48 to 44.1 conversion problems

TyphoidHippo

1Trillion K Platinum User
Hey there,

I've been reading a ton of threads similar to this, but they all seem to degenerate into flame wars between "I can hear a difference" and "you're imagining it, or your equipment is broken".

That's not even what my question is regarding....here's the deal:

A local band (that is pretty damn good) went and tracked out their entire album at a studio that still uses archaic machines that only record at 24bit/48K.

They were totally unhappy with the mix the studio gave them, so they got the tracks burned onto DVDs and brought them to me to mix - I mixed one, and they came over to listen to it, and loved it. Sweet. We put an MP3 (16/48@192) on one of the guys little portable music thingy, and went and listened in the car - they loved it even more. Super sweet.

But now - when I try to render a mixdown at 16/44.1 - it gets all weird sounding. It's like...muddy and harsh at the same time.

I've never dealt with this before, and I'm kind of at a loss here.... Honestly I didn't expect this to be a problem - I don't really buy into all the dither/jitter/sample rate voodoo kinda stuff - but this is very real and quite a big problem for me at the moment.

I know that I could just send the 48K mixes off to a mastering house and let them deal with the conversion, but this band doesn't want that. They want the mixes from me - on a CD - and that's it. I know there's a bunch of mastering engineers here - so if you could share some wisdom with me, I would totally appreciate it. How do you make this conversion happen without it getting all screwed up in the end?

edit: I should have put this in the mixing/mastering section, I think....oops
 
Last edited:
One way I have gotten around the various problems that may, or may not, be associated with down sampling is to re-record on mix down. This is much as you would have done it with an all analog setup. I have an old 1/4" machine I use to mixdown to two track and I love the sound so much it compensates for loss due to re conversion. Once its on the tape Ill turn around and re-record on the computer in the desired sample rate and bit depth.

I know it does not solve your problem specifically but it might offer a temporary solution. Its a technique - we can all use more of those.
 
If converting from 48 to 41 makes it sound "muddy and harsh" then something is seriously broken......what software are you using?
 
If converting from 48 to 41 makes it sound "muddy and harsh" then something is seriously broken......what software are you using?

Cubase - Rendering the mix at 48 and then doing the conversion with r8brain is much better (thanks again, Massive!).

In fact - I don't think I can even tell a difference....I'll get some samples up tomorrow if you wanna hear it, danny.

(P.S. I mentioned it in the original post, but it's worth mentioning again that I am totally of the same mindset as you on this....it completely took me off guard when the mix at 44.1 came out sounding all weird.)
 
One way I have gotten around the various problems that may, or may not, be associated with down sampling is to re-record on mix down. This is much as you would have done it with an all analog setup. I have an old 1/4" machine I use to mixdown to two track and I love the sound so much it compensates for loss due to re conversion. Once its on the tape Ill turn around and re-record on the computer in the desired sample rate and bit depth.

I know it does not solve your problem specifically but it might offer a temporary solution. Its a technique - we can all use more of those.

I don't have any nice analog medium to use like that (in fact, I have no analog medium at all...) otherwise I would definitely try out your suggestion - thanks anyway, though.
 
Hm, guess I've just never encountered it before, seems really strange to me. I'd be interested in hearing a couple sound clips though if possible and what SRC algorithm Cubase is using...
 
Hm, guess I've just never encountered it before, seems really strange to me. I'd be interested in hearing a couple sound clips though if possible and what SRC algorithm Cubase is using...

I think something must have been set wrong in Cubase. I used to record at 48 in Cubase, and converted w/o any issues.
 
I'm running Nuendo (same as cubase) and I get session at 48k in all the time. I mixdown to 44.1k without any problem at all.
 
Back
Top