Fixing A Messy Recording?
 

Hi all!

I recently joined up with a college partner to work on a music production project together - we have to fully record, mix and master an EP. He insisted that we use the 3 songs he recorded by himself earlier in the year, with a band I had nothing to do with.

After listening to the recordings, I find it a bit messy - there's a ton of bleed, and the mics weren't set up properly. On top of that, the vocals and guitar are slightly distorted on all tracks. I'm considering using sound replacer on the drum parts that need it, but obviously that's not going to solve everything.

There's no chance of bringing in the band to re-record their parts or otherwise record over their parts. I know the only true way to fix this is to get it right at the source, but in this case that's not possible.

So using plugins and mixing alone, is there anything I can do to make this sound less messy? I've already done the obvious things like putting expanders on the tracks that need it, but as far as the distortion goes, I'm a bit lost.

Let me know if there's any info I've left out!

Thanks in advance,
Adam

Re: Fixing A Messy Recording?
 

Take advantage of the distortion and make it part of the aesthetics of the project...you could even add more...

Re: Fixing A Messy Recording?
 

I guess that's possible but I wonder if I'd get away with it. This is a college project so I'll have to make sure my lecturers don't realise. It's a jazz band with a hint of gospel so I don't think distortion mixes too well.

Re: Fixing A Messy Recording?
 

It's difficult to say without listening, AFAIK there's no way to get rid of distortion, you can mask it or use it to your advantage. I would start mixing and see what happens, high and low pass filters can help, use transparent processing instead of character emulations. Sorry for not being of much help...experiment, use your ears, try to enjoy it and see how far you can go.

Check out a band called The Bad Plus, maybe that gives you some ideas...

Re: Fixing A Messy Recording?
 

There is a plugin by Legendary Audio called ICE.
While by no means will it "fix" distorted tracks, it goes a long way toward cleaning things up.
I demoed it and it took me a week and a half to kind of figure it out, but I was able to save an entire album with distortion on a lot of tracks.
I haven't used it in a year, but after I finally figured it out, it worked really well.
From what I could figure out, it seems to "phase out" certain frequency ranges so there are no artifacts or weirdness.
(I know....I'm about to be piled on by a lot of people here, but giving it a try can't hurt.)

As far as bleed across tracks....Who cares.
You are going to end up making them all bleed into one another anyhow.

Just augment the drums with samples...don't replace them.

Mics set up wrong? Start mixing, bring tracks in and out and then assess that.

Find out what's good and work from there.
Starting with what's bad will just drive you nuts.

Re: Fixing A Messy Recording?
 

Have you checked the phase relationships between the mics? You can use tools like soundRadix auto-align or waves inphase to improve your phase relationships.

Also mess around with panning.

Hadn't heard of ICE but izotope rx de-clip can also help reduce distortion.

Mostly you gotta love the bleed and don't eq in solo.


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Re: Fixing A Messy Recording?
 

This!