Why do your recordings sound like ***?

[Chris]

The is article might help you out,

"Home Recording"

Be warned it's long, very long🙂

Chris,,,

 

[rhysonsax]

Thanks for the link, Chris.

I read page 1 and have only another 49 to go !

I found the comments about listening back on headphones vs monitors quite useful - I always use headphones for recording and mixing, but then the final version does sound quite different over speakers.

For me (at the moment) I am really interested in recording a natural saxophone sound, maybe over-dubbling four saxophones as a quartet and also recording a saxophone over a pre-recorded backing track.

Apart from the saxophone playing issues of tuning, timing, bad vibrato and improvisation issues of lack of ideas and lack of knowledge .... what I would like to know more about are:

1. How to make the saxophone recording sound full and warm rather than hollow or boxy;
2. How much of what effects to apply to the dry saxophone sound (probably different for an acoustic jazz tune, for rock or for contemporary styles);
3. How to make the saxophone track sound like part of the same recording as a backing track.

Just getting answers to those questions would be good.

Rhys

 

[Chris]

Hi Rhys, check out these two articles 'Recording Brass and Reeds' and 'Recording a Saxophone' the 2nd is by our very own @Pete Thomas who might jump in with the odd comment. The 3rd question is the hardest to answer, if you wanted a serious track from me, then I'd send you all the instrument tracks as individual .wav files with NO effects added. That way you can mix all the levels etc to just how you want/hear them. With a single mp3 it can be far harder, a lot of trail and error is called for..

Chris..

 

[Pete Thomas]

'Recording a Saxophone' the 2nd is by our very own @Pete Thomas who might jump in with the odd comment.

Or with the very odd comment. 🙂

 

[Clivey]

Or what about. Wow, how are some recordings sounding so pro? Seriously though. The quality of the audio clips here and at the other place just seems to get better to my ears all the time and many sound comparatively Pofessional compared with Pro recordings from not that long ago. Sax and vocals have always been troublesome especially on a low budget and now we are treated on Youtube & the forums to some excellent renditions more or less every month, and all at zero financial cost barring the ISP fees.

It kinda raises other issues regarding the revaluation of recorded music. ie At what quality do we have to start paying to hear it but I`m being silly. As I know paying to listen to recorded music at home or in the car or public transport is an outdated notion "see latest u2 album".