[robertwill]

Writing and recording music for me was just a whim that I did on my desk for fun. I used old portable cheap headphones as a microphone and plugged directly into my desktop. Then I used Audacity program to record. I deleted all files and just kept the final version. These versions, sound ok, but have some hiss but the worst part is they sound like the frequency response is very narrow compared to professional recordings. Maybe that's not what it is but it sounds like if a good recording is from 20Hz to 20,000Hz. My recording are like 500Hz to 5000HZ.

Regardless is there anyway to make my recording sound professional. Such as running them through some kind of software? I ran one through Dolby noise reduction online program but the end result was worse. The hiss is gone but recording sounds "stripped" and "wobbly". It's far worse than the original version. Is there anything I can do to make them sound full and lush, like good recordings do? Or should I rerecord with good equipment?

[pompeyjazz]

Record with good equipment

[robertwill]

Yes, but is there a way to improve poor quality to good quality once it is recorded?

[pompeyjazz]

Poor quality is poor quality. You can’t polish a turd. I already recommended what you should do in another post. I.E buy an audio interface and a microphone

[cowparsleyman]

@robertwill - As @pompeyjazz says, if the source recording is rubish, you can't make it sound high quality, although I've certainly applied various techniques over the years to mitigate this.

Example 1 - Poor quality stem but a fantastic take - I had a fantastic qulaity stem from a vocalist mate of mine, it was perfect, but a lot of noise and some strange frequencies as it was recorded on an iphone as a demo take, fortunately there was a lot going on behind the Vocal in the finished song, so you can't hear it, it's called "Losing Myself"


Example 2 - Loads of room noise, and a fantatic take - This was a fellow forum member who was kind enough to do this during Covid, I loved it and it turned out to be one of my favourite songs, I used every trick in the book to de verb it, but in the end I decided to make a feature of it, added some more verb and it's really cool (to my ears anyway)  thanks Scott


So sometimes it's better to embrace it, rather than hide it.

In fact in the 1970's the recording quality was pretty good, but the qulaity of what it was played on was pretty bad, so in that case it sounded worse than it actually was....

Hope this helps

[robertwill]

@robertwill - As @pompeyjazz says, if the source recording is rubish, you can't make it sound high quality, although I've certainly applied various techniques over the years to mitigate this.

Example 1 - Poor quality stem but a fantastic take - I had a fantastic qulaity stem from a vocalist mate of mine, it was perfect, but a lot of noise and some strange frequencies as it was recorded on an iphone as a demo take, fortunately there was a lot going on behind the Vocal in the finished song, so you can't hear it, it's called "Losing Myself"


Example 2 - Loads of room noise, and a fantatic take - This was a fellow forum member who was kind enough to do this during Covid, I loved it and it turned out to be one of my favourite songs, I used every trick in the book to de verb it, but in the end I decided to make a feature of it, added some more verb and it's really cool (to my ears anyway)  thanks Scott


So sometimes it's better to embrace it, rather than hide it.

In fact in the 1970's the recording quality was pretty good, but the qulaity of what it was played on was pretty bad, so in that case it sounded worse than it actually was....

Hope this helps

"Losing Myself" is fantastic. That really rocks! I almost want to say "What are you doing on this forum!".

My recordings are simply horrible. You can can hear in the below song not only hiss but the frequency response is very narrow, compared to a professional recording (not surprising since I used cheap headphones as a microphone!). Well, it's not actually that bad but I have decided that if I will be serious with this (and originally I wasn't at all) I will get a good microphone and recording software.

https://gloriousmagicalfields.bandcamp.com/track/miss-you-everyday

[cowparsleyman]

@robertwill - As @pompeyjazz says, if the source recording is rubish, you can't make it sound high quality, although I've certainly applied various techniques over the years to mitigate this.

Example 1 - Poor quality stem but a fantastic take - I had a fantastic qulaity stem from a vocalist mate of mine, it was perfect, but a lot of noise and some strange frequencies as it was recorded on an iphone as a demo take, fortunately there was a lot going on behind the Vocal in the finished song, so you can't hear it, it's called "Losing Myself"


Example 2 - Loads of room noise, and a fantatic take - This was a fellow forum member who was kind enough to do this during Covid, I loved it and it turned out to be one of my favourite songs, I used every trick in the book to de verb it, but in the end I decided to make a feature of it, added some more verb and it's really cool (to my ears anyway)  thanks Scott


So sometimes it's better to embrace it, rather than hide it.

In fact in the 1970's the recording quality was pretty good, but the qulaity of what it was played on was pretty bad, so in that case it sounded worse than it actually was....

Hope this helps

"Losing Myself" is fantastic. That really rocks! I almost want to say "What are you doing on this forum!".

My recordings are simply horrible. You can can hear in the below song not only hiss but the frequency response is very narrow, compared to a professional recording (not surprising since I used cheap headphones as a microphone!). Well, it's not actually that bad but I have decided that if I will be serious with this (and originally I wasn't at all) I will get a good microphone and recording software.

https://gloriousmagicalfields.bandcamp.com/track/miss-you-everyday

Your'e too kind with your words, but I have been writing and producing a long time...I'm on this forum to get better at what I do, and to help others, like you, get better too, I'll always help if I can.

..And it's a great bunch of people...

[ChrisPrice]

A few of us have already tried to chime in here, and on the other forum too. To echo what the others have said, There's no magic bullet. If the original recording is naff, well, there's a few tricks you do with eq and stuff. but if it ain't right in the first place, it needs doing again from scratch. For a home studio you need a decent PC/laptop, plenty of RAM, a good audio interface, a midi keyboard/controller, a good condenser microphone, and a DAW.  I use Cubase but others here use Logic, Reaper, Studio One, Cakewalk and the rest. You mentioned Audacity. That's a great, free audio editor and it will record multitrack, but it isn't a proper DAW. To answer your original question..'Anyway to change poor recording quality to good?'...No.