Home Recording - is this quality OK?

Subject: Home Recording - is this quality high enough?
From: Nick
Date: 25 Apr 08 - 08:17 PM

I recorded friends and myself playing recently at home and would be interested in some comment. I know quite a lot of people do some recording at home with varying degrees of sophistication in their set up so would appreciate some feedback if you have time to listen.

Lakes of Ponchartrain

Bearing in mind it is an mp3 and so may have lost a little quality, do you think that the recording quality is of a high enough level that people would think it ok if they bought it on a CD of similarly recorded material?

Is there anything that stands out as needing particular work on it or any suggestions for improvement?

It was the first time I have tried to record a fiddle and really had very little idea of the best way to do it and am unsure if the sound of the fiddles are ok.

Is the overall balance of sound ok?

The intention is to do some more songs and tunes and produce something to sell at gigs which is why I thought I'd ask at this stage - if you had bought it and thought that the quality is not up to a reasonable standard I need to think further.

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 25 Apr 08 - 09:36 PM

Balance seems to be just fine to me, all round, I'm not by any stretch a sound engineer though & wouldn't really know what to listen for. Didn't care for the 2 voices though but that's only a matter of personnal taste, balance there was ok too. Generally I thought Jesus what a lovely recording. The fiddling was very tastful as was the guitar work, lovely singing to.
Nice job & well done

Barry

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: Peace
Date: 25 Apr 08 - 10:10 PM

Nick: I don't know how to access it. What should I click?

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: katlaughing
Date: 25 Apr 08 - 10:36 PM

I'd buy it. Having said that, though, I did think the guitar was a little too powerful over the voice in the beginning. I liked the two voices, but I also liked the quieter bit with just simple guitar and voice. The fiddles sounded fine, but I'd like to hear more of your voice; it's really quite lovely. That's a slightly slower version of that song than I've heard before, but it was still fine.

Take a look at the Mudcat Blue Plate Specials CDs we did years ago; we had all kinds of quality from home recordings using little hand-held recorders to studio stuff. It came off quite well.

Good luck and thanks for sharing!

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: Deckman
Date: 25 Apr 08 - 11:10 PM

DICTION DICTION DICTION DICTION DICTION!

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: EBarnacle
Date: 25 Apr 08 - 11:27 PM

Not bad. You might try adjusting the treble down, if you can and moving the mike further from the lead singer, as it sounded as though the mike was being overpowered to some degree.

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: GUEST,Bruce Michael Baillie
Date: 25 Apr 08 - 11:51 PM

...Only listened to the first bit with guitar and voice but it sounded excellent!

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 12:32 AM

Much better than I've been able to do at home. What equipment did you you use, and about how much did it cost you for equipment of that quality?
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: GUEST,jim
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 12:42 AM

The recording sounded fine for MP3. But you have to understand that MP3 tosses out much of the sound quality in order to compress the digital signal into a small data file. The sound that is thrown away includes some of the harmonics that are essential to the natural sound of acoustic instruments and the human voice. It would be better if you have it on CD at 48khz which loses almost no sound frequencies. Apart from the fiddle break it sounded Mono. You may also try to increase the sound mix across the left/right stereo spectrum. Hope this helps.

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: GUEST,Ravenheart
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 02:16 AM

Peace, you may have to enable JavaScript on esnips.com.

It sounded good to me, at least on these little computer speakers. The balance seemed good. Maybe the vocals could have a bit more midrange and presence. Maybe the fiddle and second voice could be panned out more.

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 04:22 AM

I listened to it on headphones. Good arrangement and singing/playing. I actually liked the two voices where they come in. Not that sure about the fiddle(s), I think they could do better, have a better line I mean - often they seemed to be just "filling in" unnecessarily. But overall, a good arrangement and good delivery.

As far as the recording goes, I thought the whole a bit "flat"; everyone seems to be the same distance from the front. Perhaps as GUEST, Ravenheart says, a bit mode midrange for the voices would be good. And I would have layered the instruments more, fiddles at the back-right with a bit of reverb, bass at the mid-left.

