[LAU] Suggestions on how to improve quality of recordings?

[Kevin Cosgrove]

On 19 May 2007 at 0:20, david <gnome at hawaii.rr.com> wrote:

> If you listen to a few of the recordings here:
> 
> http://www.clanjones.org/stnicks/music/
> 
> You can get an idea of some of the quality we're getting now.
[snip]
> We've been told by many people that the sound people hear from the main 
> speakers is fine - but us in the band have no idea what it sounds like. 

Can one of the band (you?) sit out for a song to see what the mains 
sound like?  Even if it was just during a rehearsal, you might learn a 
lot.

> The guy doing our mixing says he is trying to mix it to match what he 
> hears from the mains.
> 
> Anyway, suggestions? My experience with recording anything was back in 
> the early 70's in a garage band environment!

Any chance you can sit in on the process?  That might really help
you to understand where it's going wrong.  I'd first try to see
if the individual tracks sound OK.  Then I'd try just a vocal mix
to see if that can work.  Likewise an independent instrumental
mix.  Then a full mix.  It sounds like it was recorded with mics
in the room, and that the mics were maybe far from the musicians.
But, on one track I heard the guitar like it was right next to
me, and the bass comes out fine sometimes.  Hmmm.

For what it's worth, we get much better results at our church
using a cassette recorder mixed live off the main board by the
same person running the main mix and stage mix at the same time.
I say that not so that you'll copy our setup, but so that you'll
have confidence that your recorded sound has potential to be
better.  I play drums and also run sound, although most of the
time I don't have to do both anymore.

Good luck..... 
--
Kevin