Another thing that could help with better sound is your cables. rca, xlr, usb, firwire, etc. Typical store bought down right cheap cables can actually ruin the overall sound.

Before investing heavily in other gear, I would start with cables first. Behinger works fine. We use their products in live sound applications quite often, and it does get the job done. It may not be the Rolls Royce of gear, but it works.

i agree on cables, somtimes the jack is losy and you get noises and my opinion about behringer is what it has been being my opinion for all this time. Works fine specially for it's cost.

About wires gold cables are the best, but obviously aren't worth for the improvement they involve.

Analog sidechain

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lets start with the easiest and cheapest improvement - do you have your speakers placed correctly? Ideally they should be at ear level, and for an equilateral triangle with the 2 speakers and your head.

Are your needles in decent condition? Are running your levels not too high? ie not always in the red.

After those sort of things you'd be looking at spending money. Better soundcard if using the computer as a source, or for recording. Better monitors. The behringers are very good for the price, but spending more will move it to another league

Don't forget the ponies

quote:

Originally posted by djkatmaus Another thing that could help with better sound is your cables. rca, xlr, usb, firwire, etc. Typical store bought down right cheap cables can actually ruin the overall sound. Before investing heavily in other gear, I would start with cables first. Behinger works fine. We use their products in live sound applications quite often, and it does get the job done. It may not be the Rolls Royce of gear, but it works.

Dude, the only difference between cheap cables and expensive cables is the price.

There will be no difference in sound quality no matter what cables you use.

This has been tested to death (deaf).

Love how the serious input continues, even though there hasn't been a single response from the OP since they started this thread.

This thread is now about llamas:



Of course llamas only work well when outfitted with Monster Cables.

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quote:

Originally posted by chewy dragee Dude, the only difference between cheap cables and expensive cables is the price. There will be no difference in sound quality no matter what cables you use. This has been tested to death (deaf).

Actually there is a difference. Trust me. It's in the quality build of the cable. A store bought Hosa or the cheapy ones that are supplied with gear (red and white connector ones) aren't gonna have the quality of a Van Damm, or a Mogami.

If you'd like, I could provide you with charts which show resistance and noise ratio.

it won't make a difference when you are broadcasting your mix at 192 mp3 format. A wire is a wire is a wire. SPending more than 20$ on a cable is a little silly especially for this purpose.

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quote:

Originally posted by Mad for Brad it won't make a difference when you are broadcasting your mix at 192 mp3 format. A wire is a wire is a wire. SPending more than 20$ on a cable is a little silly especially for this purpose.

It's not the broadcast of the audio you need to worry about. It's the noise that is associated with the material and build of the cable. How well the cable can reduce unwanted noises? I've listened to many recordings before where the audio had anamolies due to poor cable designs. You can't always distinguish from the human ear aspect, but when you run it through analyzing sources, you can see how much noise is introduced, before the audio level is present.

Digital cables (AES, IEC), I have found to be slightly better than their normal counterparts. But I've also found several cheaply made digital cables. Mostly because of the quality build. Lightpipe or Firewire I haven't seen much. But I have run across several poorly designed USB.

i could understand if you were running a 20 metre cable while recording a flute but dance music is pretty loud enough that the noise floor is really irrelevant. And if you really think you are getting noise which I doubt it, you can always easily cancel those types of continuous artefacts out with ease. YOu realize how much interference it would require to induce noise in a cable? The jacket is all that really matters. Wire is a wire. The physics is rather simple.

http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/article/1790/
http://audiojunkies.com/forum/blog/...able-myths.html

What do you think the average dynamic range of EDM is ? Shit most of the stuff I hear has an rms value of -6 dBfs. There is no way that noise will interfere with a signal that hot.

There are links around concerning how to master a mix. I would try to automate the volumes as much as you can, if the offending audio is part of the "mix", compression, rather multiband compression can help take the overall level without totally killing the bass. Again you cam automate these plugins on and off for when you need them.

I would also use a MB compressor as a general EQ setting for the entire mix just to give a slight coherency to the entire thing. But be very subtle. OF course if you don't know what these tools are , I would experiment alot before as they can royally fuck up your mix.

I suppose the trick is to isolate the problems as much as you can. If it is just one track that has blaring highs, EQ that portion, not the whole file. The quality of mastering on tracks has really gone down so some people might say just leave it, I don't see the problem if you need to adjust a few things to make things more cohesive.

The more careful you are, the less work you will have to do. Also, check the rms level of each track prior to mixing so you have an idea of what to expect.

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Last edited by Looney4Clooney on Feb-12-2011 at 00:06