On the basis of that, I'd pay to see you live though! Good delivery.

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: Acorn4
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 04:52 AM

I thought it was a very good sound and like the arrangement. The only problem I've found with home recording that I haven't been able to solve is that you don't quite get the volume that you do with a commercially produced CD - this isn't however the be all and end all as you can just switch up a notch.

A lot of people do their own recording at home then get the final mastering done in a studio.

Keep up the good work -you're on the right lines there - most people don't really listen to the finer points of balance as long as the overall effect is OK. As one artist recently commented you can end up spending a load of time trying to fix things that no one but you is going to notice!

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: Rasener
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 05:24 AM

I liked the voices very much.
I thought the fiddle playing was lovely and distracted me a bit from listening to the lyrics. Maybe the fiddle player should have been in the background through the complete song and not dipping in (if that makes sense). Maybe that's what George is on about (I am not a musician).
Nice guitar work, but felt that it was a bit harsh at times for such a lovely tune.

I am not a musician and have no idea if the quality is OK, so giving you feedback as an organiser and listener.

Overall, just love it, and it would cetainly go on my top songs list that I would enjoy listening to, often.

Les

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: greg stephens
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 06:37 AM

Well done. My main criticism would be, it's such a strong song, I don't think the fiddles are doing much good there, just distracting, especiallly as they are mixed so far forward. I'm sure you've got other material where that kind of use of fiddles is fine, but in the case of this track I'd consider losing them altogether. But it's your track, not mine!
Good luck with it.

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: Rasener
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 06:46 AM

Not sure I agree about the fiddle being left out Greg. I just think that the fiddle should not be competing with the voices and should be just a nice background accompniament.
Les

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: Jeri
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 07:20 AM

Peace, if you click on the link in the first post, the song should load automatically. I'm on a dialup. I listened to about a minute of it before the starts and stops drove me crazy and will try it later on a faster connection, but that bit of it sounded fine to me.

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: Beer
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 08:27 AM

Very well done.
Beer (adrien)

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: Nick
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 10:01 AM

Thank you for the comments and taking the trouble to listen - if anyone else has any I would be interested in hearing them but this has been really useful. The only one I didn't understand was from the guy with the stammer who had lost his dictionary (poor man it must be so frustrating when you can't get the words out)

First thing I should point out is it is definitely not me singing - the singer is a guy called Mark Kane who has been playing in USA/Florida for the last 12 years. Poles apart from my singing (and instrumental) abilities.

There are always going to be the 'like the fiddles - don't like the fiddles' - 'like the two voices - don't etc' and personal preferences but it was mostly whether the sound quality is ok and the comments were very useful. The fiddle part was played through as a demonstration a couple of times and I edited bits in and out - it's not really a finished article. It was originally done to be a part of a demo as we look to go out and find some gigs but we have since discussed putting more tracks together and may well try and put together a CD over time.

I think overall the consensus seems to be that I wouln't have vast numbers of complaints that the quality is awful if people bought it and that's my main concern at the moment.

Some comments back:

katlaughing - thanks for the comments - I think the guitar is a bit much volume wise in bits but it just needs a bit of adjustment I think

EBarnacle - very useful. I didn't use a pop filter and probably should have and there is a definite big 'whoomp' bit at one point!

jim - again very helpful. I recorded it as a 44.1khz wav but will look at 48khz and see if I can hear a difference. I agree that it needs to have more depth and width and George makes the same comment.

George - again very helpful comments and I will probably look at remixing it a bit in the light of the comments here. (I've payed to see you live already btw :)! )

Acorn4 - I can actually make the final mix quite a bit louder if I want but it seemed a reasonable sort of level (see the comment below about the Kjaerhus free Classic Master limiter).

Villan - The dipping in and out was a bit to do with the way I chopped up bits and pieces when I was mixing it. Glad you liked the song as a whole.

Joe - I have one of the more Heath Robinson and cheaply put together recording areas of anyone I know! I think specifically on the recording side of things I've spent under £10. Perhaps I should be a bit more specific and explain!

