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ok guys i need help..i have a macbook 2.4 ghz 4meg ram logic pro 8 Apogeerosetta 800..and thousands more in gear..i still cant get the sound that i recorded through a Pro Tools hd3 system I'm stuck sending my tracks to a local studio and have them ran through his protool system to get them to have the transparncy and warmth i just cant get what am i missing do i need to upgrade to an external dual quadcore processors..like the Pro Tools has..my recording are good and clean and i have no problems with them its just that little extra I'm looking for..anyone who deals with Pro Tools HD system would no that little bit I'm talking about..or some 100 thousand dollar anolog mixer will give you..if i can figure out how to post a song of mine on here one mixed within my system and a Pro Tools system to show you the diffrence..its huge..same tracks no mixing just passed through his system and walah..any ideas..guys cause he won't tell me any tricks or secrets to help he likes the 150 bucks i pay him to do it..

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natural Wed, 10/29/2008 - 02:22

Ok- First off, take a breath and put in a period or comma every once in awhile. It's difficult to follow you when it's all run together.

2nd- Can't you take the tracks to the studio and watch what's going on, or is it something that you have to mail out?

3rd - There's enough discussions that seem to indicate that the same material recorded in PT sounds better than in Logic.
That being said, it's not logical that tracks recorded in Logic would improve simply by importing them to PT.

How are you suppling the tracks to the other studio? HD, DVD, cassette, etc?
If the studio is simply taking them off your HD and and bouncing them down in PT, then there's no Digidesign hardware in use. Actually, there's no hardware in use period.
Sound would not pass though a mixer, preamp, or fx rack to do this function.

Conclusion.
Either the studio is passing the audio through something (either hardware, or plugin) in which case the studio is not doing what you're paying them to do. (if, as you say, they are only supposed to pass it through PT unchanged)
Or, somewhere, somehow, you've given the other studio permission to do what ever was needed to improve the audio. In which case they are processing the tracks in some way.

We need to know a little more about the arrangement between you and the other studio before we can move on.

anonymous Wed, 10/29/2008 - 05:31

sorry, my bad. Im just a little frustrated with all this..

I send him my system file from the song.a dvd..logic. he has logic in his studio as well..he says that he just loads the files into his computer plays them from one system through his converters and his board them does his mastering checks the lavels cleans it up a little and sends it back..

he says my mixes are fine he can tell he can tell im still new at it but he says im going in the right derection.so with that said. im just on its got to be a hardware issue or maybe a plugin..that would give me a more analog feeling..more transparencey

i sent out my converter to get it checked..it came back clean no problem they change one plug..i make shure to only use the best cable and new battery when recording i have filter for mypower chords..
the diffrence being that my recording sounds like your standing at a wall
and his sounds like you can walk through that wall into another world.

its just the quality and the transperancy..would it maybe be worth it to get
apogee a/d16 and a/d16 i no this is the ultimate converter the same one he uses..or i no protools uses dual quad core cpu's in their converters maybe this is what does it..i just cant figure it out.

anonymous Wed, 10/29/2008 - 07:40

Sounds like he may be mastering it for you. Eq-ing it a tad maybe. Maybe adjusting some levels as well.

How good is your monitor system?

How long have you done this? Does he have more experience then you?

He could have some very expensive in/outboard mastering hard/software as well with the experience to use it.

I don't think pro-tools is the reason your tracks are sounding so much better after you send them out.

I would like to here a before after.

hueseph Wed, 10/29/2008 - 08:54

sadsound wrote: ..... plays them from one system through his converters and his board them does his mastering checks the lavels cleans it up a little and sends it back..

There's your answer. He masters your mix. I don't think that playing the audio through another stage of conversion necessarily has anything to do with it. It may, depending on what gear he's using. You mentioned HD3 but that still leaves out the preamps on his console and any eq from there. Those likely are a factor as well. The bottom line I think though is not just the gear he has but the experience and the room and monitoring system.

RemyRAD Wed, 10/29/2008 - 15:16

We are all professional cooks. We all have our 11 secret herbs & spices that we use. It doesn't matter what hardware nor software that we use. It's called technique, experience. Fully understanding one's tools. Not just having them. It's operator error in your case. Purchasing a race car doesn't make you Mario Andretti. It doesn't even make you Mario Andretti after driving it for a year.

