Psyre wrote:On an added note, has anyone done the insulation rolls as bass trap in corner method I've heard of?
Not exactly but have done similar things with other materials. It's useful in tuning the room, but may only have minimal effect on recordings if you're close-micing things.
Have you tried using a high pass filter on any tracks? You could just use your outboard EQ. Basically, often some lack of clarity on the top end comes from muffly distortion on the bottom. All those frequencies are vying for analog bandwidth and it's like having an emergency ward full of large people with hangnails and one little guy with a bleeding femoral artery. Trim some of the fluff out and get to the important shit. Trapping some resonant bass shit in the room is good, but the audio source itself might need some pruning.
I know people gag when anyone says Behringer, but the T-1953 preamp has every feature you need on a preamp including variable high pass filters, phase reverse, and control over the amount of tube saturation. Also it's the only tube pre that actually has 2 tubes, one for each channel. The rest share one tube for 2 channels, and often not at full plate voltage. It's not prestigious gear but I have used them in many applications and they work exactly as I want them to. They even make for a great guitar preamp as the distortion is totally useable. And they're cheap.
I might also be selling one...