Rendering in Reaper is killing my sound quality, please help!

M

Maverick87

New member
Hey all.

I use Reaper through Windows 7 64bit, my computer is an HP Pavilion Slimline Desktop. Im having a terrible time with exporting/rendering and the sound quality of my songs.

I spend a lot of time recording and mixing the songs carefully, only to have the sound quality derailed when exporting/rendering them out of Reaper. I used to use Magix Music Studio 12 Deluxe a while back and never had that problem before. That program isnt compatible with 64 bit OS's so I decided to take on Reaper.

I usually render to mp3. I know that this format isnt known for quality, but Ive never had this problem at all with the last program. My tracking/mixing room is treated and I used Equator D5 Monitors(pair). Im fairly certain that the songs are getting jacked up through the rendering process after trying to troubleshoot why the mixes sounded bad.

I searched around, and it seems that a lot of people have this same problem, mixes coming out sounding different, certain instruments sounding strange, phasy. In my case the vocals come out sounding more telephonic in the mid range and of course its not as loud.

Im recording 24 bit 44.1 samplerate and exporting the same. I attempted to use Foobar and render the projects as FLACs and convert them to mp3 though foobar, but Im having issues with the LAME encoder there, it keeps telling me that theres an error. Im hoping you guys can shine some light and help me keep my sound quality as close as possible.

Ill have to export as WAV and see if the problem is still there. My concern is that when I go to burn it to a CD for the mixtape, that eventually it will have to go to mp3 anyways. Is that accurate? Its so frustrating to have this hurdle stopping me from moving forward, any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
 
If you are making a CD for standard playing, you would not burn it to MP3 unless you are specifically burning for a player that will play MP3s and you want to put 4-6 hours of music on it.
Have you tried rendering to WAV with Reaper?
Render to WAV - 16 bit if you are going to use those files on a playable (in all players) CD. If its only going to be played on a computer (or subsequently converted to MP3) render to 24 bit.
I use the Roxio Creator Sound Editor to convert to MP3 (from 16 bit WAV) - it offers 3 levels of compression depending on what file size you need and I have not noticed an appreciable sound difference when converting to the best quality MP3.
 
Exporting to mp3 throws away 80% of the information.

That's how it cuts down a 60mb file to a 5mb file.

Export to 16/44.1k uncompressed .wav's for cds, leave the mp3s for the web
(yes, you may have to make mastering changes to the mp3 to compensate for how it kills your quality....)
 
Interesting, Ill definitely try rendering to .wav first thing in the morning and let you guys know how it turns out. Thanks for the feedback.

Kind of a bummer that Ill have to drastically change and basically remix each track to get it to sound good on mp3. I want people to be able to put it on their mp3 players and not have it sound awful. If thats what I gotta do though, so be it. Maybe after rendering to .wav and finding an effective mean of converting to mp3, it wont sound as bad as rendering straight to mp3 from reaper. Ill definitely check Roxio out.
 
Note, - YMMV with Roxio. I'm using Creator 2009, never upgraded because they keep adding video stuff I don't need and taking away the audio stuff I use. Lok at other MP3 encoders. reaper has a LAME encoder that you download separately, but I've never tried it.
 
I rendered to 24 bit WAV and noticed a difference and even more so when bouncing rather than simple rendering. Also I used Format Factory to convert the WAV and FLAC to mp3 and it sounded better, so thanks everyone for your input. I'll keep you posted on further progress or problems.
 
This may be a dumb question, but are you sure you're rendering to a 320k mp3? I use Reaper exclusively, and I've never had an issue with sound quality when rendering to 320k mp3. For my album, I rendered mp3s for my music library, iPod and the internet, and I rendered a wav copy of the album for when I eventually have the CDs made.

But anyway, double-check to see if you're rendering in 320k. I don't think you mentioned bitrate before, so I just wanted to throw that in.
 
Yeah, MP3's might not preserve all the sound quality, but there's no way a 320kps MP3 sounds THAT bad. If you hear a big difference in sound quality, first of all make sure you are rendering your MP3's to 320kps. Then make sure that you're not doing something weird like rendering with a master limiter on and then bringing the file back into the same project and listening to it with the limiter still applied. Or something else along those lines.
 
I'm thinking about the phasey telephonic sound. Maybe it is the MP3 bit rate you are rendering to. But maybe it is something else. Typically this effect occurs when you have a feedback loop of some sort. I'm wondering whether somehow you have managed to introduce a loop somewhere in the process.
 
