KVR Audio

mehrdad.sedghi · Post by **mehrdad.sedghi** » Wed May 23, 2018 5:50 am

Hi, this is Mehrdad.
I use :
SoundCard: Focustrite 2i2
Mic: Audio technica At2020
DAW: Fl Studio 12(windows)
Monitoring: Krk VXT6
Headphone: Beyerdynamic Dt880 pro

When i finish a song i hear a difference in quality and clearity of my song in comparison with Pro's.Pros song is much more fat without harshness especially in presence,energy and fattness of vocal.

#Someone tells me your mic is not good enough for a man vocalist, change in to TLM 103 with a Preamp(twin 710)and get that fat vocal.
#Someone tells me buy UAD apallo twin USB3 and enjoy the quality.
#Someone tells me to should change your DAW into a original Cubase 9.5.

#Someother tells me UAD plugin is the key.
#And finally one of my friend says :
Are you sure you have enough knowledge of mixing and mastering!?

Whats your idea?
You guys have much more experience, what should i do to make better songs?

resurrection · Post by **resurrection** » Wed May 23, 2018 6:42 am

The KRK and 880 have vastly different frequency responses, so you should be hearing your tracks in two different ways.

For vocal double tracking would make fat. Other than that, Soundgoodizer, Sausage Fattener, and similar, would be your starting points.

Fat without harshness - use some tube eq's and compressors.

Yes, knowledge is somewhat important in all this.

Zexila · Post by **Zexila** » Wed May 23, 2018 7:29 am

Ears, knowledge, monitoring, room, in that order, plugins are last few percent.

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Wed May 23, 2018 9:20 am

mehrdad.sedghi wrote:When i finish a song i hear a difference in quality and clearity of my song in comparison with Pro's.Pros song is much more fat without harshness especially in presence,energy and fattness of vocal.

The definition of a professional is someone who does something for a living. That usually means they're doing it day in day out, constantly. And that means that they build experience. And pragmatism.

It takes a lot of time to learn a skill, and even longer to master it.

Its not about the tools.

#Someone tells me your mic is not good enough for a man vocalist, change in to TLM 103 with a Preamp(twin 710)and get that fat vocal.
#Someone tells me buy UAD apallo twin USB3 and enjoy the quality.
#Someone tells me to should change your DAW into a original Cubase 9.5.
#Someother tells me UAD plugin is the key.

Someone will always be insisting that everyone else should use their favourite toys. But that's bullshit, people just desparately looking to validate their choices.
Tools are not skills.

#And finally one of my friend says :
Are you sure you have enough knowledge of mixing and mastering!?

what should i do to make better songs?

These are really two different things. But in both cases, practice and learn. And be prepared to fail, because the analysis of failed work leads to improvement.

lfm · Post by **lfm** » Wed May 23, 2018 9:21 am

I watched a lot of Dave Pensado and intereviews with pro's.
http://www.pensadosplace.tv/

In the end each episode is batters box where they talk about vocals, bass, stereobus and various things - apart from interview itself.

Things that astound is your realize the amount of work for a certain mix. I thought spending a week, really fine tuning this and that was a lot for a song.

Then I listened to an interview with Max Martin producer, and he talked about a month on a Britney Spears mix etc.

So I think mixing and arranging things so there is air, and not just stacked everything on top from start.

I think most of us lack mixing skills - and don't put enought attention to details.

About gear - shit in, shit out - is true of course.
The focusrite gear I've had and tried - all good enough preamps.
Harshness and fattness - could be part of choice of gear - or good plugins.
I heard about indvidual UAD plugins that get a lot of praise in comparison with other brands. I have not made the leap, and at interviews with Dave Pensados it does not come up that often, like it's a must.

About energy and presence, I'm thinking performance more than anything.
Are the goose bumps there etc - then the rest can be as crappy as anything - it will always hit the listener.

I listened to a lot of interviews with Dave Grohl, both about Nirvana days and FooFighters. He emphasize performance more than anything else. He even meant that you should hear it's people playing, not being perfect and flawless.

legendCNCD · Post by **legendCNCD** » Wed May 23, 2018 10:45 am

Only way is to do it more and learn it/your own sound, its mostly in the sound selection and mixing IMHO. Not so much in mastering

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Wed May 23, 2018 10:52 am

Wait, three duplicate threads for the exact same question?

No. Dont do that. Ive requested a moderator merge these.

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 4#p7084164
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 5#p7084145

rod_zero · Post by **rod_zero** » Wed May 23, 2018 6:19 pm

1.- Knowledge
2.- Practice
3.- Vocal technique
4.- Mic, they do have different character and some are better for some voices than others, you would have to try a few to select what you need and like.
5.- Preamp, they do sound different but it is more about which do you like, many of them are very transparent (as the ones included in interfaces) so really not a great issue
6.- Plugins (bu you have to know how to use them)
7.- DAW (and not to respect to sound but workflow).
7.- Interface, it has to work well. Differences is sound is minimal.

vurt · Post by **vurt** » Wed May 23, 2018 8:38 pm

knowledge is power.
power corrupts.

although, in this case, knowledge of what you are doing is the main tool in your arsenal. eg a great engineer could make a more basic set up sound great, but a shitty engineer wont make a million dollar studio sound any better than a free daw on an old windows 7 pc.

Unaspected · Post by **Unaspected** » Wed May 23, 2018 10:45 pm

whyterabbyt wrote:
mehrdad.sedghi wrote:When i finish a song i hear a difference in quality and clearity of my song in comparison with Pro's.Pros song is much more fat without harshness especially in presence,energy and fattness of vocal.
The definition of a professional is someone who does something for a living. That usually means they're doing it day in day out, constantly. And that means that they build experience. And pragmatism.

It takes a lot of time to learn a skill, and even longer to master it.

Its not about the tools.

It's not all about the tools. They have to factor into the end result otherwise we wouldn't have favourites. Though, choosing the right tools falls under knowledge and experience.

Simply upgrading your gear won't necessarily improve your sound. Maybe with the exception of microphones - though you have to factor in the live room and the abilities of both the performer and recording engineer.

Hermetech Mastering · Post by **Hermetech Mastering** » Sat May 26, 2018 1:37 pm

You can buy more gear but you can't buy "pro". That comes with EXPERIENCE and has very little to do with gear. Put the 10,000 hours in.

Stupid American Pig · Post by **Stupid American Pig** » Thu May 31, 2018 4:48 am

Hermetech Mastering wrote:You can buy more gear but you can't buy "pro". That comes with EXPERIENCE and has very little to do with gear. Put the 10,000 hours in.

pretty much this. The fact that pros use "pro" gear is more a correlation than causation. If you do something day in day out, you may as well use nice gear for the task. Sit a seasoned pro down in a bedroom studio and said person still makes something that sounds good. Also important to play to the strengths of your gear. Dont try to record an orchestra if all you have is a cassette tape recorder and radio shack mic. But do take that same combination and make some lo-fi goodness. If you want to record that orchestra, hire one and a nice studio that has all of the logistical requirements to adequately record it. Dont focus so much on any one piece of gear. We live in amazing times that we can buy really good gear for reasonable prices. Making pragmatic choices about where your studio is going will help you buy smarter gear.

upgrade to pro level