A bit down on return, can someone comment on sound quality?

[jeffreyheart]

Under sound quality they checked, "too much distortion". What exactly are they listening for hear? I don't hear any clipping or distortion as an effect. Is this like a, "mix is too busy/cluttered" box?
The note read: "The vocal track could be considerably cleaner and the instrumental track could have more clarity."

Any other comments or thoughts appreciated.
Biggest reason for return was: "This song could be further developed." IMO you can never argue that... just not fun to hear.

The song is "soft"
http://www.taximusic.com/hosting/home.p ... ffreyheart

some listing info
This song is in the Adult Contemporary range of this listing, which references Lady Antebellum, Kelly Clarkson, The Script, The Fray, John Mayer, and Colbie Caillat.

[Russell Landwehr]

Well, Man.

As soon as my laptop started playing the song I heard it. There's kind of a square-wave-clipping thing going on with every track. I checked out your other songs too... same thing.

Something is going terribly wrong. I think the clipping/distortion thing is gonna really hold you back.

Perhaps somewhere in your chain you got something screwed up. Input, Mixing, Mastering, MP3 encoding, something.

Sorry to be so harsh, but I think your music deserves finding out where this problem is. Maybe if you can give the forum a run-down on your signal chain/recording/mixing/encoding process, there are plenty of people who can help you fix this problem.

[jeffreyheart]

thank you for your response. my initial reaction is: hmmm... I don't hear it. (which sucks) I'm all too aware that my ears aren't where they need to be, which is just the way it is sometimes.

My first guess would be the MP3 encoding, which is "switch" for the mac. It's free, so it's probably a bad idea.
I did an A/B comparison, pre and post Encoding.
http://www.taximusic.com/hosting/home.p ... ffreyheart
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3301072/Music/J ... t-Soft.wav

I'd much appreciate if you had another listen.

All the projects i basically do "the same" as far as workflow, m-audio 1814 firewire into ableton Live. I usually put a very light "mastering" on for demo's to get it loud, but i don't drive the limiter hard enough to hear clipping IMO. I'm not opposed to this issue being anywhere in the signal chain, I have pretty average monitors (Yamaha somethings) and a poor monitoring situation, I could be missing it. Thanks again for your assistance here.

here's another random track that may or may not have the same issue
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3301072/Music/J ... edown5.mp3

[Len911]

Jeffrey, your music sounds fantastic by the way, other than the artifacts you are getting. I would check your buffer sizes or syncing issues.

[slowdance]

Jeffery,

I did not get any distortion of any kind....from my laptop or studio speakers ...song to me sounded real good......

Dick

[Russell Landwehr]

heya, JH.

OK, I put my earbuds in to get a tighter listen.

I listened to your other tunes this way too (and the two at dropbox.)

First, Soft is MUCH cleaner in the .wav file. (As expected.)
Second, the vocals on Just Go With It are definately distorted, but I am guessing this is as an effect due to the style of the song. However, in my opinion, I think what ever you are using to overdrive those vocals is a bit harsh and could use a bit of smoothing out. (Just my personal taste there)
Third, the vocals on Push Your Wish Away sound really distorted. Due to the feel of this tune, I would think this was not intentional.
Fourth, I am hearing a lot of pumping in I Met You which leads me to think you might have a compression problem in your tracks or mastering. (and possible this is where the distortion or "illusion" of distortion is coming from on the other tracks)

Now. After listening to Soft again and again, AND reading what the screener had to say, I am hoping I can say something helpful next.

I think the distortion of the guitars is mostly what the screener is talking about. And I think that is where I got the perception of distortion on all tracks. The way you have the vocal EQ'd seems to have a peak right in the frequency range of the guitar's distortion. So the guitar's distortion was making the vocals seem distorted to me. As far as the screener's distortion comment, (and taking into consideration the AC listing) the style of this song would seem to want a much cleaner guitar sound and if there is any distortion, I think it should be much smoother or melodic. (sometimes more of the right distortion can be better than a little of the wrong distortion.)
Anyway, there is the same or similar distortion setting on more than one guitar in this song and those can clutter your instrument track (see screener's comments.) I'm not sure if the vocal clarity will be achieved by this alone, or if you would need to bring a bit of the "breath" out of the vocal and add a bit of "voice" by EQing.

