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My band recorded three tracks today as demos in a very DIY fashion: one mic, all of us crowded around it playing with our amps cranked. It sounds ok, but at some parts the bass dominates the mix.

We also have the vocals super quiet because the PA kept feedbacking. We plan on recording new vocal tracks over it, but is there any way somebody could take an .mp3 or garageband file and make it sound a little, y'know, better? Not asking for miracles, this is just for our online presence and showing promoters what we sound like.

Also, some songs recorded so that they only play back on the left side.

Thanks!

what sample rate are the tracks recorded at? the higher the sample rate, the easier it'll be to do something with them. there's certainly stuff that can be done with reverb, compression, etc. that can help out a rough recording, but there's no way to add fidelity or frequencies that ain't there.

since you only had one mic, the signal is the same on both "sides" anyway; in GB you can just set the track to Mono in Track Settings and you're good to go.

i'd be willing to have a go with my GB plug-ins, but i make no guarantees about either succeeding in making it better or getting it done in any sort of a timely fashion. and i don't know if there's a convenient way to get tracks to me if they're too big for my e-mail box attachment limits.

dubkitty wrote:what sample rate are the tracks recorded at? the higher the sample rate, the easier it'll be to do something with them. there's certainly stuff that can be done with reverb, compression, etc. that can help out a rough recording, but there's no way to add fidelity or frequencies that ain't there.

since you only had one mic, the signal is the same on both "sides" anyway; in GB you can just set the track to Mono in Track Settings and you're good to go.

i'd be willing to have a go with my GB plug-ins, but i make no guarantees about either succeeding in making it better or getting it done in any sort of a timely fashion. and i don't know if there's a convenient way to get tracks to me if they're too big for my e-mail box attachment limits.

Dropbox?

Apart from some noise reduction, creative EQing, and fixing the mono/stereo issue, I don't know that there's going to be much anyone can do with a one mic recording. However those three things should improve it considerably, depending on the source quality.

I've gotten some progress with compression and eq, but when i set it on mono, it cuts the volume in half.

It will sound better once the bassist and I put some vocal tracks down.

snipelfritz wrote:I've gotten some progress with compression and eq, but when i set it on mono, it cuts the volume in half.

It will sound better once the bassist and I put some vocal tracks down.

duplicate the track and pan one left and one right.

Mudfuzz wrote:

snipelfritz wrote:I've gotten some progress with compression and eq, but when i set it on mono, it cuts the volume in half.

It will sound better once the bassist and I put some vocal tracks down.

duplicate the track and pan one left and one right.

Herp Derp

OP : send me a link via PM to the garageband file or the .wav audio file UNCOMPRESSED, and if you got them ready the separates vocal tracks. Used to work in the audio recording / mixing field, I'll give it a quick shot for a fellow ilf'er

[quote="Disarm D'arcy"]OP : send me a link via PM to the garageband file or the .wav audio file UNCOMPRESSED, and if you got them ready the separates vocal tracks. EDIT2: NVM, I don't know why I wouldn't turn down this offer if it still stands. Disarm D'arcy I pm'd you.

EDIT: Here's the product so far...
[soundcloud]http://soundcloud.com/mikeclouthier/i-forgot-to-laugh-demo[/soundcloud]

Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking, that sounds like shit.

well that bass sound is pretty good..

Um no.. there isn't a good way to notch out that bass to hear everything else...
Main reason: your guys's whole sound is mids... if the bass was really bassy you could have EQed it out but it is in the same freq range as the drums and the guitar and the vocals.

So what that means is if you are going to to a two track recording you guys have to work on mic placement and volume balance. This could take a bit of time but you can get it to work. Just play for short bits then listen then adjust stuff in till you can get close. You might not be able to get great but you could shoot for ok.

recording with one mic is ALL about mic placement. hell with 30 mics its all about mic placement just a lot more so with one. record over and over and over trying new placement. and yeah maybe turn the bass down.
I have gotten some pretty good recordings with one mic it just takes trial and error.

No, I LIKE our bassists sound. Especially for a $250 used rig, its just a little bit loud y'know. And I'll turn down the bass mids next time. I have a lot of control of our bands sounds, not because I'm a condescending dick, but because the bassist doesn't know enough about it (but trusts me me completely) and the drummer is a drummer and doesn't give a shit.

Derelict78 wrote:recording with one mic is ALL about mic placement. hell with 30 mics its all about mic placement just a lot more so with one. record over and over and over trying new placement. and yeah maybe turn the bass down.
I have gotten some pretty good recordings with one mic it just takes trial and error.

Yeah, the issue was that we only had limited time and i had already spent an hour setting things up etc. I was really testing my bandmates' patience that day (both literally and figuratively) I did move/turn down the bass amp a bit for the next couple tracks (that was the first one we recorded.

I'm just afraid if I try to do this again next Sunday, they might lose it and try murdering me. The drummer mentioned something about recording parts individually, but I think that's an even bigger pain in the ass.

Disarm D'arcy, check you pm box.

I always had really good luck with placing the mic in a corner of the room, furthest away from all amplifiers.

adrianlee wrote:I always had really good luck with placing the mic in a corner of the room, furthest away from all amplifiers.

lol, we did the exact opposite of this. I'll have to check my system preference input level next time too, because we were uncomfortably close together, I had my 75w amp cranked, and it still was coming up strangely quite.