I've had some problems with plugins and rendering direct to MP3. By rendering to WAV and converting to MP3 with an external converter, it seemed to fix this issue
 
I had a problem with ReaVerb and getting a delayed sound in my rendered mix. I had to go into ReaVerb and click the LC box (i think that's what it's called) on the bottom and it then rendered fine.

you may have some plugins causing problems with the render.
 
mjbphotos said:
If you are making a CD for standard playing, you would not burn it to MP3 unless you are specifically burning for a player that will play MP3s and you want to put 4-6 hours of music on it.
Click to expand...

I would like to know how to do that.

Every "audio" CD I've ever made is limited by the number of minutes of music I want to put on it. I once thought I could put 100 MP3 files on a cd and then I could let it play for 5 hours, but that aint the case. The only way to put 100 MP3 files on a cd is to make it a "data" cd, and then no player will play it because it is not an "audio" cd. That's why a "data" disc with a hundred MP3's on it will only play on a computer, because the computer will read it as a "data" source and play the files until they are gone.

If you know how to put 5 hours of "audio" on a cd and stick it in a player and have it play as an "audio disc" for more than 73 or 84 minutes, I'd love to know how to do that.
 
soundchaser59 said:
I would like to know how to do that.

Every "audio" CD I've ever made is limited by the number of minutes of music I want to put on it. I once thought I could put 100 MP3 files on a cd and then I could let it play for 5 hours, but that aint the case. The only way to put 100 MP3 files on a cd is to make it a "data" cd, and then no player will play it because it is not an "audio" cd. That's why a "data" disc with a hundred MP3's on it will only play on a computer, because the computer will read it as a "data" source and play the files until they are gone.

If you know how to put 5 hours of "audio" on a cd and stick it in a player and have it play as an "audio disc" for more than 73 or 84 minutes, I'd love to know how to do that.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what you mean 'no player will play it'. Both my cars and my two (cheapie) home cd players play data cds. They also use the tag info from the mp3s to display artist, song, etc. Usually the player will have a little 'mp3' logo on it if it supports data cds. I also have a cheapie jvc dvd player that will play an entire dvd worth of mp3s.... The minivan also has a 120GB HD built in and can rip any cd you put in, which is kind of cool.
 
Maverick87 said:
That program isnt compatible with 64 bit OS's so I decided to take on Reaper.

I usually render to mp3.
Click to expand...

Yeah, Rami is right. There is no way in heck a 320kbit MP3 would ever sound that bad unless something else is wrong with your process. Are you sure your LAME encoder is compatible with 64 bit Windows? Have you manually set all the rendering options in Reaper to make sure you are rendering exactly what you think you are rendering? I'm not at my machine right now so I cant tell you from memory, but I know the defaults are not necessarily the right choices for rendering to 24 bit WAV.

I have the same question........why would you use a superb DAW on a hot computer to get awesome takes and great tracks and great mixes.......and then render to MP3? Why would you waste all of your work like that? Why wouldn't you render to 24 bit WAV (or record real time to stereo WAV) just so you can have a master copy of your finished product? And then use that WAV file to make your MP3? Wouldn't you want to have at least one file that is the best quality you can get, and save that as your best copy?

Every one of my songs is saved as a 24 bit WAV, and then I work my way down hill from there to 128 or 160 kbit MP3's that I can put on a web site for quick streaming. On any decent home stereo system you will not be able to hear the difference between 16 bit WAV and 320 kbit MP3. So if your MP3 is crap then you are doing something else wrong, it ain't Reaper's fault. Sorry I cant help you better without actually seeing your machine.
 
chuckduffy said:
I'm not sure what you mean 'no player will play it'. Both my cars and my two (cheapie) home cd players play data cds. They also use the tag info from the mp3s to display artist, song, etc. Usually the player will have a little 'mp3' logo on it if it supports data cds. I also have a cheapie jvc dvd player that will play an entire dvd worth of mp3s.... The minivan also has a 120GB HD built in and can rip any cd you put in, which is kind of cool.
Click to expand...

I guess I've never owned or found a player that will do that. My stuff must be as old as I am. I have a DVD player that is only 1 year old and it will not play data discs at all. Only audio discs will play in that thing. Only device I have that will play a data disc is my computer.

So can you give me a brand and model number so I can do some home work and go find out what I'm missing? I'd like to learn how to tell the difference next time I look at players.
 
soundchaser59 said:
I guess I've never owned or found a player that will do that. My stuff must be as old as I am. I have a DVD player that is only 1 year old and it will not play data discs at all. Only audio discs will play in that thing. Only device I have that will play a data disc is my computer.

So can you give me a brand and model number so I can do some home work and go find out what I'm missing? I'd like to learn how to tell the difference next time I look at players.
Click to expand...

C 515BEE CD Player - NAD Electronics
 
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