My Ultimate problem...Dead Center and squeezed?

[jerberson12]

Hi,

i notice in a commercial music, especially kick, snare and lead vocal. they are actually dead center and squeezed so that you can hear them right in the very middle. I have tracks for those three , the settings are dead center but they sound to wide. The problem is when you add more tracks, they fight with the center instruments coz there too wide even though its dead center, please see my picture uploaded. Im working with drum samples, not real drums.

same as with panning hard left and hard right. Again in commercial music, you can hear them all they way R or L like its going to go out of your ears or headphone. In my track, hard panning 100%, it seems that you only hear them 80% panned. I think its becuase the instrument is wide and fat.

 

[philbagg]

Are you applying any effects to these tracks? Things like reverb can really widen
the sound.

Also, are they mono or stereo tracks?

 

[jerberson12]

No effects at all, just dry tracks

also my distortions are fat too but im not concern about that. The drums and snare are my main issue and they are samples. everytime i listen to a demo of a drum sample/kit maker like drum kit from hell, steven slate etc... the drums sound squeezed dead center boom!!! when you actually here those sample in my DAW as raw they sound a little different. It will sound dead center but wide or fat like the picture i made.

as well as my guitars too, somethings wrong with my tracking????

i record mono always, i mean always. Is that wrong?

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

You might possibly have a clocking issue; i.e. the digital clock which times your digital sample taking in your recording path and/or playback may not be the steadiest in the world. This can especially be true if you're working through a computer soundcard, but the problem is not limited to those only.

Unfortunately that's a very difficult problem to troubleshoot, other than trying to make your recordings through a known quality recording chain and checking the difference.

G.

 

[jerberson12]

You might possibly have a clocking issue; i.e. the digital clock which times your digital sample taking in your recording path and/or playback may not be the steadiest in the world. This can especially be true if you're working through a computer soundcard, but the problem is not limited to those only.

Unfortunately that's a very difficult problem to troubleshoot, other than trying to make your recordings through a known quality recording chain and checking the difference.

G.

Im using Presonus FP10, iplug in my guitar direct through instrument in.

so you are agree-ing with my picture that my projects is really wrong? just making sure.

Ill probably have to re setup all my equipment to a well known studio setup.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

so you are agree-ing with my picture that my projects is really wrong? just making sure.

I would agree that a mono guitar recorded direct and dry or a kick close miked and recorded dry should not normally sound like they are covering a few dozen degrees of pan space each, that does not sound right to me.

But I can only take your description at face value. You might want to post a sample just to make sure there's not something else going on that another set of fresh ears may pick up on.

Also, the clocking suggestion I gave is frankly just a stab based upon the idea that sometimes clocking/timing/jitter issues have been described as causing some "smear" in the stereo image as compared to a rock-solid master clock or "studio black" that can in comparison clean and sharpen localization and sharpness in the stereo image. Frankly, the difference should not be one a several degrees of pan space, that's a awful lot of "smear"; but I don't know of any other cause that's not an artifact of some stereo effect such as a stereo widener or stereo reverb or something like that.

Here's a really blind guess, a weak stab in the dark, but does your Presonus have an AC input switch between 50 and 60 Hz AC. and if so, is it set correctly? That may not matter a whit here, but if there's any chance that that may affect the performance of the clock on you converter, it's worth lookig at. It's cheap and easy to check, anyway .

Also, I'd be interested in seeing if the situation changes at all at different converter sampling speeds. Does it happen as much at 48k or 88.2k or 96k as it does at 44.1k? Maybe your converter only gives you a problem at one particular rate?

EDIT: Oh yeah, and make sure you;re not listening to these WAVs in some consumer player like WMP or something like that that may have a stereo expander or other such effect turned on.

G.

 

[jerberson12]

I would agree that a mono guitar recorded direct and dry or a kick close miked and recorded dry should not normally sound like they are covering a few dozen degrees of pan space each, that does not sound right to me.

