Broadcast Quality? Please Help.

[jeimusu]

I just had a return that has left me confused... I'm already dazed

The return was for "Not broadcast quality"

and the boxes checked off were music and lyrics.

Can anyone enlighten me?

Thanks!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBzNc18pBDE

James.

[guitarhacker]

Ahhhh... the mysterious "Broadcast Quality" thing.....

If you attended the road rally they had an excellent session on what it was..... if you didn't....well.... you missed a super opportunity.


Regardless.... broadcast quality (BQ) is about many things.... in short... it refers to the quality of the music & production values that you hear when you listen to the major and less than major artists on the radio and TV.... or CD for that matter.

It encompasses the quality of the writing, but goes beyond that into the technical aspects of the recording.... is the level appropriate, how about the EQ.... the compression, the space between the instruments, panning, overall quality of the sound and the production and engineering. All of these things are taken into account.

It is possible to record at a major studio and not be BQ... not too likely that that would happen but it is possible.... and by the same token it is totally possible to record BQ at home in a simple little digital studio.

You really have to look at the details to achieve it.... using a mastering suite and having a bit of knowledge as to what you're doing..... this comes with time and effort.

In listening to your song... I heard eq issues and also what sounded like MP3 encoding issues that added a "wavering" sound to the tune...... both of those things are BQ killers. The song itself was good. The recording fell a bit short on the tech end....and I'll say that the website it played from is not known for it's superb mp3 player......

You want to achieve a clean sound... so you can clearly hear every detail of the music, eq'd right so it sounds natural, and levels set to industry standards of volume. A good way to see where you are at in this quest is to A/B your song with a major artist's cut in the same genre/style.... and compare the sound of the mix. When you can A/B it and not hear a difference... you have BQ music.

[Kolstad]

Nice song, for sure..

Don't know about the lyrics, you didn't post them for us to see?
But Hacker certainly has some good points..

When I listened, I think the MP3 conversion is an issue, as well as the guitar track.

The mp3 sounds like the compression was too high, you should at least compress no more down than to 128kbps but preferably 192 as the difference between those are audible.

The acc guitar sounded a little sloppy, as there were audible string buzz and probably some ambient noise on it too. It would probably be fine for live playing, but when you're tracking, the devil is in the detail. And the ac guit was a carrying element in the mix, so I would consider that. To me, it sounded a little uneven and would probably benefit by some compression also.

So, I would try to retrack the ac guitar, and add a little compression, if it's hard to get it totally even. And then I would try to convert to MP3 at a higher compression rate as well. If it still sounds too poor, it might be the mixing..

justmy2c

[jeimusu]

Thanks for your responses! It helps alot.

[eeoo]

Sounded pretty good to me. I think the youtube stream does not do it justice. Judging from from what I've heard forwarded, to me it passes the bq bar. Maybe they checked the wrong box? It does happen, seems all too frequently. Could have been that the song itself just wasn't right for the listing and they checked the wrong box. Oh Yeah, nice tune man, enjoyed the listen but would have enjoyed it more on something other than a youtube stream. Good luck! eo.

[orest]

Nice tune!

Can you post an MP3 or CD quality file instead? The compression is not good enough to give constructive critique.
The one thing I felt right away when the vox came in, the picking guitar to the right are too strong in the volume, it distracts the vox. Maybe the vox could come up a little more in the volume as well.

[heckxx]

Please post a non-video version of the song if you can. It sounds relatively good to me, but its kindof hard to tell with youtube's bad audio quality.

-Jeff

[davewalton]

I had a return with "not broadcast quality" checked... something that usually isn't a problem for me. I was stunned actually.

Anyway, the screener left a little comment that said "Vocals not up front enough" or something similar. Anyway it got me to thinking that sometimes "not broadcast quality" can mean that the overall sound is great but the mix isn't right... maybe not always about the sound quality itself.

FWIW,

Dave

[keysmandld]

First of all, all I can say is "Wow!" What a great tune. Great lyrics and vocal performance on your part. Great video as well. Think you've got a winner here! Sorry to say I would have to agree about the broadcast quality bit though. The recording sounds a bit noisy and grainy to me (if that makes sense). You can hear it all the way through, but especially at the very end. Not sure what the original sounds like, if it's a loss of quality in going to mp3 format or something else. Would suggest going to a pro studio to re-record it. I think your voice and song deserve that. Can't wait to hear the fixed version!

[ottlukk]

I tried to listen on you tube, or u-tube or whatever it is. My computer's only a couple of years old, but I got 5 secconds of song, then 5 seconds of silent up-load, then five seconds of song, and so on ad infinitum. In other words, there''s a lot of people who have computers that won't let them hear your song unless they like five second spaces in between.
Thought you should know, though I liked the 15 seconds i heard before I demolished my computer.
Ott