Sound advice needed (also sorry for the pun).

[epauley]

Your brainpower and expertise are needed.

This is a mystery with endless red herrings (variables) on a path froth with danger (my recordings). Okay, let’s dispense with the small talk. Here’s the situation:

I use both GuitarPort and a PODxt when recording with RiffWorks Standard. Since I dislike constantly transferring model packs from device to the other, both devices are employed while recording the same song (one of the reasons I purchased RWS even through I own RW2-L6 addition). Guitar is played through the PODxt (the bean) and Bass via the GP.

Unfortunately, an extraordinary amount of time is spent tweaking individual layers within each riff. It’s enjoyable to a certain point but after awhile, frustration sets in.

While recording, I have experimented listening through my Sony headphones, Logitech speakers, and Atomic amp – hoping one with resolve my dilemma. Granted, none make ideal monitors.

Anyway, when a recording finally sounds good in RWS, I usually discover it sounds very different when imported into itunes. Also, when uploaded to an ipod or burned to a CD, a recording even sounds different from RWS or itunes.

Typically, I use headphones. Nonetheless, what sounds like a background rhythm on RWS, might drown out a once powerful lead on the ipod or CD.

Besides the obvious (different tone levels on each listening device), why does this occur? After all, when listening to purchased music CDs on these devices, they general sound the same from device to device.

If you don’t have this problem, what’s your setup? If you’ve experienced a similar situation, how did you resolve the problem?

Sorry for going on but I tried to cover all bases.

[gatorjj]

I'll long story you back

The problem with headphones is they tend to make everything sound good...put differently you can't really tell what sounds bad. Your brain adds to this effect by doing it's own leveling as well after a while. So if you've been at it a while, you may find you hear the perfect mix, but it's not really there.

What you seek is a "transferrable" mix. The way you get it is a) pure luck, b) through a mixing environment that is reasonably flat, or c) you work around the problems. Reasonably flat has 2 main components, flat response monitors (speakers not headphones), and an acoustic environment that is flat. What happens when things are flat is you can really hear bad stuff and fix it. So when it sounds balanced in a flat environment it tends to translate from device to device.

So...expensive monitors, expensive room acoustic treatments (and construction while you're at it, small rooms and parallel walls are not good!), and frequent breaks while mixing.

Okay, so none of us are gonna do the first two!

What's the best way around all that cash? You've already started down the next path...a bunch of different devices. Basically, you'll need to go from device to device to find things that are out of whack, and tweak your way to an acceptable mix. It takes a while and is a pain but you can get there that way.

I started on the multi-device path and it drove me nuts. Stereo, headphones, 2 cars, Hello Kitty boombox, home theater...round and round until I got something reasonable from a mix. I gave up and bought some reference monitors, which helped a lot as my initial mixes are not way off any more. I can basically do my mixing on the monitors, then go back and forth a couple times on the PC speakers to fine tune a couple things.

Two other critical factors...take frequent breaks so your brain resets on what it's actually hearing. The other is to get a lot of practice! There's a lot of factors that can go into a mix, experience is the way you'll hear problems, and experience is how you'll learn what techniques will make it all balance.

And the mix you seek? It will sound awesome in the headphones instead of just good.

J.J.

[camaro24gold]

Great response there J.J.

epauley....J.J. know a lot about the art of the mix.

Whenever I used strictly headphones I always ended up with a great sounding tune...providing I listen to it thru the damm headphones. When out and about with my new creation on cd and hearing it back thru some different stereo systems (playing it for friends) it was amazing how bad what I thought was good wasn't.
I always tend to mix bass heavy with phones.
I finally did break down and get a set of KRKs that has made this problem of mixing a lot easier.
Next step is a new set of ears Any suggestions on that J.J. ha ha ha ha

[gatorjj]

Yes Tim...borrow some! A "fresh" set of ears don't always need to be your own. The brain reprograms quickly, so that first listen is going to be the only real one. An uninterested 3rd party can sometimes be the best thing you can use!

I too have KRK's (RP5's) and while nothing in my setup is perfect that addition went a long way to getting my mixes close the first time.

Thanks for the nice comments by the way!

J.J.

[epauley]

Yes, as usual you are making perfect sense and, as you alluded to; the multi-device is a slow but functional/low-cost method of getting a better mix.

I have several original tunes on the hard drive without bass guitar, which were created a couple of months ago. The Rickenbacker was in the shop and so, I faked the bass using my Strat.

Since getting the Rick back, I purchased the bass model pack at L6, which offers some rich tones. Now, I’m remixing and recording bass as well as some guitar parts. As you and camaro24gold noted, everything sounds great on headphones but not on other devices (device: such a cold & masochistic sounding word).

I might have to surrender and get some decent monitors as randy also suggested but that creates another problem. How do I purchase another piece of music equipment without the family noticing? Can monitors be disguised to look like something else? I need suggestions!

Lastly, I visited camaro24gold’s myspace.com page and am envious – it looks, like other member sites, pretty good. Mine is a real plain Jane. I don’t know HTML and I need to add photos AND music – only one song is there now. Anyway, the address is:

http://www.myspace.com/eepauley

Boring site name but after trying for about 1 ½ hours to come up with a name that wasn’t taken, I gave in to the mundane. Perhaps, I should have tried shredpauley or mickeypauley or gatorpauley or...

[gatorjj]

Hmmm... I suppose you could put lampshades on those monitors?

[scott]

Bookends - disguise your monitors as bookends and impress the family with your promise to keep all your music paraphanalia in between them ... nice and tidy! That way you always have the excuse that, to get a good sound, you need to have the monitors further apart and therefore you need to buy more music stuff to keep them propped up!

[epauley]

Atomic amp to the rescue once again!

After giving the input above, regarding the flat sound needed for recording, some thought I decided to try something with my Atomic amp and PODxt.

With all the PODxt tone controls (including the reverb and drive) set on 0, I am able to reproduce a quality of sound that should enable me to record better. At least, the piece I’m working on sounds very similar during recording as when uploaded to the ipod (yes, ipod not the PODxt).

For those who don’t know, Atomic amps are designed especially to work with MFX devices. So, they don’t have any controls except a master volume. As a result, without a device, they produce only very clean/pure sound. Essentially, what ever MFX device is used becomes the brain of the amp. If curious, visit http://atomicamps.com.

Of course, two amps are needed for stereo sound. Therefore, I’d have to nix Scott’s suggestion to get monitors and disguise them as bookends – unless, I could convince the family that we really need extra large bookends. :rolleyes: