distortion

[David_Bowie]

I'm currently mixing down a project i've been working on for a long while now, and in the studio everything sounds completely great and wonderful (not my studio). But once the tracks are exported and cut to a cd in a test mix, all of my clean track guitars have an annoying high end distortion and ring, as if i was taking a weak signal and running it through many many gain stages. currently i have 0 effects on the clean guitar channels so more or less its the original signal without any effects added to it.

The current rig is a delta 1010 -> sonar 2.2
monitoring is done through yamaha nsm-10's powered by a yamaha monitoring amp.
When we recorded the guitars: Les Paul -> Line6 FlextoneII HD -> Mackie 16x4 -> delta 1010

I was wondering if this problems could have been caused by me not having the Line6 output up high enough, then having the mackie's pre turned up to high?
And why this only shows up as a problem once the audio has been exported and played anywhere but in the studio, and is there any way really to fix this?

Thanx,
DB

 

[moskus]

I'm currently mixing down a project i've been working on for a long while now, and in the studio everything sounds completely great and wonderful (not my studio). But once the tracks are exported and cut to a cd in a test mix, all of my clean track guitars have an annoying high end distortion and ring, as if i was taking a weak signal and running it through many many gain stages.

How does it the exportet WAV-file sound?

 

[moskus]

[...] as if i was taking a weak signal and running it through many many gain stages. currently i have 0 effects on the clean guitar channels so more or less its the original signal without any effects added to it.

I was wondering if this problems could have been caused by me not having the Line6 output up high enough, then having the mackie's pre turned up to high?

Well, sure this could be a problem. Why not try to re-track with more output ont the Line 6 and less gain at the pre.amps?

 

[dachay2tnr]

Re: Re: distortion

Well, sure this could be a problem. Why not try to re-track with more output ont the Line 6 and less gain at the pre.amps?

Yeah, but that would show up in the initial mix as well, right?

I'm guessing the problem is occuring at mixdown, as you originally suggested, moskus. How does the mixdown wave file sound when it's played on Windows Media Player or WinAmp?

 

[moskus]

Re: Re: Re: distortion

Yeah, but that would show up in the initial mix as well, right?

I thought so too...


Or maybe you export the wav as 24bit (and maybe 96 kHz) and then use a program with a poor dithering algorithm? (A friend of mine used a plugin in Nero to do the dithering. That's the worst thing I've ever heard!)


And Dachay, what have I told you about Invisible Mode?

 

[David_Bowie]

I was using Soundforge to do the dithering, and only a few of the guitar tones seem to be affected by this problem. i was thinking of exporting the OMF files and bringing them to my home and using cubase/wavelabs to see if that helped with the problem, but was trying to avoid this (my studio currently has no monitors except for headphones). I was also trying to avoid retracking the guitars, but i would if need be and this will be my first attempt at a solution if i cannot solve this problem soon.


thnx,
-DB

 

[David_Bowie]

here is a sample of the problem through a short section of the guitar line. it was exported at 24bit, dithered by soundforge and converted to mp3 by wavelabs. In the studio it sounds like a very nice guitar line with some reverb, kinda pretty and mellow.

Thnx,
-DB

 

[Porter]

Can you hear what the source file sounds like before any dithering?

It's either going to be dithering or somewhere the signal is digitally clipping somehow.

Porter

 

[mixsit]

Just a few thoughts here.
Are you bouncing prior to the export? My Sonar 2 (not sure the version) can have a habit of ignoring some mix items, like gain envelpoes, that can mess with mix balances if they're small rides.
Also, no extra stuff on the main buss? (Compression that's bringing up little stuff?)

"And why this only shows up as a problem once the audio has been exported and played anywhere but in the studio.."

That was the curious part. The export sounds different than the mix, or the cd only sounds different outside the studio?

 

[David_Bowie]

no effects of any sort on the output busses. I think next time i'm going to export at 24bits, then bring them back home and dither using cubase, see what happens. I won't get a chance to get back to that studio for a day or two though.

thnx
-db