But I can only take your description at face value. You might want to post a sample just to make sure there's not something else going on that another set of fresh ears may pick up on.

Also, the clocking suggestion I gave is frankly just a stab based upon the idea that sometimes clocking/timing/jitter issues have been described as causing some "smear" in the stereo image as compared to a rock-solid master clock or "studio black" that can in comparison clean and sharpen localization and sharpness in the stereo image. Frankly, the difference should not be one a several degrees of pan space, that's a awful lot of "smear"; but I don't know of any other cause that's not an artifact of some stereo effect such as a stereo widener or stereo reverb or something like that.

Here's a really blind guess, a weak stab in the dark, but does your Presonus have an AC input switch between 50 and 60 Hz AC. and if so, is it set correctly? That may not matter a whit here, but if there's any chance that that may affect the performance of the clock on you converter, it's worth lookig at. It's cheap and easy to check, anyway .

Also, I'd be interested in seeing if the situation changes at all at different converter sampling speeds. Does it happen as much at 48k or 88.2k or 96k as it does at 44.1k? Maybe your converter only gives you a problem at one particular rate?

EDIT: Oh yeah, and make sure you;re not listening to these WAVs in some consumer player like WMP or something like that that may have a stereo expander or other such effect turned on.

G.

Before anything else, thanks! coz you truly understand what I mean and giving me advices. I already posted similar question about this and I couldnt get a good answers.

First of all, forget AC inputs, my Presonus does not have that switch.

Second I already tried recording 48k 44k or 96k, and it seems that the only thing that differ is their file size , it does not make a big difference at all as far as degree of pan space.

Third, I forgot to mention, It only happens when I play it inside my DAW while it still raw, weither the project is still on its individual tracks or already mix into one track. But when I export it to any kind of format, that, will make it sound good , each intrument does not occupy anymore big degrees of pan space, well, playing it with my Windows Media Player.
I tried putting back the exported file inside my Sonar, everything will sound wide again.

Here's a link. It's a quick jam. First youll here the drums, then bass then R and L guitar. I dont know if it will sound wide on your player, but try downloading it and import it to your DAW and try playing it their or any player you have.

Notice everything are so wide. Just by listening to the bass, it sounds all over the pan space even its in the midde.

The kick, snare, Hats and bass are mono. The guitars are mono too but panned 100% R and L, does it sound 100% R or L to you?

Link
http://www.lightningmp3.com/live/file.php?id=21784

 

[jerberson12]

EDIT: Oh yeah, and make sure you;re not listening to these WAVs in some consumer player like WMP or something like that that may have a stereo expander or other such effect turned on.

Ok, but its the other way around. Inside my DAW everything is wide, using WMP, everything sounds good.
The problem is im having hard time listening my reference music coz i play it with WMP, and the I mix in my DAW which sounds different from WMP.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Well, I listened to it in both Winamp and in Sound Forge, each way both in headphones and on my nearfield monitors, and frankly I didn't really hear anything out of the ordinary.

The drums and bass are centered OK and don't sound particularly wide to me in any instance. The bass is perhaps a taste "unfocused", but not unusually so, especially considering that there's not much high-frequency attack to it. If we hadn't been talking about it, I'd never even would have noticed anything, to be honest.

The guitars sound fully-panned to me and a phase analysis on them using the Inspector phase correlation metering looks healthy and normal.

I'm not intimate with recent versions of Sonar, but - assuming you're using the same monitors for both Sonar and WMP - it sounds like Sonar's playback is where your issues are. Take a look in your configuration menus for Sonar and look wherever you might find a reference to "panning laws" or something similar (different editors usually offer different selections for how they actually mathematically handle digital panning.) There might be something set in there that's playing with what you are hearing in a personally unpleasant way. Maybe if you want to throw a screen shot of that config screen up here, that might be helpful.

G.

 

[jerberson12]

Well, I listened to it in both Winamp and in Sound Forge, each way both in headphones and on my nearfield monitors, and frankly I didn't really hear anything out of the ordinary.

