How to make my recording sound more like clear, and less like ass?

[Spiritbeast]

Hey guys. Today officially marked my first day of learning how to record, and well, it's not going all that great! But hey, it's my first day, what can I say?

Anyway, I started off by using a couple big combination I see around here - Nick Crow's 8505, and Catharsis' impulses. I heard mp3's of absolutely SICK tones coming out of them, so I was pretty psyched. When I recorded though, my guitar tones were nowhere near as stellar.
Here's some recording I did today: http://soundcloud.com/unexpected-allies/new-album-demo-clip-try-2
This render has a TS from Amplitube, the SoloC head as a boost, an 8505 after that, then Boogex with the very famous s-preshigh impulse. The Amplitube TS with the SoloC seems like overkill, but I forgot to disable the Amplitube. When I did, I could barely hear a difference, so that's not what's killing my tone.
The tracks are recorded from an Ibanez Xiphos with what I believe are the stock pickups, with the rhythms being panned left and right, and when a lead is present, the lead is in center.
I just want to get some of those kickass metal tones I heard in the 8505 and the Awesometime Impulse threads. My tones sound too muddy. I even used the amp settings one member provided for his awesome tone!

Thanks so much for any of the help guys. Awesome forum you have going on here.

 

[006]

Holy loud as shit guitars.

 

[nch3966]

the song is pretty sweet! but it sounds like your drums got gobbeld up by a gobbler


focus on bass too they gotta work togeather

 

[Trevoire520]

Dull guitars? When did you last change strings? The general consensus here is that during recording you should be using a fresh set of strings and changing them every 6 hours or so.

 

[ahjteam]

the song is pretty cool, but indeed, really muddy. I think partial reason for the less than stellar overall sound is the drums and bass. also I can hear some odd noise gate closing type sounds on the guitars near the 0:40 mark. Try to highpass everything except the bass guitar and kick at 100hz. should help with clarity a bit.

 

[Spiritbeast]

Thanks so much for the help and love.
I recently obtained Superior Drummer, so today I'm going to work on trying to replace the drum track with that, and experiment with using Drumagog to replace some of those sounds with Andy Sneap and other samples I could find on the net.

About the bass, other than playing tighter to the drums, what do you guys suggest for tone? I used only Amplitube Ampeg for the tone, but it wasn't exactly the good tone I was looking for. Is there something as awesome as 8505 for bass?

EDIT: And by the way, the clip you hear does have Ozone 4 over the whole thing. It sounded waayyy too muddy without it.

 

[ahjteam]

About the bass, other than playing tighter to the drums, what do you guys suggest for tone?

30dB of compression.

 

[Spiritbeast]

30dB of compression.

I'll give it a shot. Unless that's sarcasm? Which I don't think it is.
By the way.. I don't know if any of you know the answer, but I've been googling a hell of a lot and I still can't find an answer.
Our drum tracks are programmed on Guitar Pro 5. This makes it easy to drop into Superior Drummer. However, how do I use Drumagog (or if theres a better program, let me know!) to replace the snare, or the kick, or both with some of the samples I downloaded.

 

[Trevoire520]

Then you should be removing everything from the master bus and going back to the mix to sort out your muddyness. Don't rely on mastering to fix a mix issue, likewise don't rely on mixing to fix a sound source issue. Go back to the source and get that sounding clear.

 

[Spiritbeast]

Then you should be removing everything from the master bus and going back to the mix to sort out your muddyness. Don't rely on mastering to fix a mix issue, likewise don't rely on mixing to fix a sound source issue. Go back to the source and get that sounding clear.

Yeah, definitely sounds like good advice. I'm going to rerecord everything, making sure it's tight. Hopefully I can get better drums that are easier to follow, and make sure to play along with them well. Incorporating some of the sounds from the giant sample pack I downloaded from here is looking a lot more easier said than done though.

 

[Ozterkvlt]

Make sure the source doesn't sound like ass and get it right in the first place. General advice, but sometimes people forget about the basic things (including me)...

 

[Spiritbeast]

Make sure the source doesn't sound like ass and get it right in the first place. General advice, but sometimes people forget about the basic things (including me)...

This was a concern of mine, but I don't exactly know how to test if it's a good source or not. The clean DI guitar seemed to be fine quality to me, but I'm not sure what's "good" or not.

Anyway, I followed some of your guys' advice (and took off the master), and here's where I am so far. I turned down the guitars as suggested, so that 8505 volume was at 5 instead of 10. However, I still find myself needing to boost the volume of Superior Drummer to stand a chance of being heard in the mix. Is this normal, or should I turn down the guitars even more?

 

[Audiosprite]

adjust the levels such that there's about 3db or more of headroom on the master track. so both (guitars down, drums up).

the volume knob of the amp itself isn't the concern, it's the in-mix volume.

 

[Pekka Posio]

You can't really even tell if there is any drums being played (kick, snare, toms) when guitars are in.
Just put your drums (not those cymbals!) something like 10dB louder or lower everything else 10dB. That's gonna give your song some good punch!

If bassdrum does have too much lowend or it's too muddy, you might wanna cut some 100hz-400hz there and give it some snap on 2-8khz. Can't really tell cause it's so freaking quiet

Btw that song has pretty nice ideas! (looks like it ain't complete yet) :Smug:


EDIT: the guitars sound pretty OK, I think the drums are the only thing that is really fucked up!

 

[006]

The guitars are so loud man, the drums are like nonexistent.

I really think before you worry about EQ'ing anything you need to get your levels straight first. The guitars are killing everything else completely.

 

[Behind]

Hi there

I see some serious problems in your mix. As some have mentioned above, it's impossible to hear the drums. Everything is very unbalanced and sounds like a ball of squashed sounds fighting to get heard.

Easy trick to start mixing: mute everything but the drums and the bass. Make them sit well. Step 2: rise everything else little by little.

Metal music use to have really loud drums. Since it's your first mix and you're probably a guitar player, you tend to make your instrument audible -and the synth arrangements you've been working so hard.

Listen to any album you have and pay attention to levels. Drums Loud, Bass Loud Guitars and Synths not that loud... It's not the magical trick but it helps to start mixing.

Good luck.

PS: do not record close to the fan of your computer

 

[Spiritbeast]

PS: do not record close to the fan of your computer

I feel like I'm caught in the act Hey, little tips like that do help a noob like me.

Anyway, here's my attempt at balancing some levels. Also got my drums sounding better. Only thing is, in my final result, I won't want the drums way ridiculously loud (Not saying they are here). It's great for that 'raw metal' sound, but I'm aiming for the more produced metal sound we see progressive metal and metalcore bands use today.

thanks for all the help you've been giving, I've been learning a lot.

 

[006]

Night and day difference there man.

 

[professorlamp]

Keep at it, that's better than most peoples first recordings

 

[Behind]

Good improvement. It'd be even better if you pan correctly the drums. They're in mono