Improving an old recording

[Sam Houston]

This is an older song of mine. But I recently re-recorded all of it using Audacity 2.0.5. Everything on it is done by only me. You can get some very cool recordings with Audacity!!

http://www.reverbnation.com/samhoustonf ... emory-down

[kozikowski]

What's magic about listening? I get a loading circle animation forever. Koz

[Trebor]

What's magic about listening? I get a loading circle animation forever. Koz

The Reverbnation link worked for me. Musically it's very good, only problem is sounds like compressor-pumping : ( should apply compressor to each track individually rather than to the final mix ).

Koz if you have something in your browser that blocks Adobe Flashplayer or JavaScript then that stops the ReverbNation online player playing.

[Robert J. H.]

Sure, it works.
At least the voice should be without pumping. Reminds me of underwater audio where some words are swallowed by the waves.
Nice performance anyway.

[Trebor]

... Reminds me of underwater audio...

Just noticed that it only contains frequencies below 10KHz , which partially explains the underwater quality.
Possibly a sample rate of 22KHz has been accidentally applied , maybe via a too low a bit-rate if it's an mp3,
( using too low a mp3 bit-rate can force a lower sample-rate to be applied when the track is saved as mp3 ).

[Robert J. H.]

10 kHz frequency range is enough for my mediaeval ears. It is rather the fuzziness, that is disturbing for me.
I would separate the instruments/vocals in the spectrum as well as in the pan position.
Although the reverb enhances the stereo field, it is to vague and blured in my opinion. The drums should anyway be treated separately (like all tracks in fact).

latest-reverb.mp3

(248.16 KiB) Downloaded 47 times

There are some nice ballads in the playlist that do profit from the dreaminess of the (guitar) effects.

[Sam Houston]

I appreciate all the feedback (no pun intended ). I'll readjust and see what I can do.

[Sam Houston]

Trebar....what did you do to help the vocals in the .flac file?

And, just so you guys know, I did compress each track. But, I also edited the exported MP3 and compressed it again because the MP3 volume wasn't where it should be as compared to the .AUP file. In the .AUP file it was just below clipping. Any suggestions?

[Trebor]

Trebar....what did you do to help the vocals in the .flac file?

I did it manually with the envelope tool : where the the vocal was suddenly too loud I made it quieter ...

Envelope tool Demo.gif (418.34 KiB) Viewed 1429 times

( that manual process would take ages to apply to the entire track).

The frequency content on your track only goes up to 10KHz, 16KHz is typical on ReverbNation tracks, the default on Audacity is a sample-rate of 44.1KHz which equates to 22KHz. It looks like the sample-rate is being reduced somewhere , possibly when you make the mp3 if the bit-rate of the mp3 is set low , ( the mp3 bit-rate should be set at256kbps for stereo music at a sample rate of 44.1KHz).

Your track has very large amounts of infrasound, this low frequency sound is not audible but distorts the waveform and causes problems when processing the waveform, (e.g. applying compression). Before you process a track apply a high-pass filter like the one shown below to remove infrasound.

Equalization to remove infrasound.gif (25.32 KiB) Viewed 1431 times

No-infrasound-in-Audacity.xml

A preset for import into Audacity's equalizer, to remove infrasound

(187 Bytes) Downloaded 52 times

And, just so you guys know, I did compress each track. But, I also edited the exported MP3 and compressed it again because the MP3 volume wasn't where it should be as compared to the .AUP file. In the .AUP file it was just below clipping. Any suggestions?

On the track I captured from the ReverbNation player looked like extreme values of compression were used : the envelope was horizontal. If you are going to use compression on the final mix try a lower compression ratio than you were using. Extreme settings for compression can be responsible for pumping the level of the vocal up and down

[kozikowski]

"Sticks and Stones" is my favorite so far. It has a real voice and relatively little processing.
Is one of those cuts s***-kickin', line-dance music?

You need:

A. A producer.
B. Good speakers.

The tonal balances are so out of whack I'm goin' with you can't hear what you're doin'. The bass line for "Sticks and Stones" is like somebody dumped a pint of maple syrup on it. Cal Tech gave it a 1.8.

Koz