"Reverb" hardly there

Jerry Eilander · Post by **Jerry Eilander** » 22 May 2010 2:40 am

Hi all
When I record on my” 16 track Akai recorder”,.
Everything is good, and it sounds great.
But when I burn it on a disk, the reverb seems to be a lot less than when recorded,
Also the Bass, don’t seem to come out as well, when recorded,
What is it, do I need a better CD burner .I tried different burning speeds, no different.
Any input
Thanks all, Cheers Jerry

Johan Jansen · Post by **Johan Jansen** » 22 May 2010 3:04 am

Hi Jerry,
it is possible that you monitor the output from the reverb and the bass seperate from what you send to the master-recordingoutputs
Check if all switches are in the same position and listen to the outputs that go into the CD-burner or whatever.
succes!
Johan

Larry Lorows · Post by **Larry Lorows** » 22 May 2010 3:04 am

Hi Jerry, I'm no expert, but I would guess that you need better play back speakers to use when you mix every thing down. What you're using now, is giving you a false impression of what you really have. Larry

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 22 May 2010 3:34 am

Larry has hit on what can happen if what you are listening to the mixdown with is bad or throwing you off. What you hear with headphones or with most PC speakers can be misleading.

I have a PC based recording system (using Sonar) and "studio monitor" speakers that I use for mixdown. But even with that it takes time and experience to know how to EQ everything. When I do a mixdown I also make a "test CD" that I play on various CD players including a portable (boombox), a car CD player and a stereo rack system. It can take several mixdowns/test CD's before I'm satisfied with the sound and do the "final mix".

The old "standard" was to mixdown so it sounds good on a cheap transistor radio, but that is not really the case today.

Greg Cutshaw · Post by **Greg Cutshaw** » 22 May 2010 5:18 am

I assume that your akai unit stores the recording as a pristine sounding .wav file. What format gets burnt to disk and at what bit rate? Is it possible that what gets burnt to the CD is a compressed file?

Alos, I'm sure yuo've noticed that you can put a lot of reverb on a steel or drum part and the reverb gets "eaten up" in the mix. I add what sounds like a lot of reverb to my steel solos, then when I play back the mix with drums, bass and rhythm parts, the reverb on the steel part sounds a lot lower than it did on the steel solo track. At that point I add more reverb to the steel part.

Poor high frequency response will kill the reverb on playback also. Again if the track burnt to CD is highly compressed, the reverb tail will suffer greatly.

Greg

Jerry Eilander · Post by **Jerry Eilander** » 22 May 2010 3:46 pm

Thanks all.
That will give me something to think about,
and yes ,I do run test CD,s, everytime I put the cd in the living room CD player, I get something els , the bigest thing being .that the reverb has deminist ,
so I use the ,Echo and Reverb very thick,when I do the Burn.
was hoping it would be a technical thing,
It does get recorded in ,wav file. 44. something
Thanks all greetings from "Down under"

basilh · Post by **basilh** » 3 Jun 2010 6:55 pm

But when I burn it on a disk, the reverb seems to be a lot less than when recorded,
Also the Bass, don’t seem to come out as well, when recorded,

You would appear to have a PHASE problem, or maybe your monitoring from the Akai has an Enhancer in the circuit.

Is the final CD still in stereo with the left and right channel instrument placements correctly positioned as in your Original monitor mix ?

Jerry Eilander · Post by **Jerry Eilander** » 3 Jun 2010 9:41 pm

Hi Basilh
I just had a good lissen to my CD,
And the stereo is gone as well.
now I,m getting exited ,because I think you got the answere
also I do put a little "Enhancer" in it,but on the instruments,
also I took the "Compression " down quite a bit.
thought that was the problem, it was partly
let me know about the "Stereo thing" please.
Thank you soooooo much ,
Cheers Jerry

basilh · Post by **basilh** » 4 Jun 2010 12:45 am

OK Jerry, as they say, "The Devil is in the detail"..

So you listen in stereo but the final track that's burned to CD is mono, somehow.

That would explain the loss of reverb. Normally Reverb, Chorus and most effects like that are in stereo, the accepted practise is to send to them in mono and the return is stereo, that creates the spread effect, BUT if the final overall mix is in mono ANYTHING that's panned left or right is diminished by 3db (A value of half).