Taxi members Mojo Bone and Magne posted something that I would like to pass along to you. They are some very good resources by a guy by the name of Mike Senior. He does something called Mix Rescues. You can find him at Sound On Sound.

http://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Secrets-sm ... 687&sr=1-1

http://www.cambridge-mt.com/MikeSenior.htm

Hope this helps. I think your music is REALLY good and with a bit of a push you can get it to that "sky" that Michael is always referring to.

rl

[tordenspyd]

I think this is awesome.
The wave file sounded much better, ( had also to do with no streaming artifacts, but is irrelevant for your review)
I think the key is clarity and transparent sound which many people may expect when they hear the style.
The stuttering epno ( it's sound like that but can be something else ) sounds way cool, a few times it may contribute to less clarity, and I wonder if leaving it out at those few places would contribute positively? For example in the very beginning, it is mixed in at low volume there , but makes the guitar sound less well defined.? You have probably already gone through that option and decided that what you have is the optimum. I love it at most of the places it occurs.

[andygabrys]

hey Jeffrey,

I think this is a great tune - IMO it is totally on for the listing, but I think the main thing is the mix / recording quality. No question.

What I hear in every version is high freq distortion, but not the kind that comes from recording a guitar part through a distorted amp. Its the kind that sounds like you are overdriving the mix buss. Its less evident in the WAV that you posted to Dropbox, but I still hear it.

Listen to the hi-hat part - thats the first thing, then when the guitar comes in, yes its a little distorted in the body of the sound which doesn't bug me, but the high end sounds a little fizzy like the hi-hat.

the recordings in general have a little dull sound on top. with the exception of "put your wish away" which is sounding cleaner, until the vocal comes in, which is very distorted (sounds like too hot on the actual vocal recording). The vocals in several songs seem to have some issues - the reverbs seem very loud / bright, which is making sibilence / distortion more pronounced, and the vocal sounds a little distorted in general - either running too hot through your preamp, or possibly capturing some fan noise (from air conditioner or built in fan in a laptop) that is made more pronounced by putting a compressor on the vocal and jacking it.

In addition to all the stuff below, you might filter some instruments that have high range sound - like a distorted guitar will generally have little useful info about 8khz or so, you can filter out the top end, which will give more head room for the cymbals / vocals etc, and hopefully allow the vocals to come through a little cleaner - which is related to mix headroom as below.

Find some recordings in the vein that you want to emulate, and A/B them frequently while mixing to reset your perspective. Look at Dave Pensado - Pensado's Place on Youtube - he does an episode where he talks about some reference recordings, they might not be in the same vein, but they still might be good to reference top end / low end etc.

couple ideas (I use examples from Logic and Protools cause that is what I have / know):

Recording - look back at the waveforms of all the tracks that are recorded live - are there any squared off waveforms (clipping?) like on the vocal tracks? Does the waveform generally occupy more than 2/3 of the "track height"? If you are recording at 24 bit, you don't need to run your recording levels that hot, giving more headroom will give you cleaner recordings.

Mixing - if you bypass all the mastering plugins on your output channel, at any time does the master channel fader go into the red or hit 0.0? If so, you are overdriving the mix bus. The remedy to this is to pull down the levels (in proportion so your mix doesn't get out of wack) of all the tracks feeding the mix buss. I would aim for about 6db of headroom when all the tracks are on feeding the master mix buss. Meaning the mix hits a maximum of -6 db.

Its generally easy to get your mix loud with mastering plugins (sure there are pitfalls to just slamming the mix in mastering such as tonal changes etc) - but with 6db headroom getting about 2 db gain reduction / makeup from a decent buss compressor (like the SSL one or Cytomic the Glue knockoff), then adding some subtle eq if needed, then having a master limiter set to output peak of -0.2db with a little gain to bring it up to decent volume (like PSP Xeon as it has the K system metering for voume as does UAD Precision Limiter. Aiming for K14 is decent and not overdone volume/squashing wise, or maybe K12 if you want it radio loud) will result in something that sound should much more hi-fi and usable.

