[LAU] my CD-R sounds weak and bland. What to do?

[Rob]

On Saturday 14 April 2007 21:35, millward wrote:
> times when no ones around.  But the end result, the Audacity
> project file, and the .WAV file I export from it, sounds just
> fine. Its the burned CD-R on the sterio that sounds bland
> compared with regular music CDs.  Something is missing.

These are some of my observations based on trial and error... I'm 
no engineer, nor an audiophile, just a guy who likes his music 
to sound "like a real record".

If you're making something that sounds like almost any kind of 
popular music (pop, rock, country, even most jazz and folk) 
you're going to want to experiment with compression at the very 
least, since that's kinda standard on commercial releases 
nowadays and I assume that's what you're comparing to.

Almost every recording nowadays has some reverb on it, even if 
only to simulate a room sound (unless it was actually 
recorded "live in the studio", in which case it's not 
necessary), so if your stuff sounds really dry and flat that'll 
probably help.  Be subtle about it or you'll sound like you've 
recorded "Chant VIII".  

Also, if you're recording the bass directly with no amp 
simulation or any of that, it'll have no presence at all.  You 
probably want to dirty it up a little, maybe with an overdrive 
or distortion plugin used judiciously.

Rip a music CD that you think sounds great and look at the 
waveforms and at the frequency spectrum so you can get an idea 
of some things to try with EQ, compression, etc.  But don't try 
to make yours look just like theirs because you'll end up 
overproducing it and instead of sounding bland it'll give us all 
ear fatigue.

Rob