Audio mixdown sounds terrible, any advice

[asd]

Hi there, I am attempting to remaster an acoustic track for a friend. I have imported the separate tracks (2 guitars, main and backing vocals) into SX3, got everything sounding good with eqs on the inserts, compression on master channel etc. But as soon as it's mixed down and played back outside cubase it sounds dreadful(sounds thin, loses all warmth) and the vocals all but disappear. Have tried different mixdown settings , 24, 16 bit, realtime and non realtime etc.

I have brought in the audio onto stereo audio tracks, where I think they should be on mono I'm guessing?? Could this be causing the problem? I f so can i transfer all channels to mono and keep the settings and plugins?

Any help please, new to this

Soundcard is M audio delta 192

cheers scott

[iceyflame]

Check if your exporting it as .wav or at least 320kb .mp3. Check if your exporting in Stereo. If you are importing mono tracks you SHOULD put them in mono channels but it's not going to have any effect on mixdown changes.

[elly-d]

remember if you are mixing down and exporting from 48kHz to cd quality 44.1kHz then there will be a noticable drop of quality.

i find with my cubase (an old version vst32) that when i export mixdowns, even at the same quality as the arrangement, there is a loss of quality (dynamic and clarity). even though the tech heads tell me this is silly and it should be a perfect copy of the arrangement.

[iceyflame]

If you are exporting it to send to friends/post online, and you are exporting as 128 kb/s .mp3. The mixdown WILL sound alot worse. Welcome to lossy audio formats! Mmmhmm.

[asd]

Thanks for the replies. I am exporting for burning to CD (export settings stereo WAV at 44.1 @24 bit) I might start again and put everything on mono tracks as theres no panning going on as it's a folk type song, see how it sounds/ exports then

ps- even if i am aiming to export down to cd 44.1 , should i still import at 32 bit floating point?


Thanks Scott

[timthetortoise]

Make sure you're mixing down in stereo interleaved too.

[iceyflame]

Should you not be exporting as 16 bit for CD?

[elly-d]

yes cd is 16bit 44.1kHz. also make sure your cd burner isn't normalizing the volumes.

import and mix at as high quality as you like, 48kHz at 24bit should normally be enough, as someone else said export as stereo interleaved.

[NYMorningstar]

Originally Posted by elly-d

yes cd is 16bit 44.1kHz. also make sure your cd burner isn't normalizing the volumes.

import and mix at as high quality as you like, 48kHz at 24bit should normally be enough, as someone else said export as stereo interleaved.

Originally Posted by elly-d

remember if you are mixing down and exporting from 48kHz to cd quality 44.1kHz then there will be a noticable drop of quality..

If you're noticing a drop in quality why import it at 48kHz to begin with? Wouldn't importing at the target rate be better?

[elly-d]

apparently some plug-ins work better on audio files with higher bit rates and sample rates.

i don't know if it matters but i don't think many professional recording studios will be recording at cd quality. even though most people only listen to sub-cd quality mp3s nowadays. its best to have the source as good quality as possible, maybe it will go onto vinyl one day

[xstatic]

First off, I would import your mix to a stereo interleaved file at the same settings you are mixing them at, but do not have Cubase import them to a new file within the project. Take the new stereo file you have made and load it into a new Cubase project with NO plugins. Does it still sound different? My bet is that it does not. It should sound exactly the same. At this point, use Cubase to convert the file to 16 bit 44.1khz. There should still be no plugins inline and the file should still sound virtually identical. At this point, make a CD an listen to the CD somewhere else. If it sounds different now, than either your CD program is doing something to the audio, or else (the most likely thing here) you are having problems with interpreting how your monitors sound compared to how your mixes need to sound in order to be ready for general playback. This is a common problem and you will need to use other systems as a point of reference to make adjustments and learn how your monitoring chain translates to the real world.

As far as the comment above about the noticable loss of quality between 48khz and 44.1 khz, this just isn't true or else you are having hardware issues. There should be only the tiniest quality difference between 48khz and 44.1khz and it should be virtually unnoticable. How something is recorded and mixed is MUCH more important than whether it was done at 48khz or 44.1khz.

Another thing that many people seem to not realize is how much different applications and hardware (especially consumer stuff) will change things and how they sound. If you are listening to your CD through something like windows media, itunes, winamp etc... thorugh a stock sound card, there is a good chance that your software/hardware is processing things. There may be EQ's running in one or both, 3D stuff, volume differences etc... that affect playback to make things sound "more impressive". Even your computer speakers might have some sort of application running in the backround to make them sound "bigger" to counter for their lack of quality. Even with this stuff running, you can still use these as tools for comparisons, but it is very important that you listen in an accurate fashion. Basically, it is not fair to compare your mix running through Cubase (no processing, and from a file) to a commercial CD running through a media application which may be processing the audible result. If however you want to make a CD of your file and run it through that same exact software/hardware chain then that is an accurate comparison. Remeber that with a lot of consumer software and gardware there are internal seperate volume controls for CD and for wav files. This often can result in your CD being played back at a much different volume than a raw .wav file would be and can make the CD seem that much more "powerful" and leave your file sounding weak and sissy.