JPF Home Page Forums Musician Gear and Techniques Recording Studio and Gear Forum Help with recording technique please

There may be another problem here and that is instrument seperation, what little backing instruments you can hear in the mix. What you put in is what you get out in most cases, unless you know how to mix. If you are using the standard settings on the EQ and just adjusting the general EQ of each instrument without changing the individual frequency band for each instrument, you are going to get a flat, tunnel and muddy mix. This is because each instruments is trying to occupy the same band width in terms of frequencies. They are all competing with one another. This is like combining all colors together and getting brown. To get seperation and distinction between each instrument, you need to find the frequency spectrum that uniquely defines that instrument. An example would be say a guitar that starts at 20k as the very most high and 800hz as the very lowest low (not saying that this is accurate, but for the sake of explanation), then say the bass at say 5k as the highest and 300hz as the lowest. Of course there are your inbetweens settings for each. This example will get the bass off the guitar spectrum and vise versa giving a natural seperation that adds a fuller and more distinctive sound to the overall mix. Not every instrument is between 10k and 200hz as is the presets in my software for a new project.
Of course, I agree with all the above as well as far as reverb, but after listening to the tracks, there is some definite mixing boo boos. I am not saying that the above examples are accurate as far as settings go, because each instrument is radically different. However, if you use the same positioning and recording methods, the settings can be soewhat predictable between different songs.
Additionally, What you put in is for the most part what you get out! You have to capture not just a tone, but ambience qualitites as well. Some software lets you add some of this later.
My .02 cents
Tommy