Be aware that any instrument like tom toms or cymbals in the drum kit or acoustic guitars that are normally panned away from centre will also drop in perceived volume, BUT this is normal. Hit the mono button on your Hi Fi system whilst playing a commercial CD and you'll see what I mean..

You SHOULD be burning your CD's in stereo, so tell us HOW do you record the FINAL mix BEFORE burning ?
and how do you burn the CD, what outputs do you go from to get to the CD burner etc..
Name the models and make of the associated equipment, you say it's an Akai 16track, what model and from where on it's outputs are you monitoring and sending to the burner.. HOW can you burn at anything other than 1X ?
Where are the FINAL mixed down aif, or wav files located ?

Rick Campbell · Post by **Rick Campbell** » 4 Jun 2010 3:32 pm

I think Basilh is on the right track (no pun intended) First of all, it has nothing to do with the quality of your CD burner. It's digital so it should sound the same played back as it does recording.......... on the same system. When you go to different systems, as in your car, it will sound different. That's a monitoring problem and you have to either fix it or train your ears to compensate for it during the mixdown.

Anyway, fr0m what you describe, I don't think any of those things are your problem. I would bet you're monitoring through a different buss than you're recording. You've hearing the effects but recording a dry signal. I would check the Akia forums on the Internet and/or call their tech support. You're probably just a switch or mouse click away from having it right. Good luck!

Jerry Eilander · Post by **Jerry Eilander** » 4 Jun 2010 6:13 pm

hi all
I,m getting very close,
when I turn down the"Delay stereo" I,m getting full controle of the "Pan" again, that was way up high,
because I couldn,t hear the reverb very well ,that went up higher on each recording,
plus taking down the "Compression" also making the sound better,
I will check the "Buss". stuff.
I got a manuel for it, but its thicker than the Bible.
I had beter recordings done say 2 years ago than now.
guess I,m reading to much on how to record ,and should go back to basics,also I do burn in stereo. and in a "Wave'file, and the signal is coming out of ,Monitor output of the multi-track.into the Microphone input on the pc.
The burning program is called "Magic Music"
excelent as far as I,m concerned.
Basilh got me thinking. I will get there soon.
these are the specs of my machine, I had for 9 years
Akai DPS 16.
16\bit rate 44.1khz or non compressed 24-bit\96khz.
I,ve burnt it on my Home PC. and on my laptop, in my studio all the same,
think you are right Rick I,m just a click away,
Thank you all so much Cheers Jerry

George Wixon · Post by **George Wixon** » 5 Jun 2010 4:08 am

Jerry,
Can't help you out with your settings but, if you are using the mic input on your PC, The "mic input" is a MONO input. Your "line input" is stereo.
Basically what this means is that while you may have done your mix in stereo, when you take the output of that mix and put it into the mic input of the pc, the end result will be mono.
George

Jerry Eilander · Post by **Jerry Eilander** » 6 Jun 2010 2:45 am

And so we learn something new every day,
Wooooooouwwww,
Thank you so much

Keith Davidson · Post by **Keith Davidson** » 8 Jun 2010 4:30 am

Hey Jerry,

I take it you are using separate tracks for your instruments. If so you need to have an input and output for each track. These are usually set by clicking on each track and configuring the input and output for each track. The output should either be going to your soundcard (need a good one) or to an audio interface which will replace your soundcard.

Each output usually has an option of mono, stereo, stereo left, stereo right. You may want to check each one to make sure you are on stereo. Like George said, you need to have the input coming in stereo as well or you don't have a stereo track to begin with.

You also mentioned that the pan was too high? Do you mean it was panned too far to the left or right?

Don't forget to remove any silence from each track if you have that option, that will clean up any dead spots.

Are you volume leveling? You want to get each song the same volume for it's output so that you don't have to dive off the couch for the volume button when the next song is incredibly loud - been there done that and got that t-shirt!...lol

Jerry Eilander · Post by **Jerry Eilander** » 9 Jun 2010 10:40 pm

Hi, Keith
Thanks for the pointers,its been realy good.
so many little things ,I didn,t know
The pan wasn,t high ,the "Stereo Delay" was far to high,
Sorry about my "English grammar" I.m a Australian Dutch man. never had any schooling here,
Thanks so much,
Cheers from "Down under", Jerry