Based on the picture (I don't wanna watch it. Is it as bad I think it'll be?) it looks like it was setup to be filmed, and not how it was when they tracked it.

just listen to the first 15 seconds which is only piano.

I think there's an annoying gate on the overheads with too fast an attack time.

It's been a long time for me: DC, could you confirm or refute that? It's most noticeable at the death.

To answer your question Rothko, if you are a noob as u say, you can learn, but it will be very time consuming to do so. It depends what you want to do with it. That recording is noticeably amateur but that kind of thing might be ok for your purposes. I'd say if you want something decent, and that recording could be decent for demos or YouTube stuff, then get into a studio. But if you can't afford that then you can still make something useable at home if you just want to have your music available digitally online.

I'm on crappy headphones, but I don't like the overall mix when it's a full band. I do agree about the cymbals. I don't like the drum sound overall actually. I think it might be a virtual kit and they used the real kit for the video. Same with the piano, but I like the piano sound. I'd need to hear the actual CD of the song to know for sure. The acoustic is through a DI, not mic'd, I bet. The bass (not tracked well) and kick don't lock like they should as well. The piano, acoustic and vocals all sound decent tonally. The auto-tune foulup at 4:28 makes me GRRRRRRRR a bit. That damn plugin was in the signal path.

It sounds like fairly skillful amateurs. And not one shot in that vid is when they tracked it, which is pretty obvious. Nice idea, but they should've put some work into that aspect, because that is what they were going for, I'm sure.

People that smile like that when they sing make me want to rip out their voicebox

Yeah I'm also on crappy headphones. I suspected the bass was floating around in the sewer and the kick pisses me off too; it's kind of poking its head out like one of those ****ing puppets you have to hit with a mallet when it comes out thd hole. Don't know about the virtual kit but you'd imagine they'd get a better sound than that if they did use one.

If the drums sat in the mix like they should, it would be easy to tell. I'll leaning towards live drums tracked poorly now. They had to hide it somehow.

Lol, well I can't hear any of that stuff. I just listen and think that it's a pretty good recording. If I could get my tracks to sound that good I would be ecstatic.

I think that what I'll do for now is a combination of just recording directly from my electric piano along with waiting until I learn more about fixing the acoustics in a room, etc.

My first attempts at recording were a freaking embarrassment. It can take awhile to learn about recording and how to get good sounds, especially when you never heard what a well recorded instrument sounds like by itself. You always hear the mix of everything together.

Once you get there, then you have to know how the instruments go together in a mix, and take frequency and placement into consideration. A lot of my old students would place all of their mics where they were taught, without thinking about the sound of it. Then they'd try and fix it in the mix. That's all part of the process, and eventually you just "get it". Drums are my favorite thing to track (great drummer required) but the setup and mic placements is insane. Getting sounds and dealing with the phasing issues can take 1/2 a day.

Just keep doing it and developing your ear. With the technology and resources that are readily available, the process can be significantly faster.

Nice post.

Just to continue.

Listening and analysing exactly what you can hear is crucial to the learning process. Compare different recordings and try to picture how they have been created. When you can draw the image in your head, it's easier to define some kind of sound you're aiming for; then you need to know the technicalities of how it mixes to create a good recording. The more you listen and analyse, the more you'll develop an understanding of what you need to do, be that intuitively, or otherwise.

I think you need to have a pretty deep understanding of sound properties and its behaviour to get good at recording and mixing. It equips you with more control over the ever growing list of tools available in the studio.

I surrender. I'll just book studio time.

If you have to record only one voiceover better do so! But if you plan to do a lot of speech recordings (and even earn some money with it?) than you may invest some time and money. But it is not only the mic you need for good voice sound, you need a "professional" audio interface in first place! After that you should buy some solid mic, good audio program and invest a bit in a recording place (room) as well!:P

Welcome to the club!:P

Has anybody tried those microphones that plug into your iphone?