I have a 3 yr old cheap 2ghz Xp machine bought from PCWorld which I would have had anyway and use for all the normal things so I don't really count it as a cost. It has the standard Avance AC97 soundcard that it came with and I use the line in to record. My son records on one that was given to us for free!

I have 4 mics we use when playing live - three of them were given to me free and used to be used in the local pub to do the quiz until they took the music out. I bought a Mimic MM8 for gigs recently and use that as one of the mics but I didn't buy it for recording just for general gig use.

I bought an extension cable for my headphones and a few connectors which was the £5 and that's about it.

I use an old Akai stereo cassette deck which ceased to work properly years ago as a preamp but by putting it on record and pause I can mix and balance a couple of channels through it with the sliders before it gets to the computer. So that owes me nothing either as I inherited it from my Dad when he was tidying out years ago.

And that's about it really - the guitars and stands and stuff are there anyway for playing and for gigs.

On the software side of things I have been using Reaper which I think is brilliant and am in the process of buying it (about £25). All the VST and DirectX and Jesusonic plugins are either included within Reaper or have been downloaded from various free sites. I used to use Cakewalk Guitar tracks but Reaper is just so much better. Impressed with the Kjaerhus free Classic series of plugins including the master limiter which brings up the finl mix sound to a much higher level and sounds ok - I use it because it's easy!

I tend to mic acoustic guitars in stereo; electric guitars I mic a little 15 watt practice amp and either run the bass through the old tape recorder and direct in or mic it or do a combination of both through the cassette player. Either record in the spare bedroom or use our main bedroom which is next door to the spare room (my wife calls it my mancave) which chops background noise.

Most of what I have learnt has been from trial and error and pillaging the library for books.

I have an old stereo amp I bought at a jumble sale and a pair of old speakers that I play back the results from the computer which is the other £5.

And that's about it. Cheap and cheerful eh?! Not very hi-tec at all.

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: Acorn4
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 01:40 PM

I think you've done remarkably well on a small budget - might try downloading the limiter myself.

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: gnu
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 02:02 PM

Ditto Beer and Acorn4 (and positive others). The only think I could suggest is what others have... try a whole bunch of things and see what YOU like best.

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: Tootler
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 07:01 PM

I liked it. The voice was very clear and the words came over clearly.

I agree with others that the guitar was a little too dominant, especially at the beginning when the voice comes in.

I liked the fiddle and the two voices, but as you said, Nick, these are matters of personal taste.

Overall a very clear recording which shows what can be done with home equipment these days.

Geoff

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 26 Apr 08 - 08:47 PM

Echo a problem (Altec Lansing, Dell, five speakers, one a large woofer- might sound better on poorer speakers with less frequency range). Diction poor in parts. The guitar too strong in parts.
Quality not sufficient to recommend purchase.

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: Grab
Date: 27 Apr 08 - 10:20 AM

A problem with the guitar isn't just the balance, but also how much space it's occupying frequency-wise. There's lots of pick noise and the guitar is generally quite bright. That's not necessarily bad, but it can distract from the vocals if there's too much going on at once. I'd be tempted to put a little bit of fast compression on the guitar to take the edge off the pick noise, for starters. The guitar is also a bit echoey, which doesn't sit well with the fairly subtle reverb on the vocals. If you can lose (or reduce) that, I think the guitar sound would be much improved. In general though I think the guitar playing itself fits the song well.

Vocals mostly sound nice, but you really do need a pop shield. It sounds like you've got a little too much compression (possibly in an attempt to get rid of the pops?) because there's not so much in the way of dynamics.

Don't forget that you don't just have to leave the faders in one place throughout! Bring the guitar down by 3dB during the verses to leave space for the vocals, and bring it back up again between verses. Similarly, there are a few places the vocals drop back a little (off the mic, maybe?) - you can re-record that line again, maybe, but to some extent you can compensate by boosting the level slightly where it happens. And better to do that with the levels than just slapping compression across the whole thing.

I didn't think the fiddle sound worked - it just didn't sound like a fiddle should, for me. Generally, I think that's something you could improve on with a little more experimentation with different mics, and relative locations of mic and fiddler.

