First Pro-Tools recording.

[zhavoney]

OK Guys and Gals I need a lot of help on this one. I wrote the song and played all of the instruments and sang the lead vocal. My friend laid the harmony vocals. All of the instruments are real, except for the strings are an old ARP string ansamble keyboard. This is my first attempt at protools m-powered so if there is anyone out there who knows how to use this program please help. The name of the song is "NO WHERE LOVE".

[fHumble fHingaz]

Nice tune - good to hear real instruments played by real people! The mix does need a lot more clarity, though... High-pass filtering is the key here - get rid of all the extraneous low frequencies in each element's range, & you'll find things become more present, clear & less "cloudy". This is particularly important on the lead vocal. Also, get friendly with the "pre-delay" control on your reverb - if you set it to around 50-80ms, you'll find you can still use quite a bit of it, but it helps with clarity as well. Try high-pass filtering the reverb send quite severly, as sometimes the reverb really muddies up in the low end too.

[zhavoney]

Originally Posted by fHumble fHingaz

Nice tune - good to hear real instruments played by real people! The mix does need a lot more clarity, though... High-pass filtering is the key here - get rid of all the extraneous low frequencies in each element's range, & you'll find things become more present, clear & less "cloudy". This is particularly important on the lead vocal. Also, get friendly with the "pre-delay" control on your reverb - if you set it to around 50-80ms, you'll find you can still use quite a bit of it, but it helps with clarity as well. Try high-pass filtering the reverb send quite severly, as sometimes the reverb really muddies up in the low end too.

Thanks for the help fHumble fHingaz.
Should I run the different tracks through the PRO-TOOLS EQ plugin to accomplish this? They have a 1 band 4 band and 7 band option. I am mixing this in the pro-tools mix window. What are the digital ranges for let's say the bass the guitars, keyboards and vocals? I have a lot to learn. It was easier for me to turn around in the old studio and manually set the slides on the analog furman EQ's. Not to mention the four band EQ on each input channel of the console. Here in the digital world all of the equipment is hidden out of sight. I will have to learn to use it.

[fHumble fHingaz]

Should I run the different tracks through the PRO-TOOLS EQ plugin to accomplish this?

Definitely

What are the digital ranges for let's say the bass the guitars, keyboards and vocals?

It's up to your ear really, but I find a good start for the turnover frequencies is
Bass: 40Hz, Guitars: 100hz, Keys: 120hz, Vocals: 100hz. Play with the turnover frequency in the context of the mix - move it up until you start to hear it overtly thinning out the sound of the instrument, then back it back down a bit.

[zhavoney]

Originally Posted by fHumble fHingaz

Definitely



It's up to your ear really, but I find a good start for the turnover frequencies is
Bass: 40Hz, Guitars: 100hz, Keys: 120hz, Vocals: 100hz. Play with the turnover frequency in the context of the mix - move it up until you start to hear it overtly thinning out the sound of the instrument, then back it back down a bit.

Thanks again for the help fHumble fHingaz.
I am going to work with those EQ's and see how well I can learn them.

I wish it wasn't up to my ear though.
My ears are shot from to many years of standing in front of the marshall stacks and working in a machine shop.
All of the highs are missing from my hearing.
My overall hearing loss is 40% in the right ear and 50% in the left.
I still intend on doing the best that I can.
I will just have to use other peoples ears.

[fHumble fHingaz]

All of the highs are missing from my hearing.
My overall hearing loss is 40% in the right ear and 50% in the left.
I still intend on doing the best that I can.
I will just have to use other peoples ears.

Sorry to hear that... Still, I would imagine that kind of hearing loss would cause you to over-compensate & make your mixes have a tendency to be overly prominent in the high end, & this definitely isn't the case with the mix you've posted. The human brain has an amazing capability to automatically adjust to compensate for our weaknesses, & you can accomplish a lot by referencing your mixes against professional ones.

[brandondrury]

The vocal reverb is not the direction I'd go. It's washing out the lyrics. There's nothing wrong with cranking up the reverb, but the rule is can't cover up the lyrics. (Assuming the lyrics are important....they are 99% of the time).

Finding the right reverb is always a quest. Predelay is a huge setting. Decay time is too. You may be able to achieve your ambient goals with something much shorter. Play around with it and see if you can get more clarity out of the vocal and keep it ambient too.

The other advice here is solid.

Cool song!

[zhavoney]

Originally Posted by brandondrury

The vocal reverb is not the direction I'd go. It's washing out the lyrics. There's nothing wrong with cranking up the reverb, but the rule is can't cover up the lyrics. (Assuming the lyrics are important....they are 99% of the time).

Finding the right reverb is always a quest. Predelay is a huge setting. Decay time is too. You may be able to achieve your ambient goals with something much shorter. Play around with it and see if you can get more clarity out of the vocal and keep it ambient too.

The other advice here is solid.

Cool song!

Thanks for the Reply brandondrury.
I didn't know how to set the D-verb so I left it on the default setting. I will research it and learn how to use it. I noticed something in the settings of D-verb that used the word ambient, I'll have to check that out. There are a lot of other plugins in this version of protools that I have to learn also. Maybe some of the old analog tricks will work, "like running parallel vocal tracks one with effects and one without.

Thanks again

Charles Martin Covault

[The Music Lab]

Hey Charles,

Great song. I agree with rolling off the low end frequencies. It'll drastically improve the clarity of the track. A good place to start would be with the bass guitar. With country-style music, the first thing I do is a band sweep on the bass guitar track. I usually (but not always) pull out 400Hz (medium to narrow Q) and boost 1kHz with a narrow Q a little bit. Just for starters.

On your reverb plug in, roll the "mix" amount down. Or, like you mentioned, running a parallel track with verb on it.

Cool first run at Pro Tools. Cant wait to hear it when you've tweaked it and reposted it

[roger49]

When you decide to re-do this song, please repost! I absolutely love it.