Mixdown problem!

  • Thread starter Thread starter thamende
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thamende

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Hey guys! First time mixing down. Using reaper i rendered my 24 bit, 44.1 khz tracks down to a standard quality mp3 (190kbps). Played this mp3 through my m-audio card, sounds just like it should. Tried my other realtek hd card, sounds the same. I burned it to a cd using windows medai played like i normally would any cd and tried playing it on my girlfriends laptop and on my hometheatre. It doesnt translate at all! It sounds as though its going through some kind of low pass filter! Not just like its a bad mix but like theres something messed up with the file. Any ideas what the problem could be?
Thanks!
 
Just curious...if you're burning it as a CD for playback in CD players...why did you convert the files to MP3?

Why not just burn it as a standard CD with WAV files instead MP3...?
 
just a few thoughts

thamende said:
i rendered my 24 bit, 44.1 khz tracks down to a standard quality mp3 (190kbps).
Click to expand...


try rendering (bounce if you have the cpu/ram) to a 16/44.1
then put that on cd and see if it sounds better
or at least try a 320kbps mp3


thamende said:
It sounds as though its going through some kind of low pass filter!
Click to expand...

the only difference i hear when putting mp3's on disk it that it takes away some of the thump and volume, it also sounds a little thinner to me. as opposed to an actual 16bit wav.
 
Lo-Fi Mike said:
the only difference i hear when putting mp3's on disk it that it takes away some of the thump and volume, it also sounds a little thinner to me. as opposed to an actual 16bit wav.
Click to expand...

Really!?

Not wanting to push the thread off topic, but those aren't the kind differences you would normally expect to perceive (talking around 160kbps MP3 and above), and that's if you can even really hear any difference at all - for many this is just a kind of placebo effect kicking in where they expect or want to hear a difference... so they do!

You ever tried a proper ABX test to actually confirm what you are hearing? You'd probably be quite surprised :p I certainly was...
 
hmmm

mattr said:
Really!?

Not wanting to push the thread off topic, but those aren't the kind differences you would normally expect to perceive (talking around 160kbps MP3 and above), and that's if you can even really hear any difference at all - for many this is just a kind of placebo effect kicking in where they expect or want to hear a difference... so they do!

You ever tried a proper ABX test to actually confirm what you are hearing? You'd probably be quite surprised :p I certainly was...
Click to expand...

i have not done an a/b

I was in a car listening to a cd and was wondering why the song didn't feel the same as i have heard it in the past (since i thought it was just a burn from the original). I found out that it was a mix of songs put to disk from an mp3 player.
That is where i came up with my previous post. I'm not saying mp3's sound bad in an mp3 player, but i do hear a difference when putting them on a disk and trying to play them over a loud system.
there is just somthing missing to my ears, And i wasn't even trying to prove anything at the time.

edit: however, I'm not sure what size the sample of the mp3 was....
 
mattr said:
Really!?

Not wanting to push the thread off topic, but those aren't the kind differences you would normally expect to perceive (talking around 160kbps MP3 and above), and that's if you can even really hear any difference at all - for many this is just a kind of placebo effect kicking in where they expect or want to hear a difference... so they do!
Click to expand...
Anybody who does sound professional sound will easily hear mp3 artifacts at 160 kbps... But I agree that it is odd to hear a loss of thump and volume from an mp3. To me, MP3 sounds like the song is under water or something.


Anyway, to the original question: My guess it that when you tried the mp3 on two different sound cards you were hearing it on the same speakers you mixed with.

Then you went to your girlfriend's house with a burnt CD. The problem is not the CD. The problem is that you ran into the dramatic difference of "other people's speakers". Yes, it will sound like a bad filter if you mixed wrong even though it sounded perfect on your system. It takes a long time to learn how to make a song sound good on everybody's system.

And never mix straight to MP3!
 
Yeah...I can always hear it, especially if doing A/B with a WAV version.

To me...it sounds like some kind of phase thing going on in the high-end.
And then sometimes the mids can sound a bit hollow too....

I just did some MP3 files of my final WAVs, using the original 88.2/32-float files as my source for the MP3s, rather than the CD versions (44.1/16)...and then unlike the past where I would do two sets, one Lo-Fi (160Kbs) and the other Hi-Fi (320Kbs), this time I just picked the CD-quality Variable Bit Rate option, as was suggested to me by someone on these forums not too long ago.

I have to say, the MP3 sounds very close to the original WAV files!
I'm not sure what bit-rate is predominant in the VBR settings, but sounds pretty good.
I didn't do a direct compare to a straight 320Kbs MP3...I may to that just to see if there is an audible difference.
 
miroslav said:
I'm not sure what bit-rate is predominant in the VBR settings, but sounds pretty good.
Click to expand...
It is easy to find the average bit rate. Convert the song length into seconds. Convert the file size into kilobytes (there are about 8200 kb in one megabyte if you want to approximate).

Divide the number of kilobytes by the number of seconds. That is your average kbps.


For example, your mp3 is 1 meg in size and 41 seconds long.
8200/41 = 200 kbps
 
well i tried playing it on 3 different sets of headphones through both of my soundcards and it sounded fine... only problem i had was once it was put on cd. let me post it up and ill drop a link! (its not going to be a good mix, but it shouldnt sound the way it did)
 
thamende said:
well i tried playing it on 3 different sets of headphones through both of my soundcards and it sounded fine... only problem i had was once it was put on cd. let me post it up and ill drop a link! (its not going to be a good mix, but it shouldnt sound the way it did)
Click to expand...

Did you try the CD through the same headphones that worked for the MP3s?

If you only heard the mp3s through headphones and only heard the CD through speakers, I'm sure it is just a mix problem, not a technical problem.
 
problem found! as someone here stated, never mixdown to mp3! haha
it sounds awesome now, thanks guys!
 
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