Mixing down in cakewalk is runing my recordings!

S

Sgt Pepper

New member
I don't know if anyone else has experienced this but whenever I use the mixdown function within cakewalk, the two track result sounds out of phase, dull and really really midrangy. On the other hand, when I take the same song and do a manual, real time mixdown to a separate medium(another computer, vs-840, and tape), the mixes sound wonderful, the way it did wiithin cakewalk before mixdown. I don't know what I could be doing wrong, it's not like cakewalk gives you a ton of mixdown options to screw up. For the longest time I've thought I had either lost my recording skills or my hearing, I'm glad I found this out. Any feedback on this issue would be greatly appreciated.
-Patrick
 
This could be way off, but are you converting your 24 bit files to 16 bit before you export to wave (i.e. mixdown)?
 
Here's my suspicion: when you play back the song you are playing the mixed track and the original tracks together, and not muting the originals.

The slight timing differences between the tracks is enough to cause them to interfere destructively with each other, causing a general reduction in volume and a removal of detail.
 
I wish I could tell you guys that my mixdown problems were as simple as dithering from 24 bit to 16 bit or forgetting to solo the two track master but thank you for the suggestions. I'm beginning to think I bought a bum copy of cakwalk. It's strange because all the songs I have mixed down within cakewalk have the same problem, it's like a wool cover was suddenly put over the speakers after mixdown. I have pretty much narrowed the problem down to cakewalk's internal mixdown feature. When I mix down to a stereo track outside of cakwalk, the mix sounds perfect but when I use cakewalk's internal mixdown feature, the result is terrible.
 
John, I will ususally mix down to both a stereo track within cakewalk and a separate wav. file outside of cakewalk, both of them end up sounding pitifully the same. one interesting thing I have noticed is that songs with fewer audio tracks (24 or less) sound better after mix down than those songs containing 30 or more audio tracks. This would lead me to believe that cakewalk uses some kind of compression scheme when it mixes down. Does anyone know if this is the case?
 
Cakewalk Wrecking Your Recordings

I had the same problem where, when I mixed down to a stereo track then to a wave file it sounded like crap, what I did was record my tracks then when they were finished I would mix them but before I would mixdown I would hit the button that remembers where the levels were set. Then after mixdown I would mute all the other tracks and send the stereo mix only to the wave file making sure my levels both track and master left and right were ok. Once you get the wave file finished then listen to it. If it sounds so/so do it again and re-do the mixdown to a wave file and as long as you call it the same thing it will erase what you originally had saved. I've had to do the mixdown to wave a few times to get the master level set correctly. hope this helps. STOP !!!!!!!! one last thing check your input on your line in if you are using a stereo 1/8 " mini connector sometimes you actually have to pull it out to get both channels if you push the jack in all the way i've had the right channel cut in and out during the recording and cause some real wierd phasing problems. call me if you want 1/800/326/4326 Rich I know how frustrating this stuff can be. Wish you the best !
 
RAO (or anyone else),
I'm a newbie getting started with using Cakewalk Guitar Studio 2. You have mentioned that "before I would mixdown I would hit the button that remembers where the levels were set"..

What button are you referring to??

Thanks,
-SR
 
I'm not at home at the moment but I will check it out tonight and get them name of the button for the life of me I can't remember. Sorry !
 
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