struggling with the mixdown feature being truthful....

[thedude400]

I had problems with not only what I hear in tracking being "true" to the mixdown wave but even worse I had problems with the mixdown wave being true to CD. I'm using KRK rokit 5's. Theyre not the greatest but for 300 dollar monitors Im satisfied. I just don't think it's the monitors. I'm just mixing down in the multi track view. using volumes, pans, etc. I haven't really searched the program for a console view or a specialized mixdown feature other than this one I always kept it simple. Do I need to adjust bussing some how? Any ideas why I can't find more "audio honesty" so to speak?

[thajeremy]

what do you mean by "being true to CD" or "audio honesty"?

[lpdeluxe]

What version of the software are you using?

[thedude400]

AA 1.5. I bought it a good long while ago and never had issues. Then I bought Sonar HS 4 and used that for a long while and I just recently switched back. Before I switched to Sonar all I had was an AT4040 and a Tube MP. My arsenal has since grown considerably. Maybe my ear has just become more picky and precise.

When I use the word "truthful" I mean the mix I hear during tracking isn't "true" to the mix I hear when I click edit>mixdown all tracks and the same with the mixdown wave to cd. For example the guitars will be quiter when I mixdown in comparison to how they were set in tracking etc.

[lpdeluxe]

From your post it's not clear how much work you're doing before you do the mixdown. A "mix" isn't just all your tracks playing together. A lot of times a certain amount of tweaking is needed for a track that sounds fine by itself to fit in with other tracks.

Your mix (all the tracks at once, not the mixdown) should sound the way you want them to sound when you play them together before you do the mixdown. If this is more elementary than you need, refer to my first sentence above. What I do is to route all tracks to a stereo output pair when mixing, so that all my volume and pan decisions will be in the mix coming out of my monitors. Once everything is exactly the way I want it, I do the mixdown. This is not to say that I don't go back and redo mixes that prove to be unsatisfactory, but AA 1.5 allows you to do an infinite number of mixdowns until you get it the way you want (2.0 has a more cumbersome system that inserts your mixdown as a new stereo pair into Multitrack View, but that's another story). BTW, when I tweak a mix, and do a new mixdown, I give the new one the same name as the last, unsatisfactory one, which allows the space the old mix takes up on the hard drive to be overwritten, and saves on disc space.

My experience has been that the mixdown sounds substantially the same as the mix, as listened to from Multitrack View.

I hope this helps: your question isn't totally clear on the problem.

[Spitz]

I agree with the first guy. Sometimes the mix, when I mixdown to an mp3 for example, doesn't sound as good qualitywise as what you can hear in the multitrack view. I'm pretty sure it has to do with the quality you are mixing down to. Well, at least that's my problem. I wish there was a good standard file extension that could sound exactly as the multitrack view mix without it being huge in file size.

Does anyone know of any? (and then again, this was my problem, and I'm thinking it may be the same with you... I dunno.)

[thajeremy]

Originally Posted by Spitz

I agree with the first guy. Sometimes the mix, when I mixdown to an mp3 for example, doesn't sound as good qualitywise as what you can hear in the multitrack view. I'm pretty sure it has to do with the quality you are mixing down to. Well, at least that's my problem. I wish there was a good standard file extension that could sound exactly as the multitrack view mix without it being huge in file size.

Does anyone know of any? (and then again, this was my problem, and I'm thinking it may be the same with you... I dunno.)

Unless you are mixing on an ancient computer with a tiny harddrive...the file size shouldnt be an issue. Get a bigger harddrive and mixdown to .wav like you are supposed to do.

[superspit]

Originally Posted by Spitz

I agree with the first guy. Sometimes the mix, when I mixdown to an mp3 for example, doesn't sound as good qualitywise as what you can hear in the multitrack view. I'm pretty sure it has to do with the quality you are mixing down to. Well, at least that's my problem. I wish there was a good standard file extension that could sound exactly as the multitrack view mix without it being huge in file size.

Does anyone know of any? (and then again, this was my problem, and I'm thinking it may be the same with you... I dunno.)

man...........never mixdown to MP3 and expect no loss of quality!!!
Dude....always mixdown to a wave file!!! Then, if you really must kill your music to put onto an i-pod or sumptin, convert the wave to mp3.
MP3 is 5hit!!!........but practical, I'll agree!
What sort of file sizes (in wave format) are we talking (ie. 40 stereo meg?)
Does that sound reasonable?
Regards,

[Spitz]

I mean, I could save my mixes to a .wav file, but what if I want to send a good CD-quality mp3 to a friend over MSN? I could save my mixes to wav's but it isn't too practical, and I don't really like sending over 10 MB for a single 30 second clip. I mean, I know wav's are the best, but I want a practical, standard, low in size file that's going to keep the quality pretty high.

That's my problem :s.

[superspit]

Originally Posted by Spitz

I mean, I could save my mixes to a .wav file, but what if I want to send a good CD-quality mp3 to a friend over MSN? I could save my mixes to wav's but it isn't too practical, and I don't really like sending over 10 MB for a single 30 second clip. I mean, I know wav's are the best, but I want a practical, standard, low in size file that's going to keep the quality pretty high.

That's my problem :s.

yeah....I hear what ur saying bro.....just don't like the thought of your music being chopped up like that.....it's a double edged sword, in your case!
Hows about mixing always to wave, putting onto CD...then mailing it!!!
Good luck dude.
superspit

[Megaman]

Originally Posted by Spitz

I mean, I could save my mixes to a .wav file, but what if I want to send a good CD-quality mp3 to a friend over MSN? I could save my mixes to wav's but it isn't too practical, and I don't really like sending over 10 MB for a single 30 second clip. I mean, I know wav's are the best, but I want a practical, standard, low in size file that's going to keep the quality pretty high.

That's my problem :s.

For big files you could always use YouSendIt or MegaUpload to share your files...