Hi! Would like to update a bit of my music journey with the recording and production I have here. Have been spending one month on this track and finally got it done
Here is the background of the lyrics if the song interests you
Lovely guitar playing and sound, Vincent. I liked the arrangement and mix.
Is this an original song or a cover, not sure based on your description.
I noticed significant noise as the video ended and had been aware of it (or something) throughout. If it is throughout then I suggest you identify the source and try to eliminate/reduce when recording or use a noise filter, such as Waves X-Noise, to clean it up in the mixing.
Thank you David, it is a lovely cover song dedicated to my grandparents. Really glad that you enjoyed it.
There is some issues with my Rode NT2-A condensed mic. It has some significant self noise when I was doing the recording. Cleaned it up with iZotope plugins but the noise shows up after I mastered the track (by means of raising gain)
After some googling I suspected that my phantom power unit (Focusrite 2i2) might be the culprit behind. Well I willl sort it out when I am working on the next song project =) As simple as purchasing better music gears haha
You could be right that the source of the noise is the 2i2, Vincent, as I think the Rode mics are pretty good.
That said, disdappointing that iZotope tools not delivering a better result. Are you using iZotope-RX? Given my experience using Waves X-Noise, I would expect you to be able to take care of that noise, even when amplifying on the master. Maybe you are not using all the tools at your disposal effectively?
I did check the YT Stats for Nerds and notice that you have are a mere 0.1dB below the norm. I’m not sure how you are going about amplifying on the master but you could ease off a little. I think anything between -6 and -3dB below the norm is quite OK. You may also be impacting the sound quality and dynamic range if hitting the master hard with a compressor or limiter.
And while on this subject, do you turn on the True Peak feature when working with the limiter, compressor, or loudness meter? Good idea to do that to ensure that you don’t get clipping between samples.
Thank you for your suggestions! Yup, I am using iZotope-RX. I guess it takes some time to learn how to use these plugins effectively
Use the vanilla loudness meter on Cubase and it would show me the True Peak.
I think none of the brilliant EQ or compression tricks could save a bad recording T.T So it ought to be better to tackle the source of the problem itself.
Well technical issues aside, I need to re-think and re-plan how I approach song learning, guitar learning and eventually producing songs.
I think my next major focus is on people, to gather and grow my YouTube audience with the tools and ideas I have. And fixing and patching the “leaking holes” And bringing the best music I could to everyone =]
Amazing playing Vincent, most enjoyable. I red about the Shuidiao Getou melody and cí style poems, very interesting. Also thoughtful of you to dedicate song to your grandparents .
As for the noise, I was listening through my computer speaker but didn’t catch anything. There is something around 3:52 mark when the “ambient howling” is being cut out, I assume this is the problem. I initially thought this is some ambient wind in the background. No idea what this is, if there is a noise coming from the mic it is consistent throughout whole piece (background hiss). I’m using unexpensive Scarlet Solo and Shure SM81 mic and never experienced such problem. Perhaps it is worth checking the cable?
Hi Radek! Really glad that you have enjoyed the song
I think I should do so, making sure the cables are properly connected and not tangling before recording. It seems like firmware issue to me but I will try to meddle it with some other ways that I could have missed out. Thank you Radek!
Hello Vincent, one thing I love about this community, is the immense variety of musical styles I come across. And your songs do definitely add to this variety .
This was some really impressive playing . The time and effort you’ve put into it, absolutely paid off.
Thanks a lot for sharing .