help eqing!!!

[davo_guitarman]

hi people, i have recently recorded some demo drum tracks from my drummer, as we are making a demo, now i recorded this through one microphone, an sm58, and i hooked it up to my guitar effects board, its REALLY quiet when i i record it, so i have to boost the volume right up, but when i put everything else in guitars, vocals, bass etc.

It becomes REALLY muddy, now whats a good guideline to follow for eqing, i have almost double tracked everything, besides guitars, so is that the problem? also i want the drums to cut through like a normal music track, so how would i go about doing this?

and any helpful links will be.. well.. helpful!

Cheers guys

Dave

[Chrisman69]

how are you recording it? are you going right from your mic to the computer without using any kind of preamp? cuz that would be why your getting such a low volume, as well as horrible quality

[SeNeCa]

humour the music nub here and explain what a preamp is? i assume its between you and the computer maxing out volume and quality?

[isp_of_doom]

a preamp is something that boosts the signal... ie. cranks up the volume (in the simplest of terms).

Back to topic:
Are things sounding ok on their own? Because then you have a few things you can use to your advantage...

Panning will work well to get the intelligibility you seem to need between the instruments. Your average song will have the kick drum, snare, vocals, bass guitar basically right in the middle... moving them around (ie 1-2degrees) either way can seperate instruments out a bit.

Guitars... Its generally best not to have them hard left, hard right (especially if there are 2 guitars playing - ie rhythm and lead)... again use the panning to seperate them out... maybe have one half panned left, the other half panned right.


EQ... its best to use this to remove frequencies that are boxy, or simply unwanted (pick noise, etc). I could go on for hours on this... and its already 11:45pm... and i'im sleepy so I'll say this: What sort of EQ do you have? how many band, parametric, etc????

You can also try some crafty compression, but as I've said I'm tired... and dont want to go into this now :p


OH... last minute thought... also try using some time related effects, such as a mild reverb...

[davo_guitarman]

well on my pod xt live, ive tried the tube preamp AMP preset, and it doesnt do justice to the track, i can use whatever effects i want on it, its basically recording drums thru a guitar effects board, so i can distort whatever sound, (which i wouldnt do) or reverb, delay etc.

So the effects side is sorted out.

For eq im using adobe audition, but my drums just dont seem loud enough, but i expect that being recorded thru one mic, i want the drums louder, but without making my speakers crackle or without sacrificing anything else too much to geta decent sound for the finished track...

[Nicko_Shmicko]

what instruments did you double track?

[davo_guitarman]

ive double tracked, drums, bass and rythym guitar...