Look at each track / channel - at any time during the song does the track volume hit 0.0db / red light? If so, you are overdriving the track. In logic or protools you can also do a "pre-fader" listen using an option on the channel fader (protools) or in the transport bar (try customizing the transport bar in Logic if you don't see it).

Some DAW's can apparently absorb internal distortion (like channel to channel) because the mix runs at 32 bit or higher and as long as the master output bus doesn't clip, the you should be okay - but that seems like BS to me.

Its easy to pull down the levels so that you don't over drive each track - if you have added any effects such as compressor / eq, make sure when the track is soloed that the volume to your ear is roughly the same with each plugin active or bypassed - then you can concentrate on sound difference and improvement instead of volume differences (cause louder always seems better). If you are still getting a red light / clipping on that channel you pull down the output of the channel (if no plugins on the channel), or reduce the output volume of any plugins to compensate. Like eq - add low and high end, pull down the output volume on the eq to compensate.

Most likely these items above will solve the problem. If they don't - you might have some equipment problems, or maybe the mp3 encoding in Switch isn't really happening.

Converting to MP3 - You are on a Mac right? using which DAW? Instead of converting to MP3 with "switch" I would either do it within the DAW (like the mp3 option in PT 9, or the encoding in Logic when you bounce) - or try doing it in iTunes (also free, but has never given me that kind of a problem).

You also might consider finding someone who will throw you a bone by mixing one of your songs in the same DAW that you use, and could give you feedback on all these things. Ask them to only use the stock plugins, and then you can open the session up at home again and check out what they did and how hot they ran everything (assuming you like their final mix!). I had a friend do this for me on one of my tunes in Logic after getting a negative screener mix quality review and it really helped me.

Good luck!

[andygabrys]

I just checked out upside down. man these are great tunes.

On this mix:

everything is pretty narrow in the middle - try some slightly wider panning. esp on the cymbals.
the cymbal takes up so much of the high end space competing with the voice.
the guitar could benefit from a little midrange eq to leave more space for the voice
the cello seems loud - try turning your monitors down to barely audible and see if you can hear everything, this is one way to get rid of room effects if you have a bad room which you mix in.
the vocal has two things - it seems like you have squashed it which is controlling the level fine but its bringing up bleed / noise in the vocal mic (and the vocal track or maybe the acoustic guitar is probably not muted right at the beginning which gives the noise / hiss) - try muting the vocal or cutting out parts of the vocal track when no singing occurs, and fade in and out to clean things up on the remaining vocal bits. The vocal is also pretty ambient with a bright reverb which makes sibilence more noticable. It would probably sound a little more contemporary to make the vocal a little drier, filter some high end out of the reverb, and automate the vocal level so that every esss sound and some ffff sounds are a little lower in volume (usually about 4db works but use your ear) which will reduce the effect of the sibilence. this is a pain to do, but IMO is better and more accurate than any de-esser and I have a couple good ones or so I thought (WAVES, UAD)

to get rid of the bleed in your recordings can only be done using a more isolated room, telling the kids to go play somewhere else, turning off the fridge, or buy some acoustic treatment. try one of the following if possible:

http://www.realtraps.com/p_pvb.htm which could also be used for guitar recording
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/MudGuard
or one of these
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/search. ... ion+filter

again, great tune. just needs a mix to match.

[jeffreyheart]

i cannot thank you guys enough for your kindness and expertise here. This is wonderful. I've been trying to wait until i could go through all this properly, but just skimming it has been great.

I'm working really hard to try and create a professional sound, it feels much like 1 step forward 2 steps back.

Couple things:
Guitars are all Guitar Rig 4 :-/
Vox are done on a Beta 87 with a pop filter
All plugins are Ableton native. I have ableton for a couple different reasons, but I'm feeling like logic might be a wise investment. But perhaps i just need continued mixing knowledge and experience, and should stick with it. Welcome to thoughts on that. I desire a Waves plugin pack.

I'll be responding to each post in the future here, thank you again for your investment into my skills. You guys are awesome! I feel like i have some talent and beginnings of some skill, i just need to get my head back into chasing this down for awhile, and stop pretending like I know what i'm doing.