Jim's point on MP3 is just that we can't hear all the detail that we'd hear on a CD. If you recorded at 44kHz, you're fine. Moving to 48kHz will make no difference (and in fact could itself be the source of noise when it's converted back to 44kHz for putting on CD). It's worth using 24-bit though - if you're recording at 16-bit, move up to 24-bit otherwise the details of the recording will be lost. (In case you don't know, the problem is that you have to leave headroom when recording, but that headroom means most of your sound comes from less bits, giving lower resolution. 24-bit still gives you CD-quality with 48dB of headroom.) I'm actually wondering whether that's the problem with the fiddle sound.

For making things louder, beware just slapping that mastering limiter across a ready-made mix - it won't sound right. There's a great article in SoundOnSound this month about mix-bus compression and its relationship to compression/limiting on individual channels and mastering.

Moving on from the technical stuff, generally I think the arrangement could use a little work. The fiddle dropping in and out has already been mentioned. In general, what's the fiddle's purpose? It's not emphasising important lines or important changes of feeling, it's not providing variation between verses, and it's not providing a continuous background to the song. Making it serve the song will give it some raison d'etre.

Also on the vocals. This is a very well-known song, so I think you need to make this personal to you, instead of just one of a zillion adequate-but-nothing-special covers. It's a story song, so tell us the story like you mean it and really grab our attention. At the moment I don't feel empathy with what you're telling me because it doesn't sound like you do either, so it just sort of washes over me without making an impact. Sure, it's a gentle song, but your voice and playing (and the quality you've extracted from that recording setup!) deserve a lot more than just being pleasant background music! If you know how your character is feeling in each line or verse, that'll inform your singing and will probably then spill over into the arrangement as a whole.

Graham.

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: T. Clark
Date: 27 Apr 08 - 10:47 AM

From a recording "quality" standpoint it sounds just fine to my untrained ears. I kind if liked the fiddles and yes there could be more "spacious" to the mix. I think there have been some very contructive comments here so I am not going to repeat the same things over that others have said. There was a couple of points were the main vocal could have been a little higher in the mix but for the most part I really enjoyed it.

T

www.myspace.com/tracyfclark

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: kendall
Date: 27 Apr 08 - 11:55 AM

I thought it was quite good overall, but I didn't care for the volume on the guitar and the fiddle. If they would back off during the singing and come in on the break that would work better for my taste. Of course. anyone who puts out a product to please my taste will never get rich.

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: GUEST,JohnB
Date: 27 Apr 08 - 12:33 PM

I had problems listening to it all as I am only on Dialup.
I agree with the general impression (from what I heard) that it's not too bad a recording. Especially when you look at the cost, not even an hour of cheap studio time.
I too thought that the guitar and fiddle were a little too high and forward in the mix. The guitar also being a little too bright/trebley.
I quit liked the vocals sound.
The biggest thing which hit me, which nobody else seems to have mentioned, was a lack of synch between the two voices when the second voice came in. they were not together in time on the phrasing.
Absolutely nothing to do with the recording quality, however it would be a deterrent for me to buy a recording as it to me it is a performance glitch.
Keep up the good work and get the band to practise a bit more, re-record and re-post.
JohnB

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: Bill D
Date: 27 Apr 08 - 06:05 PM

Well, I kind of agree with "the guy with the stammer"...I could not understand many parts of it. (It did get beter towards the end)

I had no particular problem with the fiddle, but the overall sound seemed a bit 'muddy'...like maybe too much bass. (to be fair, I don't have real good hearing in the trebles)
All in all, it was reasonably good recording.

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: Nick
Date: 27 Apr 08 - 07:04 PM

The intention of the thread Bill (and Deckman and Q) was from a point of view of the recording not the performance - perhaps that wasn't clear. Though my friend has a reasonably broad Belfast accent I personally don't have any problems understanding him though his pronunciation of vowels is considerably different to my own. I understand Deckman's preoccupation with diction from his profile. I apologise for the poor attempt of humour on Deckman's post but people who come onto threads and shout about their particular bee-in-the-bonnet (especially when it is off topic) I usually find amusing and react accordingly.

