How do I get a quality recording?

[lastresort001aol.com]

Recently I've begun putting together my own little in house studio consisting of a number of keyboards, sequencers, samplers, etc. I've added also a Mackie mixer and the Tascam 564 porta-studio so that I could begin recording. When I play live, I seem to get a fairly decent sound when spooled through an amp. When I go to record it's a whole different story. Most of my recordings sound tinny, sometimes too much treble, sometimes too much bass. The only effects I use are the ones built into the Mackie mixer. All of my machines are spooled into the mixer, which is spooled to both the Tascam and also to an HP where I use Acid Pro 2.0 to record. I know nothing about Acid except how to hit the record button and I've messed around with the normalize function. Are there any tips anyone might have to help get a better, more professional sounding recording off of what I have? Are there any pieces I should add to the collection? Please help!

[teemudeepone.org]

What samplers, what synths, what Mackie?

Maybe getting better gear will make a difference, maybe not. Some outboard reverbs, eq's and compressors will help to get somewhat better sound quality but they can only make good sounds great, not turn crap in to gold. So learning your gear inside out is important if you really have just put together your studio recently. Experience is what makes a good engineer, not the amount of high-end gear in the studio. Learn to use the eq on the Mackie to cut away the frequencies you don't need instead of boosting everything. Excessive boosting is bound to make the recording sound crap. The sounds that you have in the first place should fill all the frequencies evenly so it shouldn't have that much extra bass or treble or be overly thin or over-crowded so concentrate on getting the sounds right before the mixer, possibly even keeping all the eq knobs in the middle positions in every channel. When all the sounds you have seem to fit in start cutting away the unwanted frequencies where one or more sounds overlap and voi la, you have a nice mix http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif

 

Playing live is very different, the inhouse engineer has probably eq'd the sound to fill what the sound sources don't have in the first place. That might work for live where the fine nyances aren't that important but a graphic eq on the stereo mix won't make the recording sound good.

[lastresort001aol.com]

The first synth I bought, before I knew much about the whole field was the Alesis QS8, because I wanted the feel of the weighted keys and had originally started out strictly interested in piano. Then came the Alesis SR-16 Drum machine to accompany with a beat. About a year later I added the Roland JP-8000 and the Tascam 564 porta studio to begin recording ideas. Other stuff I've managed to add to the party are:

Sp-202 sampler, Yamaha RM1X sequencer, Roland JV-1010 synth module and the Roland AX1-b as a controller, Korg MS2000 and the electribe-r. The mackie mixer is the CFX 12 with the built in effects processor. The equalizer on the tascam and the amp are both straight down the line. The secondary eq on the mackie is also straight down the line. The only manipulation is done on the primary eq's on the Mackie. Someone who had done some fairly professional recording in the past had suggested investing in compressors or some kinds of processors. This is where the confusion came for me, since I haven't mastered anything in the realm of recording.

[Dave Bryce]

Although I am not familiar with that particular Mackie nor that particular Tascam, I feel pretty good in saying that with that setup and all of your eqs set neutrally you should have pretty decent sound, at least up to the mixer.. Hmmm...

 

What kind of amplification and monitors are you using? One thing that you can try is to run individual instruments straight into your amp and speakers (Warning! - turn the amp all the way down first! Then turn it up a little at a time once the instrument is connected) to see if you can isolate what it is in the chain that's degrading your signal - you can even experiment with how you cascade the mixers to try and find out what part each of them play. Experiment with headphones as well - plug 'em straight into the headphone jacks on synths, then into the headphone jack on the Mackie and the Tascam with the synths plugged into them - notice any change?

 

Hope that helps. Another possibility is to post on one of the other recording forums - maybe some of those guys can come up with some suggestions for you as well.

 

dB