I know plenty of people with degrees in music that have no technique. Perhaps not even any talent. Nobody can be good at everything. You may not be cut out for this kind of work? You've not listened to other recordings and tried to imitate what you've heard. It's the directions to Carnegie hall. Folks like you are always blaming it on the equipment. It ain't the equipment, I don't care what your friend is doing. You can obtain the same results in a hundred different ways. But you have to have the technique. You already have the tools. You wouldn't perform brain surgery on somebody would you? Of course not. But what if you have the right tools? Would you then perform brain surgery on somebody? Of course not. Not until you've learned everything about the tools and then learned everything about how to use the tools. And in what application. You wouldn't want to remove somebody's appendix with the tools designed for brain surgery. Are you understanding this analogy or is it nondigital enough for you?

I perform the best brain surgery with my Neve.
Ms. Remy Ann David

anonymous Wed, 10/29/2008 - 21:08

i have mackie monitors..i have all my walls treated. ive been doing this 4 about 4yrs compared to his 20 yrs.ok..but go to a friend of mine myspace and take a listen. http://www.myspace.com/tommymac

ok when you get their you should hear his band he recorded at traxeast in nj(protools hd3)...stop that music and scroll up under his picture there is a song called gone forever recorded on my friends protools le studio (frankensound studios)bolth are good studios but theres a huge diffrence in volume and transperncy.the le studio is a great recording but it sound week compared to the protool hd system. why do they get so much more headroom and transerancy,and overall warmth and color than the protools le or even my stepup.. ive done recording at many diffrent studio
some with protoolls and somewithout..you can always tell the diffrence between le and their hd system in a second.
even my software come with pro mixed songs..they are good mixes but still lack color volume...compared to protools hd i still say hardware

and to the guy that said i have the ferrari of recording gear its more like a cadilac..you get noticed and its a nice ride but its not no ferrari..lol

hueseph Wed, 10/29/2008 - 22:35

Loudness is not headroom. It's more a lack of headroom. What do you consider transparency? It's all in the ears man. 4 years? You're just getting your sea legs. How much of those four years has been spent behind the console? If you can't define where the "transparency" is coming from, you won't be able to get it out of your mix.

anonymous Thu, 10/30/2008 - 00:07

ok heres what im gonna do..im gonna make a myspace page and a youtube page and ill host an event. post four tracks that i recorded completely dry with nothing ill record them direct..ill give you you a refance song if anyone can get even close to what im looking for with what i recorded..and explain to me what they did. ill give them fifty bucks..call it a mix off if you will..if anyone is up for this let me no..it will be a 1 minute 30 sec sample: intro, verse, chorus, so everone can get a feeling for it i..you can add what ever you like but you have two explain it from extra..

sheet Sat, 11/01/2008 - 08:42

Mackie monitors are very picky about placement/room boundaries. They are not the most honest monitor in the world either. Having treated walls could mean nothing if your room's ratio is wrong, if you have the speakers in the wrong spot, etc. There are multi-million dollar rooms that have monitoring issues with +/-15dB! So make no assumptions.

Where are your recordings being captured? What mics are you using? How far away from the walls and ceiling are your instruments and mics? THIS is where the imaging and reality of your recording can be mucked up the most.

Digital will only relay what you are putting in. It is not like analog which has distortion, saturation, etc that makes us have the warm fuzzies. It is a cold mirror.

anonymous Tue, 11/04/2008 - 01:55

i finaly got my hands around an hd console and your all wrong. anyone that said it was me is retarded..an hd system does infact color clear and move frquencies to give you a better recording first i recorded through my le system then i recorded same track through an hd system and Of course it is, as this guy puts it.
"apples and oranges.because Le is host computer powered, HD is card powered, and can be run on the weakest of computers, as it does NOT rely on the computer to run the interface, only the core software. Not to mention the hardware blows doors on the Le junk. However it all comes with a pretty hefty pricetag that not everyone can afford. "

some peaple cant hear the diffrence but i can i new it wasnt me..

if you want to hear the tracks i did i laid them side by side and youll hear the diffrence just message me..

natural Tue, 11/04/2008 - 02:54

Well yes, but now you've changed ALL the parameters.
-In your original post, you said that you were using Logic 8 not PTLE

I explained that many people feels the PT sounds better than Logic. (LE OR HD) You seem to have now confirmed my point.

- In your original post you said that you recorded in Logic and then re-ran THOSE recorded tracks through a PT system with outboard mastering added.
- And now it sounds like you've recorded tracks separately into both LE and HD. (which is not the same experiment)

Again, no one is disputing that PTHD sounds better than Logic or PTLE.
PTHD is a pro system that delivers pro results.

