Hi Guys! I`ve been trying to figure this out for a while and its making me crazy! When I`m making something in a DAW and get to a point that i like what i`m listening, when i bounce it never sound the same! Is just worst to what it was. Levels are off and the sound is more narrow than what i wanted, but in the DAW it sound good! So to explain better my findings it all come to software issues! Using exactly the same setup all the Daws i tried sound the same between each other (Cubase 6.5/7.5, Logic 9, Logic X, Ableton 9, Reaper 5) but they sound different from players like VLC and iTunes (And YES i turned al the enhancements off). First i thought that was my soundcard and buy an Apogee Duet, but the problem persist. I can clearly listen to the diference both in Headphones and Monitors. I even try some DAWs on a old Win laptop and there is a diference between them and Foobar and WMP (all enhancements Off). This is getting really frustrating because i know the moment i bounce stuff it will sound different from what i`m hearing in the DAW. How can stuff sound so different in the same setup? Any Help?

My setup is:
Macbook Pro 13 Retina Mid 2014
Apogee One, Apogee Duet, Audiogram 3
Adam A7x Monitors.
Fairly treated Room..

TANKS!

 

hmmm, honestly you have a nice setup, great speakers, etc.... The only thing I can really think of is on a software level, it shouldn't be your Apogees etc... but you have tried different daws.... How are your gain staging skills, are you overloading the master 2 bus ? are you normalizing or sample rate converting/bit rate converting on export?

This shouldn't happen..... hmmm

 

Render a simple loop and check it with no volume/pan changes. Then try with effects; then try with wide panning. Make sure you're rendering to a WAV or AIFF file at full Bit Depth and Sample Rate. No mp3!

Playback a loop in your daw, then playback the same loop in VLC within your explorer.

Same result?

 

Yeah i think the setup is ok.. I buyed apogee because everybody talk how good the conversion is.. So that shouldn't be the problem right? I respect the gain staging and leave a lot of headroom to not overload the plugins.. That`s why this is getting on my nerves! Why I`m not getting what i`m hearing inside the DAW after export? I even try bouncing to a new track inside the daw and the audio is somewhat changing! The only conclusion that I`m getting is the daw playback is giving me e better sound on playback than really is! That`s why i like it when is not summed to a stereo file.. all the DAW sound the same between each other but they sound diferent from the music players.. That`s where everybody is gonna listen to the final product..

 

If i play a loop dry or with effects alone there isn`t much off a diference alone.. But the moment i start adding other elements to them this effect of masking the final summing between elements start to get noticeable.. Simple things like balance is wrong after the bounce but right in the DAW.. I know this can be strange but i only came here for help because i tried everything.. Are you guys getting the same exacly sound after render?

 

Just record the master in real time, dont bounce.

 

Do you use busses?
Any bus that is not reaching the final output where the mix is bounced from?
Any duplicated busses or something off like that?

 

No bus problems so far.. There is this free plugin from Meldaproduction called MRecorder that let you record the output to a file (16,24 and 32 Bit) and i have used it extensively to figure it out the problem and all that it did was confirm that there is a diference between DAW and Players.. The most close i can get to DAW is when i hit space on OSX (I think is Quicktime previewer) but is still slightly different.. But VLC and iTunes have the most differences and they both share the same "signature sound".. Any of you guys experiencing the same problem?

 

What's happening when you play an audio file from your music collection via DAW vs via spacebar/preview?

PS: Use a clean daw template: no limiter, no maximizer, nothing. All faders to 0.

 

from the other responses you have made it sounds like you are doing things right, if you are working ITB, the apogee convertors shouldn't effect what you are exporting, just give you better D/A to listen to on your nice Adams!... They do not play a role in ITB rendering from what I know at all, (just monitoring....if you are not tracking in through it or using outboard gear for processing etc)...

but I agree, try and bounce non-realitime to another track... and see what you get...

also try and null test (taking your bounces from that and what you have been exporting before... line them up, flip the phase on one, and see if you are hearing anything.. if you are are, (some plugins have built in non-linearties so you will hear some of that maybe), but if you are hearing all sorts of stuff, there is something more going on....

 

Tanks so far for the suggestions.. If I bounce offline to another track without non linear processors they null.. So that is expected.. The strange thing is my projects just sound better without exporting them.. When i export things just seems to came out inferior..