The drums and bass are centered OK and don't sound particularly wide to me in any instance. The bass is perhaps a taste "unfocused", but not unusually so, especially considering that there's not much high-frequency attack to it. If we hadn't been talking about it, I'd never even would have noticed anything, to be honest.

The guitars sound fully-panned to me and a phase analysis on them using the Inspector phase correlation metering looks healthy and normal.

I'm not intimate with recent versions of Sonar, but - assuming you're using the same monitors for both Sonar and WMP - it sounds like Sonar's playback is where your issues are. Take a look in your configuration menus for Sonar and look wherever you might find a reference to "panning laws" or something similar (different editors usually offer different selections for how they actually mathematically handle digital panning.) There might be something set in there that's playing with what you are hearing in a personally unpleasant way. Maybe if you want to throw a screen shot of that config screen up here, that might be helpful.

G.

thats what i always thought, something inside the Sonar. IL be back in a minute for screenshots. I really appreciate your help. Hope you can be with me a little longer for this, thanks you!

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

thats what i always thought, something inside the Sonar. IL be back in a minute for screenshots. I really appreciate your help. Hope you can be with me a little longer for this, thanks you!

Well, I'll be in and out. There's always tomorrow if I drop off tonight, no worries.

G.

 

[jerberson12]

Ok here are the screenshots I can think of that you need to see. Over all, its all 20% different from the factory setting.

 

[jerberson12]

part 2 of the attachments

 

[FALKEN]

I think you just need to practice more, record more, learn more. then one day, you will be able to really get your tracks centered.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

jeb,

For some reason your screenshots are not fully displaying for me. But that's OK, here's the information you need re panning laws, including the way to get to them in Sonar: http://www.harmony-central.com/articles/tips/panning_laws/

Now, I have to be honest here; I don't really see for sure how panning laws would cause an unfocusing of the pan image, but it's the only thing I can think of that would even come close to messing with that.

If changing pan laws doesn't help you out, I might suggest that you take your problem to Cakewalk's own support forum, as they have some good guys over thee that know that software better than I do.

G.

 

[chazba]

meandering mono...

one common cause for mono signals to seem to spread out is having your monitors out of phase. Make sure that they are both hooked up the same. You should also check to make sure that your boxes are wired the same. It's possible that they were mis-wired at the factory. Disconnect them from the amp and hook up a short (1 foot) zip cord to one speaker. Touch the wires to a "D" battery and note which way the woofer moves (in or out). Now do the same thing to the other monitor. It should move the SAME WAY. If it doesn't, there's your problem.

 

[bozmillar]

From my experience, a lot of the "wide but mono" sound comes from having more low end than it needs. It's hard to hear from which direction low frequencies are coming, so if you have a guitar panned 100% left and there is a lot of low end, it will sound more spread out. A high pass filter will fix that right up. Same thing with vocals in the center. If there is too much low end, it will sound more like it's coming from all directions.

 

[miroslav]

Hey boz...I've never been able to get your links or your website to load...I just get the IE page errors...???

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

The problem does not seem to be in the audio file itself; give his sample a listen and test, it seems just fine to me in regards to the described problem.

And as far as monitors, he seems to be saying that he plays the files on the same monitors but different software and it is only in his Sonar software that the problem is occurring. This would seem to discount the monitors as the source of the problem.

I find that to be a strange set of symptoms, but if those symptoms are accurate, the problem seems to be something in the Sonar software config itself and not in the monitors or the file(s). Then again, if those symptom descriptions are wrong - like the monitors are changing along with the software - then all bets are off on my analysis .

G.

 

[bozmillar]

Hey boz...I've never been able to get your links or your website to load...I just get the IE page errors...???

I have people complain about that once in a while. I'm not sure why that happens because every time I click on them they work. Try this: http://www.bozrecords.com/mp3s/demos.php

It's ugly, but should work.