The track is by no means a finished item but it was a good time to elicit comment and they have been useful.

Grab - thanks for the detailed comments. There is actually the same level of reverb on both the guitar and the vocal and no compression at all on the vocal (and as I said further up the thead it isn't me singing) but the pop shield will definitely be there in future when we do it properly. I've started to get Sound on Sound but haven't got round to getting this month's yet.
I actually tried to follow some of the suggestions from the March SoS edition on recording strings but probably not very successfully. Still it was a first attempt at recording a fiddle and I will just go back and rethink and no doubt improve. It comes across as 'cheap' and harsh and lacks the warmth it should have.

Noone at all has commented on one element of the track while every other bit has been mentioned (ie the bass) so I presume that sits about right in the mix - or is irrelevant?

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: Suegorgeous
Date: 27 Apr 08 - 07:15 PM

Nick

So should one not hope to get a sufficiently good quality recording by using the Zoom H2 then? (sorry if this sounds daft, I'm no tekkie).

Sue

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: Nick
Date: 27 Apr 08 - 07:30 PM

The Zoom is a different sort of thing really as it will only record things all together. So it's useful for practice etc (eg we had a practice on saturday for an upcoming gig and I recorded 17 songs which I will then burn to CD so as each of us can practice our bits in our own time) but you'd be hard pressed to record two vocals, two fiddles, guitar and bass and get it perfectly in balance with no background noise etc

As I write this I'm listening to a track from it and while it is recorded at CD quality it's not the quality you would expect to find on a CD if that makes any sense at all! Especially when the dog came in...

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: Acorn4
Date: 27 Apr 08 - 07:34 PM

The two instruments I find it most difficult to record are mandolin and accordion. I've an excellent mandolin player who's done some soloing on tracks I've recorded -he's got a 1911 Gibson but I never feel I've done it credit.

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: Acorn4
Date: 28 Apr 08 - 02:53 PM

Nick,

I noticed in your description that you record guitars in stereo -I took advice when I started recording off a couple of people "in the know", who said record guitar in mono. I think the justification is that it can be panned and you do in fact hear it in mono as it all comes from one place. Not sure on this one.

Did you use a wave editor?

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: Lowden Jameswright
Date: 28 Apr 08 - 02:58 PM

"So should one not hope to get a sufficiently good quality recording by using the Zoom H2 then? (sorry if this sounds daft, I'm no tekkie)."

You can expect to get very good quality from your H2 Sue, as long as you don't expect to mix several instruments. I use the H2 for voice and acoustic guitar, and it's great. Harmonica breaks using the neck brace are fine too. Beyond that I can patch the file into a digital 8 track and add other instruments/vocals, and add any reverb etc afterwards. Good luck with your H2; it'll serve you well.

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: Nick
Date: 28 Apr 08 - 03:25 PM

Acorn4 - when you say did I use a wave editor I'm not sure I know exatly what you mean. I use Reaper for mixing etc

I record an acoustic normally with two mics - either in this sort of shape /\ pointing at 12th frettish or |    | with one pointing at about the bridge and one at about the 12th fret - but I have also tried in mono. (And also with one mic several feet back from the other; and a few other combinations!)

Off to practice a song on Zoom H2 now though which is MUCH easier - ie stick it on the coffee table and sing and play!

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: Acorn4
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 04:47 AM

Nick,a wave editor:-

When you lay down your tracks they are recorded as individual tracks like guitar, vocal 1, vocal 2, percussion, etc, and these are normally stored in the format of the software you are using, and will only be playable by that software. You put effects like "reverb" and "compression" on at this stage. They might be combined in something like a "bundle", but this will still only be playable by the software that created it. For instance, a recording done on "Cakewalk" won't be playable by "Cubase".

The software will normally have a function called something like "export" which turns the individual tracks into a WAV file which will then be playable by a CD player.

