Mixdown Sound Quality

[Smath]

OK, now that I have n-Track up and running and I am getting used to recording in it, I have come across a new situation that someone may beable to solve for me.

I did a mixdown of one song that used 5 tracks (1 drum, 1 bass, 3 guitar). When I play the song in n-track before mixdown and monitor it, there is no visible or audible clipping or anything and the song sounds very warm. When I play the cd with the mixdown version of the song, the guitar parts that were once warm and clean have a very tinny, high-end "shimmer" and don't sound very good. Additionally, there is some audible noise that I don't hear when monitoring thru headphones or desktop speakers.

For reference, my equipment and software settings are:
P4 1.6ghz 512mb RAM
SB Audigy
Johnson J-Station
Zoom MRT-3 Drum Machine
Behringer 1604A Mixer (J & Zoom go thru this and into SB Audigy Line IN)

I am recording at 16-bit / 48000. When I mixdown, I am not using the dither option.

Any ideas?

 

[Slackmaster2K]

There is a 90% chance that what you're hearing is a direct result of downsampling from 48Khz to 44Khz. n-Track's sample rate conversion is really bad, don't ever use it. Also, you probably shouldn't trust your CD buring software to resample either.

Try goldwave and see if the problem doesn't disappear: http://www.goldwave.com

Slackmaster 2000

 

[Smath]

Should I be recording at 44kHz instead of 48kHz? I think I was having trouble getting the SB Audigy to record at 44, so I bumped it to 48 and it worked fine. Any tips in this area?

Let me put it this way....If you had my equipment, how would you set it up to get the best results?

 

[Slackmaster2K]

Well it really depends.

Firstly, there are some issues with the Audigy recording at 44khz...I don't know what they are, but I've heard this several times around here. Unfortunately it's not exactly the best card to be recording with, although it's ok for starting out on.

While there may be audible advantages to recording at 48khz, I prefer recording at 44khz simply because it's more convenient. I use a variety of software in addition to n-Track, and 44khz is more standard. Plus, I really don't hear a heck of a lot of difference between 44 and 48....which could be because I'm an amature, and that I'm just recording on a Delta 1010 and monitoring via a hafler TA1600->Event 20/20's.

If recording at 48khz makes your Audigy happy and you don't have any software issues, then by all means go for it. Just make sure you have something that can do the sample rate conversion for you. Decent mastering/wave editing software like Wavelab or Soundforge would be a great idea, but they are spendy. Goldwave should work in the meantime.

Slackmaster 2000

 

[Shaky Tee]

So, what you are saying is that mixdowns in N-Track, if the wave files were done at 24 bit, 48khz should stay at 24 bit, 48 khz, and resample in another program?

I've mixed down in N-Track. Results sounded fine to me...

I also use dither when resampling down. Mabye that's an issue?

 

[Slackmaster2K]

Note that there is a difference between dithering down and sample rate conversion. I've never had too much trouble with n-Track's dithering, but I have with its sample rate conversion...others have too.

Now I just use my wave editor for that kind of thing.

Slackmaster 2000