Recording Q: Distortion when mixing vocals and bass

[exalted]

Hey all!

I'm mixing a song, and the vocals are breaking up a bit, but only when I have the bass track in the mix. As soon as I mute the bass, the distortion goes away. If I put the bass back in and take the vocals out, the distortion is gone. Even if I take away all the other tracks (drums/guitars), as long as the bass and the vocals are present, so is that distortion.

Is this a glitch, or is it something that can be resolved with an EQ or compressor change or...?

 

[Superlizard]

Sounds more like a typical "gremlin" PC glitch whereupon if you've been diddling a lot with your multitrack program you will get funky stuff goin' on.

The soundcard sometimes gets funky...

I say save your work, reset the soundcard (if you can) - otherwise reboot the PC.

If... you have a PC (not a MacCrap).

 

[exalted]

Bah. I fixed it. I switched my driver from WDM to ASIO...whatever the hell that means. Clear as a bell. :icon_biggrin:

 

[Superlizard]

Bah. I fixed it. I switched my driver from WDM to ASIO...whatever the hell that means. Clear as a bell. :icon_biggrin:

:icon_thumright:

BTW, it's very important to know the difference WDM & ASIO...  WDM being your Windows sound driver side of things, and ASIO being your multitracking DAW driver side.

With ASIO, you can route your sound into various "plugins" (VST, DirectX, etc) such as delay, reverb, compressors, etc...

You can also use virtual instruments (VSTi, DXi etc) via ASIO.

...among other cool features.

So, if you have multitrack/DAW software that supports ASIO, ASIO is definitely the way to go.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_Stream_Input/Output

 

[richship]

I work with Windows all day. When it comes to music I like to use dedicated hardware. This kind of thread reminds me why.

 

[Volitions Advocate]

Your ASIO driver basically bypasses windows and only talks to your DAW program.  The best way to do it is use the ASIO driver that comes with your recording interface and not the awful "Direct X full duplex ASIO Driver" which is just an emulator and does not work in nearly every situation.