Just SOme more Music

[jimjoe89]

Hi. I have posted my music on the internet in the pure volume forum. I would love it if you could take a listen. the link is: www.purevolume.com/jimmyokeefeandfriends. The music is mostly acoustic, but there is some other stuff on their too. In due time, I will be posting some artistic photographs that my friends and family have taken.  I am from baltimore by the way. does anyone else hail from this region?

[mememe]

This is good... kept my attention, but left me wanting something more tough.   Id use more compression and try and get more out of your sounds, they are good and you know how to write a song. maybe the bad mp3sound did something to my experience also.. acoustic guitar needs a little bit more bits.

hi from finland

[jimjoe89]

Thanks for listening. I have had some trouble with converting the files to MP3 form. When I put them into PureVolume, I seem to lose some of the power and clarity of the tracks. I forgot to mention that I recorded these songs using an H2 Zoom and Garage Band, so none of the songs have been put through the full mixing process. For the price and output, I think the H2 Zoom is a really good device.

[mememe]

I don´t know for sure but I bet its just that the bitrate is way too low.. should be 196bps at least for this kind of acoustic stuff in my opinion.
Yeah H2 is good, a friend of mine uses it too, the mic is more than enough for most stuff. I would maybe suggest you get Cubase (the recording program) next if you want to do more mixing stuff. Its fairly easy to use and more fun than Pro Tools. ADVERTISEMENT

[jimjoe89]

I actually have used Cubase before, but I've always had trouble with soft tracks. I feel like I'm missing an obvious and general point when it comes to boosting the decibels to make it sound full. Garage Band doesn't seem to give me that problem as often. Any advice?

[mememe]

Hmm..

Heres my fast way of "mastering":

After I get the mix sounding good on itself ( without anything in the master channel, just make sure that the sound doesn´t clip ) I put a MULTIBAND compressor in the master channel followed by a softclip limiter. Then I just mess around with the multibandcomp to get the song sound more like a "package", you know get it to breath a little, get the vocals up and more upfront and the highs more sparkly and the bass more tight and controlled.

One thing I have found to mess up my sound often is REVERB.. I have lately been mixing without any reverb and do the beforementioned "mastering" and AFTER that go back to the individual tracks and add reverb for say, the vocals.

The thing with reverb is that when you have compression in the master channel, it starts to get too pronounced and makes everything muddyer and less defined.. I just try to have as little as I think is needed.

Oh, have you tired the new T.Rex  mastering plugin? Its a standalone also and it simply rocks!! It has awesome presets.. You can stick almost anything thru it and it feels more "finished"..