HELP!! exported audio sounds like poo-poo

  • Thread starter Thread starter MCreel
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MCreel

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So I imported a song into cubase....it was a recording from a live show my band did....and I wanted to mess with it, see if I could spice it up, etc.

I worked with it and it was sounding pretty good in cubase....

then I exported....as a wav...and opened it in windows media and it didn't work

eported again.....as an mp3...opened in windows media and it sounded TERRIBLE.

It sounded like one of those bad mp3 rips you download off limewire, etc.

Whats the problem here?
 
I had the same exact issue this weekend too. Here's what i did:
Made sure mix was good, and exported at the highest bitrate i could. I think I got 128 to a .wma. Sounded great. Check your bit rates!
 
Thanks DJ. Glad I'm not the only person with this issue. I'll try that tonight and let you know how it goes tomorrow!!
 
Bit depth and sample depth should not be the culprit here unless for some really really stange reaosn you chose to export your wav file at less than 16 bit 44.1khz. Once you have exported your wav file, try opening up in CUbase again so you can listen to the resulting file in the same media and driver system ( basically the same settings) as you did when you were mixing it. Then it should sound the same or else you may be mixing it without including plugins or something.
 
I accidentally mixed mine down to 8 bit. World of difference. Really made me doubt my skills. Poo Poo was an understatement
 
xstatic said:
Bit depth and sample depth should not be the culprit here unless for some really really stange reaosn you chose to export your wav file at less than 16 bit 44.1khz. Once you have exported your wav file, try opening up in CUbase again so you can listen to the resulting file in the same media and driver system ( basically the same settings) as you did when you were mixing it. Then it should sound the same or else you may be mixing it without including plugins or something.
Click to expand...

The problem is though that I want to make sure it sounds good in other programs...standard programs that people who listen to it will be using. Its kind of like checking your mix in another set of monitors.

I exported my stereo .wav at 24 bit. and it didn't work. Then I did the MP3...don't recall what bitrate I used. I didn't even check it. Didn't think to.
 
But you are now assuming that somehow it diod not mix properly. That is probably not the case at all which is the point I am trying to make. Different programs should not really make your mix sound different, unless you have that program set up to process all audio that runs through it. What they will do is often times play things back at a different volume than some previous program you have used which can give the impression of a difference. What I would do is stop worrying so much about that and make your mix sound as good as you can in Cubase. Once you have done that, then you need to have the song mastered or it will never have that "finished" feel to it. It can make the song feel very "dead" or "boring" when listening to your song unmastered and copmparing it to some other song that has been mastered.
 
Only other thing i could think of would be "in the mix"
 
MCreel said:
The problem is though that I want to make sure it sounds good in other programs...standard programs that people who listen to it will be using. Its kind of like checking your mix in another set of monitors.

I exported my stereo .wav at 24 bit. and it didn't work. Then I did the MP3...don't recall what bitrate I used. I didn't even check it. Didn't think to.
Click to expand...

You need to export at 16 bit not 24 bit, thats why it doesent work!
 
xstatic said:
But you are now assuming that somehow it diod not mix properly. That is probably not the case at all which is the point I am trying to make. Different programs should not really make your mix sound different, unless you have that program set up to process all audio that runs through it. What they will do is often times play things back at a different volume than some previous program you have used which can give the impression of a difference. What I would do is stop worrying so much about that and make your mix sound as good as you can in Cubase. Once you have done that, then you need to have the song mastered or it will never have that "finished" feel to it. It can make the song feel very "dead" or "boring" when listening to your song unmastered and copmparing it to some other song that has been mastered.
Click to expand...

I don't think you read my original post properly. I'm not saying that the mix was off. I'm saying the sound quality was off. It sounded great in cubase. Forward in tone, clear and precise. Then I export, open in WM player, and it sounds fragmented, overly digitized, etc. I don't quite know how to describe it but you know what I'm talking about. We've all heard it. It sounds like a bad mp3 rip from limewire. Sounds like you're listening to the radio underwater.

Carter...thanks for the info. Mind if I ask why 24 bit doesn't work?
 
Cause all (most) consumer electronics only read 16 bit, hence a music CD is 16/44.1
 
If all you did was click export and it is different, than something else is wrong. BTW, I did read your original post properly. Nowhere in it does it say the MIX was off. Just that it sounded terrible. So, the assumption I made was really not that far fetched. Windows Media should read 24 bit audio (at least I thought it would), but if you converted to an mp3, than it SHOULD sound terrible. At least when comparing it to the 24 bit version in Cubase. Carter is certainly right though. CD's to be read in a consumer deck have to be 16 bit 44.1khz in order to be AUDIO CD's. So, I still am not sure why your 24 bit file did not "work" but my bet is that it sounded like a "bad rip from Limewire" because when you encoded it as an mp3, thats what you told it to do:D Try exporting at 16 bit 44.1khz, or at 24 bit and then dither it down after edits if you use a 2 track program for editing:)
 
xstatic said:
BTW, I did read your original post properly. Nowhere in it does it say the MIX was off. Just that it sounded terrible. So, the assumption I made was really not that far fetched.
Click to expand...

I see why you made the mix reference. You thought that in my third post my "mixing with a different pair of monitors" comment was aimed at a discussion of my mix. It was just an analogy comparing using two different sources as a ruler for some metric of audio quality. Damned semantics.

I know I told it to encode into mp3...thats only because the .wav didn't work. but now I have diofferent guidelines to go off with the .wav file. We'll see what happens. Thanks for your contributions to my discussion though! I appreciate the help.
 
Update......

Exporting to a 16 bit .wav caused an export error and the program wouldn't proceed.

Exporting to mp3 at 128 bits worked and sounds great. I had to delete the file and export 3 or 4 more times to fix things in the mix because it ended up a little bass heavy after exporting (even though I had dropped the bass frequencies already), but thats fine. It was a painless process. I guess the original file was a little bass heavy to begin with.

Thanks for helping me solve this issue guys!
 
Something still sonds very wrong. There should be no problem exporting files to wav format. That is the standard and the default. I would be more worried about why things do not want to work like normal. What good is haveing expensive software if all you can kick out is smeared low quality mixes?
 
Well its just Cubase LE. Maybe that version of the software has issues with that in general. I got it with my firepod and loaded it on an old computer to learn how to use the program and mess with some existing audio files while I wait for the SX3 software I ordered to get to me.

I'm not all that concerned with the problem at the moment. Especially since its the first time i've done it or had that problem. If it continues, then I'll be concerned.
 
Fair enough. In general though, a wav file eport should at the very least be the one thing it should do properly.
 
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