What's the best way to master recorded vocals and instruments?

Have you tried compressing things?

@judochop Yep – I forgot to mention that. That’s the first thing I did.

Sound Enigeers are great for the planet!! I love my engineer to death, he frees up so much time. You shouldnt be having those issues if your recording with the right mics

Why not start with individual instruments first. Then do vocal last.

@life_after_2012 Probably true! I think one might come in handy here. The mic is great – it’s just too many sounds in a certain range on the EQ – but I’m having trouble figuring out how to clear this up. My EQ knowledge needs a boost.

@ChazMaz Yep – that’s basically what I did – but I can’t make my voice any less bassy – so it and the bass guitar get all pissed at each other and fight like ferrets over some of the EQ range.

“each other and fight like ferrets over some of the EQ range.”

I am guessing in the process of the cross fade?

You need a spectrum analyzer (plug in) to see exactly what’s happening; almost all instruments have fundamental and harmonic frequencies, that are in several octaves. Sometimes, clarity for instruments like bass involves giving them a clearer resonance on the upper harmonics (1KHz – 4KHz range).

Isolate the bass, and with a spectrum analyzer you may be able to see what’s happening there. Believe it or not, sometimes cutting down the bottom octaves improves clarity for bass instruments.

On vocals, placement is equally important. Compression for Vocals yields the impression of “presence” or even proximity to the listener on the “soundstage.” Of course, you want to isolate the vocals and get them to sound natural, as in, the way they would sound naturally under ideal acoustic environments.

Lastly, get a text and study some of the techniques of the pros-there’s never a right or wrong way to master, but in terms of getting the mix right, there are some tried and true techniques to apply.

http://www.focalpress.com/Book.aspx?id=1094&cat=166&sub=176

This text may be a bit heady, but Focal Press as a publisher has a pretty decent array of mixing and audio engineering texts; Modern Recording Techniques (Huber) is a standard in most post-secondary audio programs.

Some other recommendations:

-Listen to the mix in mono, before applying panning and compression; get the levels right with faders only.
-Also, try to use EQ sparingly, and rather than boosting everything, cutting tends to be more effective.
-on channel mixing, EQ before dynamics
-Try to not duplicate plug-ins across input channels; rather, route to busses, and apply the plug-ins (in common) at the bus insert.

For starters…and use compression very conservatively…don’t smack the sh*t out of everything, try and create depth without compression if possible.

@sndfreQ Awesome – thank you! I figured adding anything in EQ would be dangerous since I’m too close to clipping as it is. (probably from over compressing… I think I’ll go back to the file I saved before I started trying anything.) And getting a book or two on this probably would help. I knew this was some complicated stuff.

On a side note: Do you recommend any specific program? I’m using Audacity, which accepts plug-ins just fine and seems to work, but probably not the best out there.

On PC, I’d recommend Digidesign ProTools LE (a la MBox 2 Mini, etc.), or the M-Audio ProTools M-Powered; the out-of-the box software, the included hardware (audio interface) make these a pretty good value for an entry-level pro Digital Audio Workstation. Aside from cross-platform compatibility, the new versions of this include a number of decent entry-level plug-ins for EQ, Dynamics, and other DSP (Reverb, Pitch/Time Shift, etc.), and highly expandable. Going to run you around $400, but in the big scheme of things, pretty good out of the box; industry-standard editor.

Another comparable entry-level solution is Adobe Audition: http://www.adobe.com/products/audition/ running around $349 for software only.

Lastly, Cakewalk Sonar: Nuendo, and Cubase SX are also comparable systems, but can run very high cost-wise (Nuendo is $2K!)...

Also, you can find some good tutorial videos for both programs and others over at lynda.com. They have a pretty sweet deal where you can purchase a month-long subscription to their content for about $25.

There are others out there that will get you to the same destination, that emphasize remixing and more music production “in the box” such as FL Studio: http://flstudio.image-line.com/documents/whatsnew.html
and Propellerhead’s Reason: http://www.propellerheads.se/products/reason/
But these are more geared toward “gear heads” that like to tweak buttons and virtual synths. Their entry point is around the $200 range.

@sndfreQ Perfect! Thank you for the recommendations. You’re living up to your Fluther name ;)

1. zero your EQ for recording
2. use a pre-amp for recording vocals…this will boost your signal(ART makes a great cheap one)
3. use very little compression for the initial recording…this will give you a breathy live sound
4. use tons of compression on your post vox mix…this will eliminate unwanted sounds
5. EQ post recording as well
6. Add reverb

@p8prclip Yeah – the recording in seems fine – I had EQ at 0 all the way across and the pre-amp on my mixer worked fine for vocals. If anything, everything came in too loud…
I’ll try your other suggestions! Thank you!

Thanks @JeanPaulSartre

Gain staging will also “echo” what @p8prclip is saying about a “clean” input signal. The simplest path is always the cleanest.

This simple tutorial can apply to virtually any recording scenario, especially when you’re leaning on plug-ins in the post.

http://emusician.com/tutorials/max_headroom/

@sndfreQ Sweet! Thanks again.