Why does my quality sound poor?

G

G-Prynce

New member
I record acapella (don't know if I should or shouldn't), and the recording by itself sounds fine. No bad quality, everything sounds great. When I throw the acapella over the beat however, the quality drops so much that it sounds distorted. I use Audacity for it btw. Any help would be appreciated. Also, do you think I should just record straight onto the beat instead of throwing the acapella over?

Prynce
 
Too little information, and probably some misuse of nomenclature, means that the problem isn't clear.

Are you saying you do a vocal take without any accompaniment and then drop that onto a backbeat? Are you recording a choir (a capella means literally 'in the chapel style', and indicates no accompaniment).

Your best bet would be to detail your recording process from start to finish with as much detail as possible on how you're setting up your inputs, precisely what's happening while you record your vocal takes, etc.
 
G-Prynce said:
I record acapella (don't know if I should or shouldn't), and the recording by itself sounds fine. No bad quality, everything sounds great. When I throw the acapella over the beat however, the quality drops so much that it sounds distorted. I use Audacity for it btw. Any help would be appreciated. Also, do you think I should just record straight onto the beat instead of throwing the acapella over?

Prynce
Click to expand...

so you record with no backing playing? that is what a capella means in this context, though the formal meaning is "in the chapel style" meaning no backing ever, i.e the vocals only with no accompaniment

for your recording and mixing process move to reaper (never ending full featured demo, so whilst not free, definitely will not stop working if you cannot afford the unbelievably low license of $60)

once there get voxengo span and veoxengo msed (also free)

span is a complete metering toolkit - it gives you master levels as well as a spectrum view, RMS numbers, clipping, digital overs, etc, so you can use it on individual channels or on your master channel

msed is a set of tools for M/S processing (mid/side) if dropping your vocals over the top of pre-recorded backings you may need to use this tool (MSED) subtly to scoop out a hole in the center of the mix

add msed to the processing chain for the backing
adjust the center level down by 1dB
if you are still not getting it to work adjust it down 2dB

with your vocal make sure that you are not trying to amplify it - if you are then this is where the distortion is being introduced

you may also need to address your monitoring levels - see this very recent post for more details https://www.futureproducers.com/for...y-studio-monitors-mixing-506090/#post49924919
 
uhh..so you're recording the vocal and it sounds clean by itself until you drop it in with the backing beat?

It is just me or is this an obvious frequency overlapping problem and nothing else..all it sounds like is he's dropping in his vocal which is probably taking up everything from 200hz+ into a backing beat and probably has nothing EQed = distortion and shitty sound quality.

Op are you mixing the vocal into the beat or no?
 
KODID said:
uhh..so you're recording the vocal and it sounds clean by itself until you drop it in with the backing beat?

It is just me or is this an obvious frequency overlapping problem and nothing else..all it sounds like is he's dropping in his vocal which is probably taking up everything from 200hz+ into a backing beat and probably has nothing EQed = distortion and shitty sound quality.

Op are you mixing the vocal into the beat or no?
Click to expand...

You're probably right, yeah. I haven't EQ'ed any of my vocals since I don't know how. (Yeah, I'm a beginner when it comes to this kinda stuff). And all I'm doing is throwing my recording straight over the beat. No EQ, nothing. Just pushing it into place and that's it. Any tips to get it to sound better? It's seriously frustrating bro.

Oh, and by a capella I more or less meant this: Via my headphones I play the beat (instrumental comes from other source) and record my lyrics whilst flowing to the beat. After that I just throw it over the beat and that's it. Which is the reason it sounds so crap.
 
And even without taking EQ into the question, I'm guessing both the vocal and the (apparently ready-made) beat are probably way too loud to just fit together.
 
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