Sound Difference between DAW and MP3

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RixMix

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OK, in the end this may be a really stupid question but here goes.

I mix and set levels, blah , blah in Reaper with Studio monitors. Get everyting to sound good (to me for the time being, I'm really new at this). Although I'm SURE, my mixes themselves could be better, what's confusing me is why when I render to MP3 the mix seems to lose the bottom end. Acoustic guitar which sounded sweet in Reaper, sounds tinny in iTunes. Bass seems to fluctuate more as well.

I realize that there is a difference with sound cards/speakers, but how do you dial in the sound between the two. (I also get similar albeit varying results from stero system to stero system).

And which sound am I aiming for? The Studio sound in Reaper or the MP3 sound? Seems the only way I can get a richer sound in MP3 is to push more bottom end in Reaper where it starts to sound boomy/muddy. Then it sounds better at the MP3 level.

Any thoughts?
 
By definition, MP3s toss away 80% or more of the original information, even at a high bitrate.

So yes, you need to have different mixes for MP3s vs CDs.

...ya gotta do what ya gotta do....
 
Why woould you want to render to MP3 anyways? Render to a wav file, then convert a copy to MP3. Once you've lost that information, it's gone, and this way, a quick A/B can tell you if the lossage was in the rendering or in the conversion to an MP3.
 
I have noticed a difference in sound after rendering to WAV.

Is this normal?

I wouldn't say it sounds better OR worse... but what I am hearing "in session" is Not what I get when I spit out a 16-bit wav.

Maybe it's Windows Media player adding something?

(I play my MP3's and Waves with Media Player).

Anybody else notice a difference after Render?
 
mattkw80 said:
I have noticed a difference in sound after rendering to WAV.

Is this normal?

I wouldn't say it sounds better OR worse... but what I am hearing "in session" is Not what I get when I spit out a 16-bit wav.

Maybe it's Windows Media player adding something?

(I play my MP3's and Waves with Media Player).

Anybody else notice a difference after Render?
Click to expand...

Are you recording at 24bit..then of course 16bit will be different!!
 
You think I am just hearing the difference between 24, down to 16?

Could be I guess.

I am also going to get something other than WMP to play back, to see if it could be that.
 
You are not hearing the difference between 16 and 24 bit, the bit depth has nothing to do with frequency response or overall volume.

render the mix to a wav file and import it into the reaper session. A/B the real mix with the rendered wav. If they sound the same, your playback system is suspect. (the media player, itunes player, etc...) Sometimes the consumer media players have built in EQ. That may be set strangely and/or you are just hearing the difference between your playback systems.

Your mixes always sound different in your living room than they do in the car or on a boombox, you can't get around that. The only reason you might not have noticed that is because you never had control over the sound of the latest CD that you bought at the store.
 
Farview said:
You are not hearing the difference between 16 and 24 bit, the bit depth has nothing to do with frequency response or overall volume.

render the mix to a wav file and import it into the reaper session. A/B the real mix with the rendered wav. If they sound the same, your playback system is suspect. (the media player, itunes player, etc...) Sometimes the consumer media players have built in EQ. That may be set strangely and/or you are just hearing the difference between your playback systems.

Your mixes always sound different in your living room than they do in the car or on a boombox, you can't get around that. The only reason you might not have noticed that is because you never had control over the sound of the latest CD that you bought at the store.
Click to expand...

WOW..you cant here the difference between the two?
OK, I must have golden ear's then!!:D
 
jarrydee said:
WOW..you cant here the difference between the two?
OK, I must have golden ear's then!!:D
Click to expand...
If your 16 bit files lack low end, you are doing something wrong.

Of course there is a difference between 16 and 24 bit, but it isn't what he is hearing. More bits = more dynamic range. You won't get more low end with 24 bit than 16. anyway, if you can't get it to sound great at 16 bit, 24 bit isn't going to save you.

With the symptoms he described, it wasn't the bit depth that was causing the problem.
 
from my experience this problem is nothing to do with te difference between 16 and 24 bit, that is to do with dynamic range, this problem is to do with soundcards built in EQ settings.
I had this problem, i was playing reaper through an ASIO4ALL sound driver i had downloaded, but when i rendered the song and played it through windows media player or any other media software, my computer was playing it through my main aduio driver, which came with my soundcard,and had a built in EQ, which is why it sounds different, it took me ages to figure this out.
in reaper go into your sound setting and it will tell you which audio driver your using,

my advice is to record with whichever audio driver has the lowest latency on your computer, and mix using the main audio driver, the one that came with the computer, bcause its likely it has the eq and you will be used to listening to music through this.
 
You can install the reaper shoutcast plugin, broadcast to yourself and get an idea of how the mp3 will sound
 
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