tips from the pro's.

[s.w.goatlips]

So, I bought a mbr, looked around on the web, and lo and behold, I found this wonderful site. Until now the only recording I had ever done was on mu Mums cassette recorder in about 1976 and of course it sounded pretty crappy as I recall. I bought a new electric guitar last year (my faithful Takamine acoustic is 28 this year) to maybe fill in some spare time and hadn't thought much about what I would actually do with it. Same with the mbr. A bit of a whim if you will. And suddenly I have all these ideas floating around in my usually vacant spaces. Two weeks ago I wrote my first song! I'm mostly happy with it, but now that I've recorded it I'm a little unhappy with the results. It ended up being 6.33 mins long and so I think is over the upload limit, so you guys won't hear this one. I intend to re-do it slightly shorter and hopefully better. Anyway I digress. In the final mix the background guitar work sounds sort of "muddy" if you get my drift. And so I have some questions for you pro's at this stuff.   like:  How do I get a better separation of sound between instument tracks?  Is it all in the Panning?  Is a Bass better recorded in mono rather than stereo?  I used a patch to master with and everything seems too flat to me. It was the "pop" patch. Is this my problem ? Obviously I need to experiment more, but I'm hoping you guys can give some short cuts to this. By the way, I find this site really insipiring. I've written 4  or 5 songs now. I'm amazed. Thankyou everyone.         

[s.w.goatlips]

I almost forgot one more thing. Major thanks to 64Gs and Hooper for clearing up the bounce process. It seems so easy now. thankyou, thankyou.

[Oldrottenhead]

could be a number of reasons for your problem, but if i could hear it it would make a difference. you could shrink the mp to a smaller bitrate  to get it to fit. at that length probably 96kbps. or if you have a hotmail account you have access to skydrive and could post it there and post link here for us to download it.

questions for you. did you do any bouncing during the recording process?
how many seperate parts did you record?
yes panning makes a difference
got lots more questions but would help if i could hear it.

[s.w.goatlips]

Yes, I did bounce, 6 mixes. And another qestion. What is the recommended file size for mp3? Thanks for the feedback OHR.

[s.w.goatlips]

In the last ten minutes or so I found a thread from Blooby (et al) about SMART recording. Now this stuff all looks very helpful. Many Fanks.

[Oldrottenhead]

i usually save my mp3s at 192kbps i cant tell the difference between that and wav format but i got old ears.

if you did a number of bounces a lot of different things could cause the muggyness.

for example yoiu bounce tracks 1 2 3 and 4 v1 to tracks 1 and 2 v2,

but on tracks 1 and 2 you had reverb on when recording at v1 stage  if you have left reverb on that can cause problems. also tracks i and 2 v2 pan them full left and right for full stereo.

when bouncing turn the drums off dont record them till mastering. lots of folk bounce with drums on then when playing back the drums are still playing but also the recorded drums which causes weird phasing.

my tips on first bounce listen to it through cheap powered speakers to get the mix you want, ie panning effects reverb etc.

do your bounce to tracks 1 and 2 v2.
return to playback and switch all tracks to v2.

tracks 1 and 2 pan full left and rright, have each at same volume and reverb at zero. add to tracks 3 and 4 and repeat the above process but bouncing to tracks 1 and 2 v3. etc. i try never to bounce to used tracks as i have had the odd freaky thing happen but i also never delete anything so if i am not happy with a mix i can go back and redo it.

[s.w.goatlips]

I did record drum track in first bounce, then turned them off, so it wouldn't repeat. Found that one out the hard way. Are you saying that you use no reverb at all ORH? Also, do you mean adding the drums at the last bounce or can you add them in Mastering? Fanks again.

[Oldrottenhead]

i use reverb when recording the individual tracks but when i bounce, the tracks i have bounced to i switch the reverb off cos i have already recorded the reverb, that said sometimes i experiment but thats for another day lol.
i add the drums at the mastering but if you mix them in the first bounce be sure to turn them off  or you'll have both playing.
by the way these are tips from an amateur who has learned the hard way by making all the aforementioned mistakes. but its a cool journey swg.

[Glenn Mitchell]

I agree the most likely cause of muddiness is FX, usually reverb, applied too much, too early and too often. (repeated unintentionally during the bounce)
Try recording dry until the very last bounce if at all.
(you can hear the reverb or delay for inspiration as you record if you choose Effects/Cursor>/loc/Value> to REC DRY).
Then in the end add just enough to "feel" it but not really hear it.
Often the final mastering adds enough by itself.