A "Wave editor" can do things to this file, the most notable being "fade-ins" and "fade-outs". From the description of your set-up you may well have something that's fulfilling the function but under another name. Some software has an editor as part of the suite, for instance Cubase has one called "Wavelab". The industry standard editor is called "Soundforge" but this costs around the £600 mark.

I downloaded a cheapo freebie one fromm a firm called "Blazeaudio" (www.blazeaudio.com) , and to upgrade it to the full version only cost me £13.50 due to the exchange rate of the dollar at the time.
It's called "Wave Creator". I find that it just adds a bit of fullness to the sound. One of the problems with recording is that the terminology is confusing -the word "normalise" for instance has two different meanings.

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: Nick
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 07:20 AM

Ok - Reaper does all that, and rather a lot more I think, so 'yes' I do have one and I think I have about 100+ plugins of various sorts most of which I don't use. Give Reaper a go - it's a free evaluation (which never expires with full functionality) but one which I have now paid for because it is worth it. Good enough to be treated seriously by magazines such as Sound on Sound.

It has an evaluation of one amazing plug called Spectro by Stilwell audio which is an amazing thing (to me anyway). Incredibly easy to use and really precise. I had a funny little squeak somewhere on a recording and it was incredibly easy to find it and then exclude it

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: kendall
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 08:20 AM

John B is right about the syncronization of the voices.

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 08:56 AM

Nick

48 khz will not improve the quality AT ALL

Key thing for quality is bit length so record 24 bit rather than 16

There is an argument that says 96 khz is better than 44,1 but, no insult intended, you will not hear a difference with the equipment you are using.

24bit 44.1 will be fine and is the standard for nearly all commercial recording other than classical which might often be 24 bit 96khz - but they will be using very posh mics and pre amps.

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 09:17 AM

should have said "tend to be classical...."

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: Nick
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 11:26 AM

Thank you for that - no insult taken I am very aware of the limits of the set up I have and the equipment (eg mics) I use. You can only attempt to learn a bit and do the best you can with what you have. I am realistic about what I can achieve but I have heard much worse! It was the reason behind the thread.

I will probably start another specifically about advice on fiddle recording because I have created a horrible noise on that - mostly to do with mic placement I think or the room I recorded it in. I don't really like to try and mend it with lots of EQ and effects as that doesn't seem right. With a guitar I can get something that sounds broadly like a guitar - if it's a bit bright I can do something with it but it least has - to my ear anyway - a pleasant enough sound of something that sounds like someone playing an acoustic guitar. Fiddles - yuk! Cheap harsh noise past redemption from EQ I think. I'll put up a couple of short examples here or on another thread and see what people think as I need to do it again soon and repeating the same mistakes seems silly!

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: Grab
Date: 01 May 08 - 08:48 PM

Bass guitar sounded fine to me in level, playing and tone, hence no comment. :-) Although I was only using my PC speakers with subwoofer, not my hi-fi speakers.

If your guitar signal is just on the same reverb as the voice, maybe you've got problems with the mics getting too much room noise? You could maybe use a different reverb (if any's needed at all) for the guitar on its own, and route all the others to some sub-mix for the main reverb.

A thought though - if you used two mics for the guitar, are you sure they're together timing-wise?

Graham.

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 01 May 08 - 09:03 PM

Sounds great first time out of the chute.

Guitar is a bit overwhelming, but the picking itself is very tastefully done. DADGAD?

Fiddle was tentative in the first two verses, but with the twin during the break it was very nice, if a hair too loud; and the mandolin disappeared completely halfway through the first verse. Lose interest?

Vocals were just fine, and being from Norn Iron meself I had no problem with the diction.

Keep up the good work!

Seamus

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: Nick
Date: 20 May 08 - 04:13 AM

Thanks Seamus and Graham for the additional comments which I had missed before.

Seamus - guitar was in drop D I believe

Subject: RE: Home Recording - is this quality OK?
From: GUEST,Jon Nix
Date: 20 May 08 - 11:39 AM

Only one comment, Nick

PLEASE can I order a copy of your CD when it comes out?

[e-mail]

Seriously, nuff said
All the best, Jon