Cd distorting on a discman but not in pc.

pre

New member
Hello friends, this is my problem and I couldn't find an answer for days...
I have finished my home recording album and it works as it should on my laptop. But, before I sent it to duplicate, I burn it on a CD to hear if there were any problems. This CD sounds in my laptop as it should, but, in my discman not. It distorts in many of the songs. Not clicks, something like "grrrs". Always in the same points but not necessary the highest points of the songs. I have the frequency range under control with filters.
I have tried several times, different labels of CD'S, different writing speeds, etc.
I have no answer, please help me. Help me uuuu :guitar:.
 
Hi Pre,
This might be tough to diagnose since there's no way for us to hear what you're hearing,
btu maybe you could post a copy of one of the songs and give a time reference?

Even if we can't replicate the distortion, maybe there'll be some clues in your mix?


It's not uncommon for portable players to have 'enhancement' options like Mega-Bass or whatever.
It could be that your mix is bass heavy and something like that is pushing it over the edge?
 
Hello Steenamaroo, thank for your quickly answer.
One of the songs with this problem is an instrumental one. Just one classical guitar, I don't think there are bass problems, and the multimeter thinks the same.
On both discman I tried in every mode, of course in normal mode too.
In other songs it distorts in moments with a cappella voice, with bass filters too, so it's strange and it not seems to be a frecuency problem...
Thank you.
 
Strange, indeed.
Ok, let's come at it the other way; How do commercially released CDs sound on this discman?

Using the same speakers/headphones, do they distort at any point?
Are you using a power supply or batteries?
 
It seems that commercial discs sounds well, but you know it more easy to hear differences of what you are hearing in your own work, but I think that sounds good.
Yes, same headphones. Two batteries AA.
Bouldersoundguy sorry but I don't understand "intersample peaking", probably it's for my poor english.
I'm leaving -2dBTP and -18LUFS, I know this is low, but I want this song lower than the rest.
 
I'd suggest putting the raw WAV, i.e., what you build the CD with, someplace and give us a link to it.

You can mix to -2dB but is it possible your bounce normalized that to 0dB? Some programs default to that, and then it's possible for you could be clipping ("intersample" as [MENTION=103008]bouldersoundguy[/MENTION] suggests) on some devices, i.e., with different D/As. Just speculating, but I'd want to see the CD or at least the WAV. Sounds odd.

P.S. You can check yourself with this: METER — Orban
 
Hello Keith,
Normalizing is disabled...
I'll try that Orban meter. Thank you so much. I was working with Levels, from mastering the mix.
Probably I upload my song to show you.
 
Hi keith,
Probably we have something here.
Captura de pantalla 2018-03-19 a las 19.47.36.png
The yellow mark is were is distorts first and then again in the high green/blue lines.
What these lines are?
Thank you.
 
Is that the audio file before it goes to CD? If so, extract (rip) the CD audio to a lossless file and run the same test.

Do you keep it in a lossless format throughout the process? Simply converting to mp3 or other lossy compressed format can change the peaks.
 
It doesn’t show any reconstructed peaks above zero but that’s a seriously dynamic piece. Do you have a limiter on it at all?

P.S. I would have t suspect you may simply be over driving the player because this is so low a level and uncompressed. You’ll be cranking it to a listenable -13 or so and that will cause clipping. Use a compressor and squash the dynamic range and then raise the LUFS
 
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bouldersoundguy yes it is. I paste you two photos of the .aiff original from bounce and the .aiff extracted from the CD. Allways lossless.
Captura de pantalla 2018-03-19 a las 20.41.37.png
Captura de pantalla 2018-03-19 a las 20.41.43.png
Keith yes I have the logic's adaptative limiter.
It's true that there are no peaks above zero but it couldn't be a coincidence that it distorts in the higher green lines. I can't understand his meaning. Do you?
Thanks, guys.
 
I would have t suspect you may simply be over driving the player because this is so low a level and uncompressed. You’ll be cranking it to a listenable -13 or so and that will cause clipping. Use a compressor and squash the dynamic range and then raise the LUFS

This is starting to look likely to me.
 
[MENTION=198773]pre[/MENTION], we could probably use someone like [MENTION=23296]MassiveMaster[/MENTION] to weigh in, but those levels you are using for a CD "master" are not what I'd imagine to be close to standard. This is where you might want to go grab some manufactured CD of music as close to yours as possible and see how that has been mastered. I understand the desire to keep a lot of dynamic range, but you have to assume the finished music is going to be immediately compared, simply by playing it, to everything else. And, with the kind of dynamic range you have, I couldn't listen to it in any car I've ever owned - half of it would be inaudible!
 
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Edit: removed dup post. No idea how this showed up twice! - I must have done a BACK and thought I'd hit Edit :confused:
 
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Keith, I can't understand why you say that, because I had listen to my CD in my laptop, in my movil phone, trough different speakers and trough different headphones and the level was always similar to commercial music and, of course, without distortion. The only problem that I have is burning the CD, that don't sounds well on both discman I have, but it does well when I put it on my laptop.
I'm very confused...
 
I don't really follow either.
Not saying they're wrong but I don't see why turning up a quiet recording would clip anything.

Obviously if you turn it up for quiet sections then there's a chance loud sections might be too much for your earbuds or speakers but I'm hoping you'd have caught that, if that was the case?
 
I don't really follow either.
Not saying they're wrong but I don't see why turning up a quiet recording would clip anything.

Obviously if you turn it up for quiet sections then there's a chance loud sections might be too much for your earbuds or speakers but I'm hoping you'd have caught that, if that was the case?
So, it could just be the old Discman, and that's hardly a typical use case these days, so maybe you can just ignore it. But, if my CD was the only one that had the problem, I'd guess there was something about it that was different from "normal" CDs. Not having your CD in hand, all I can do is guess, but the levels and dynamic range strike me as atypical, but my experience is limited in this area. Still, you could try a different mastering and burn another CD and see if it changes anything, right?
 
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