Originally Posted by: JeffS65It sounds very 'live'...as if it was recorded at a club.

Agree with everything that Jeff said... I didn't want to sound negative, so while I did listen to both songs not long after you posted, when I saw that people were really taken with the recording, I didn't want to come across as too much of a downer. But what Jeff wrote is pretty much identical to my thoughts.

Hdoran, you were looking for honest feedback... to me, the recording sounds like you're fighting with issues that may be beyond your control. In other words, you're not getting a great result, but it sure isn't for lack of trying!

I've been through it myself... many years ago when I was in a band, we tried to record our rehearsals, but the results were similar.. boxy, muddy sounding... its tough. We tried different miking and eq techniques, nothing worked well. Then one day we weren't setup to record, so I recorded on a cassette with a cheap Radio Shack ghetto blaster that had two built in mics. For what it was, it sounded amazing...all the instruments were well defined, and it was actually pretty listenable... go figure!

It might be worth trying just a simple hand-held recorder that has stereo mics just to see if you get close enough with minimal effort. After that, I think you have to get serious about isolation and controlling room noise. I've done a number of studio recordings in my day, and it seems like there's just a point where you have to step up big time to get things sounding noticeably better.

I did notice that the hi-hat was really splashy too. I don't how it sounds in the room, but its good to have a drummer be attentive to how much their cymbal hits are filling up the mix.