Mix sounds distorted only after burning to CD?

  • Thread starter Thread starter mrx
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mrx

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I have a stereo WAV mix that sounds great on the PC, but has a nasty clicking 'distortion' (like a car radio picking up a weak station) when burned to CD. I re-mixed using lower levels, and if anything, the problem seems worse. Anything I'm doing in n-Track that could cause this, or does it sound like a CD/Burner issue?

Thanks!
 
noise

is it to much dither noise, did you dither the file , when converting from 32 bit(n trac) to 16 bit (cd), you must find the proper number to dither the file to get rid of the quantization noise
 
I don't think it's dither noise, as I've followed the same procedure on other tunes and not had this problem. I'll check that out, though - perhaps burn a tune that worked in the past.

I played the first version on a nice car stereo and it was terrible - my wife commented that it sounded like the song was being attacked by a helicopter. I played the same CD in my car and the distortion was barely noticable. A remix with lower overall levels sounds terrible in my car, so it doesn't seem to be a clipping thing. It's almost like there's distortion everytime the compressor kicks in, but it's not there on the original wav...

The only thing I can figure at this point is bad CD's - it's a new case of TDK's.
 
Did you solve this, MRX? I was wondering if you by chance didn't convert the WAV to 44.1. In the past, I've burned a 48k song to CD. It actually worked, but sounded terrible.



tj
 
Its possible that it is distorting because the level is too high for the CD player. If you normaled or limited the track to 0 dB, it can be too much for some of the cheaper Cd players. I typically max it out to -.3dB and haven't had any trouble with it.

I can't remember where I read that, but I think it was in some interview with a mastering engineer.

Take care,
Chris
 
I just noticed that the sound distorted on a boom box when I was playing back stuff I recorded in n-track. I just figured I was lazy and missed the distortion when I was mixing it down. Maybe not.
 
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