inherent noise to it even without playing - especially on single coils. In fact, I only use it when it can be disguised by the rest of the song.

I don't think it's the guitar you need to worry about either. Maybe try some different cables etc (as Hardlock says), or experiment with the patches and gain levels you use.

Main thing is don't get hung up on that kind of detail if it gets in the way of creativity.

Welcome back! :-)

[godinqc]

Thanks for all the feedback .. really appreciated .

Hardlock .. good idea , I will try different cable and I was also thinking of grounding shielding around the electronics ..

StephenM .. I will look at LANDR and try to learn more about mixing/mastering ..

WarpCanada, the Godin LG is a really good guitar, I've been looking for a Humbucker version on Kijiji (Canada - Ottawa) but have not found one yet .. I saw one recently that has Wilkinson Mini Humbuckers, but not sure if these pickups are good or not..

BluesBerry .. welcome to the retired club .. I've been retired for about 1 year now .. it's great 

BerryPatch/Greeny  .. thanks for the suggestions/inputs

Also I find that a lot of the patch effect needed to be tweaked on the BR800, on most of them I had to increase the Noise Gate to about 75 .. Would this be an indication that the Godin P90 are too noisy ?
I played around with the MicroBR80 and I find the guitar effects are a bit better. I will try to match them on the BR800.

Is there a way to download (from the Boos Tone Central)  preset patch effect (ex: to sound like Gilmour) to the BR800 or MBR80 ?

Thanks again and have a great day