The island of Mystery

    Sounds Great!! Very cool.

    I'm new to recording (making my first steps.. testing stuff).. I also use the Kemper profiles and effects only (no post stuff) and all Toontracks products and the mixed results are not so good yet..


    Since I know nothing about mastering I'm trying to do it using their EZMix Mastering presets but not satisfied yet.. It's like the guitar parts doesn't sound clear and defined like in your songs (not even talking about taming the palm mutes and the overall balance with the heavy guitars).


    Can you share any tips about your mixing/mastering process?

    Thanks!

    Hi there, thanks for checking out my tune and thanks for the great comments.


    I’ve been recording ideas for a while now and to be honest it was all about finding what worked for me and what didn’t over that period of time. I think every time I did some recording it sounded a bit better than the last so definitely record as often as you can. I’m no producer by a lot shot but this is what works for me:


    I always record left and right guitar tracks and pan them about 90% left and right. Guitar tones that you rehearse with that do sound great to play might not record as well as you hope so don’t be afraid to tweak your tones for recording. For Rhythm guitars I generally take the gain down a bit and add more mids as they stand out in the mix better if they are slightly brighter. I sometimes record a third guitar track with much less gain, more of a bright crunch, I’ll pan it about 20% right and drop the volume by about 3-4. If you blend this with the panned guitars you can get a much wider and guitar rich recording. I write lots of tunes with clean or crunchie verse parts then use more gainie open tones for the chorus’s To make them sound bigger. I often add a melody track which I double track with an octave of the original part.


    In terms of mastering, I first make sure that the initial mix sounds balanced. If I spend time going over this first the master definitely doesn’t need as much tweaking. I add EZmix to my master fader output along with a limiter. I use the EZmix master1 preset and dial both knobs in at around 10-11 o’clock.


    Some of my favourite Kemper profiles are the Rhett Shull lightning plus profile, GGD all the gains Gemini rhythm patch and for leafs I use the STL Angel Vivaldi 6505 lead patch. I use all the profiles for recording.


    Hope this helps, just let me know if you have any more questions.


    Thanks again.

    Thank you very much! I'll definitely try those ideas.

    Maybe it's really too much gain for recording (or for the EZmix mastering to work well) so i'll try to reduce it.


    Which volume (range) do you use for the tracks while mixing (before the master bus EZmix mastering)?

    I asked it in the past in Toontrack's forum and was suggested to use -5 to -2 below 0 for the mastering to work well.

    Quote from Zenmaster

    Thank you very much! I'll definitely try those ideas.

    Maybe it's really too much gain for recording (or for the EZmix mastering to work well) so i'll try to reduce it.


    Which volume (range) do you use for the tracks while mixing (before the master bus EZmix mastering)?

    I asked it in the past in Toontrack's forum and was suggested to use -5 to -2 below 0 for the mastering to work well.

    At this point all the producers will probably tell me i'm doing it wrong but yes, I generally keep all my volumes between 0 & -5db. Generally I believe you are supposed to allow -15db for mixing so that you give yourself plenty of headroom. The more tracks you add the more gain staging you get, this pushes up the overall output of the track and sends it into clipping so it's all about balancing your volumes.


    I use a simple Presonus Audiobox iTwo interface, which has a clipping indicator that flashes red when the signal is too hot and it clips (distorts). I keep it in the green for recording so i'm not overloading it, I do this by simply reducing the input volume of the interface and/or turning the kemper volume down. One other that causes clipping even at lower volumes is the Bass frequency on heavier guitar tones. Super heavy palm mutes will cause clipping so initially when I got the Kemper I had to tweak some of my heavier tones to tame the Bass frequency so it wasn't flubby when recorded. Primarily I did this with minor tweaks to the 'definition' settings. Sometimes depending on the tone I have to cut the bass frequency using the high and low pass filters. Once you have done this and found a tone that sounds great and records well I generally save it as a recording profile for easy reference later. I also try and refrain from changing my interface input volume and Kemper output volume settings once I've got a recording tone that I like. That way all your future recordings will be the same without having to remember what you did last time.


    One last thing. As well as your EZmix plug in on the output fader always have a limiter plug in also, this stops any stray gain staging from ruining your mix/master by limiting the signal volume so that it doesn't clip.


    As I say, a real producer would probably have allot to say about my method but as far as recording demo tracks at home this works for me and sounds great to me ears.