What was being disputed earlier in this thread was that tracks recorded in LOGIC would somehow be improved by simply passing them through PT (without any further processing) as was originally stated in your 1st post.
We found this to be questionable and you confirmed that the other studio was indeed mastering your LOGIC tracks.

You simply can't change all the variables and argue that your original point was valid.

But I'm sure you are glad that you've upgraded to a pro system.

anonymous Tue, 11/04/2008 - 03:22

i run logic studio 8 and pro tools le through the same computer and came up with they bolth sound very similar although protools i like their plugins a little better but for sequencing i prefer logic.....both get blown away by protool hd and nuendo..

i made a track in logic 8 sequnceing synth on my computer..i ran my computer through protools hd system.. and wala its airy and free its hard to explain but it moves frequencies in a way thats pleasing to the ear...
find a local studio and go there check out a protools hd system..
once you sit behind one youll think of 50,000 reasons why you should spend 20,000.00 buck on a basic system..lol
what im saying may not pertain to the guys that love the anolog sound because this is diffrent..although logic and le sound very good pretty close to anolog..this is diffrent..

hueseph Tue, 11/04/2008 - 09:36

sadsound wrote: i finaly got my hands around an hd console and your all wrong. anyone that said it was me is retarded..an hd system does infact color clear and move frquencies to give you a better recording first i recorded through my le system then i recorded same track through an hd system and Of course it is, as this guy puts it.
"apples and oranges.because Le is host computer powered, HD is card powered, and can be run on the weakest of computers, as it does NOT rely on the computer to run the interface, only the core software. Not to mention the hardware blows doors on the Le junk. However it all comes with a pretty hefty pricetag that not everyone can afford. "

some peaple cant hear the diffrence but i can i new it wasnt me..

if you want to hear the tracks i did i laid them side by side and youll hear the diffrence just message me..

Better gear makes it easier to record a better track. That doesn't mean that you can't record a good track with cheaper gear. You have to work harder but it can still be done. When you did your experiment, did you use the same mic, console, preamp, plugins, outboard gear?

You're telling people with decades of experience compared to your four that they are all wrong. :roll:

anonymous Tue, 11/04/2008 - 21:29

OK HERE WHAT I DO: I RUN MY GUITAR AND AMP INTO DIRECT BOX THEN FROM DI INTO MY CONVERTER AND PRESS RECORD...DONE WE SWITCH CONSOLE MOVED MY CONVERTER TO HIS MACHINE AND PRESS RECORD NO EXTRA OUBOARD GEAR EXCEPT HIS MIX 24.. AND ALTHOUGH THEY ARE THE SAME HE AGREED MINE ARE LOSING SOMETHING...

i went back to the studio last night and we pick apart my system and came down to its a software/hardware issue...cause we set my converters to record 24/192 0r even 96khz and it seems that its still only recordeing 24/44khz OR 16 BIT. no matter what i do..and its giving the recording a down in quality..cause we set the hd conlsole down to 44khz and well it was still better than mine but closer.. ill try re installing the software tonight..and he told me to up the ram from 2 to 4 gig..

im going from what a guy with 40 plus yrs has to say..he thought it was the system cause he didnt think my computer was capaple of hi res.I have a 2.4 gig macbook not a macbook pro he thought they only came with 1.8ghz processors..and 1meg ram HE COULDNT FIGURE OUT HOW I WAS EVEN RUNNING THE SOFTWARE I WAS BECAUSE OF MY APPARENT SYSTEM..
anyway he called me yesterday after thinking about it for a while and told me to come back in..
we went through my whole computer and checked my converter.. he just kept saying something doesnt feel write he tried and came up with im not in that im not recording 24bit and if i am its very low... my recording arent bad they are just lacking a little extra..

i no what i hear before i record and it wasnt what i was getting..you all said it was me but i try to make shure i mix before i record(get the sound i want first)..i no what i heard before it went in and it wasnt coming out the same..it was close but it didnt seem as warm and friendly as what i was doing in the studio.

i new right away it was gear...i just been trying to figure out why his system was so much better..

it has to do with it doesnt rely on the host computer to run..it has it own processors..if anything i learn alot about my computer and my software..oh my computer is capable once i figure out the glitch sorry guys didnt mean to dis anyone..

but if i learned anything a protools system is definatly worth its wait in gold and that i love the digi 24 mix board too..cool stuff