Help And Critique, US-122 recording and track critique Options

[Dimora]

Hello hapless reader.

I have just finished a track for a video game that I am scoring and I am ever so slightly unhappy *dripping with sarcasm* with the quality of the recording. Let me run down my set up.

Mac G4 400Mhz
OS 9.2.2
Digital Performer 3
MOTU micro express
Roland JV-1010
Triton LE
Alesis Multi Mix
Tascam US-122

The process:
After I sequence everything, I record it on an Audio track in DP3. From there, I bounce to disk (usually aiff). When I am listening back to the recorded audio through the Tascam (pre-bounce) the sound quality is excellent, but after I bounce to disk, the sound is muddy and rather quiet.

I am relatively new to recording and mixing, and I've tried adjusting gains and levels but to no avail. It simply lacks clarity. I am pretty certain that the problem doesn't lie with the Tascam (because recordings of smaller ensembles sound wonderful) so that would leave me to think that the track gets "dirty" during the bounce. It also sounds a little "hollow" on the left side of the mix. Is that possible? Am I doing something wrong? Are there settings in DP3 that will allow me to specify preferences when bouncing?

You can take a listen to the track here (direct link to the file)

http://no_music.tripod.com/Gnome_Gnation_M..._Main_Theme.mp3

I'd love any criticism on the trackas well!

Thanks!
Clo

[Jezreel]

Sounds great..... The digi realm volume is low but not clpping.. Continue the fab work.

[Dimora]

Hey Jezreel, thanks for the response!

I still can't get the quality of sound that I want. I have searched all through DP trying to figure it out. My last resort is to multitrack everything and mix it down that way.........unless I was supposed to do it that way in the first place

I'll do a post again if I manage to fix it up!

Thanks again!

[pdgood]

What about Motu tech support?

[Dimora]

Well, I'm kind of apprehensive on calling them directly (seeing as my copy of dp3 isn't really..well...you know mine ) but I did find a topic on bouncing mono files on their site that was interesting. Appearently there is a 3.5db drop when bouncing mono files.

I believe I was wrong in thinking the tracks get dirty during the bounce, I really think the problem lies with the US-122. I ended up readjusting my gains again on the US-122 and it did make it a little better (particularly when I recorded everything separately) but I am still getting a bit of air and some sections are getting static (it shows that it's not clipping but it sounds like it's clipping...don't know what the right term is) I still had to drop all the tracks into ProTools Free and adjust some volumes there but the overall sound is indeed better. *flustered*