 

Last edited: Apr 26, 2016

I'll tell you this MORTIX.. It's nice to see there is someone in this forum who has meticulous enough ears to recognize the difference. I doubt you'd find much help when the majority in this community believe all DAWS and media players sound and render the same. But right now I will share with you my best advice for record rendering ITB. The problem you're hearing usually comes from 1 and/or 3 things.. plugin latency -vs- buffer latency, not bouncing every midi track to audio prior to mixing, and the time it takes for all FX to overlap and nurture fully into your mix so it sounds as you heard it before rendering. The satisfying result we hear from our mixes is generally after the whole song has looped back at least one or several times. The best way to render ITB is to duplicate the song so it repeats itself 2 or 3 times in a row when you mixdown. After listening to your mixdown you'll cut and keep the 2nd or 3rd one. This should help the results of your mixdowns. If you can get a decent external recorder you won't regret it either.. that is best for getting the same thing you hear. (Note that before the final mixing stage it's important to bounce all midi instrument tracks to audio in order to rule out "random" events. The same goes for audio tracks with plugin FX on the channel that have any random functionality to them.)

 

Last edited: Apr 26, 2016

Hey dbmuzik.. Tanks for chiming in.. I just bounce midi channels when i have to.. (for resampling and extra processing stuff...). Other than that i just keep everything midi wise in the project. But i think i have to start doing this for all of them.. I get that it can help me get more close to the final sound.. But still.. i have seen guys like Virtual Riot and Flux Pavillion leaving all the midi channels intact in their projects.. Can you explain better what do you mean by "duplicate the song so it plays 2 or 3 times in a row and cut and keep the 2nd or 3rd one"? I might have to get some external recorder to help me with this.. Any suggestions?

 

Mortix I had exact same problem some times back but on windows. On windows there is a setting called "enable audio enhancement" in soundcard. For some weird reason I had this ticked, so my mixes sounded crap after exporting. Check if you also have something similar on Mac.

 

What I mean is just before you are going to render your mix.. highlight all the tracks in your song and use the duplicate/repeat function so your song will play 3 times before it ends. So after you render your mix it will be a single audio file of your song playing 3 times back to back. Then you'll cut and keep the 2nd or 3rd one which will sound better. I can always tell when people render their mixes ITB especially because the opening bars of their songs are rough and meaty. By doing it this way you ensure that everything has fully buffered and the FX have fully settled in with one another at some point.

 

In Live9 / File / Export Audio /
1st - Make sure the export sample rate = your project sample rate.
2nd - Export at bit depth=32 bits -- otherwise there's an audio lost ( compression )
lower than bit depth=32 bits, you have to set Dither Option, which means "how should i handle the lower bit depth"

 

I'm not saying it's not true, but in all my years, I have never heard of doing that! I always have empty bars at the top my song for similar reasons (and throw back to smpte days etc).... but i've worked with 100's of mix engineers and never heard that... will have to try, interesting...

 

It's funny because I never mess with dither (I assume as you are saying that with the 32bit (or is it 64?) internal engine, it has to downsample to 24bits after exporting... and that makes sense... a lot of the projects I work on go to external mastering engineers, and they usually don't really want me to mess with dither... i know what dither is for the most part (usually gives me a headache reading about it )...

 

My advice would be to try Resonic Player here: https://resonic.at/
(everybody must have this one IMO) but it's only for windows at the time.
Maybe others will be interested... Anyway, players are in general of mediocre rendering, I don't think your gear is the cause and I know how it can be frustrating. The best you can do is to listen to your bounces on various supports, cd, mp3 player, car player etc and adjust your mix

 

Last edited: Apr 26, 2016

Ok dbmusik.. I`m gonna try that.. About bit resolution and sample rate I`ve tried all the options.. No diference.. Actually 24 and 16bits sound about the same to me.. So i dont think that is a big factor here.. Its more about the summing to me.. When the DAW is handling all the tracks in playback i do what i feel the track need until i`m happy.. but when i play that bounced file in iTunes or VLC i think why is the snare more loud than what i wanted? Why is the balance off? After you work on a track for hours you just feel this changes right away.. Am i being fooled by my ears here? It is my macbook problem? At this point i don`t even care what DAW i`m using, because this happens in all of them.. I don`t think that is some problem with the DAW`s or with the players.. But more a hardware OS handling.. IDK.. My machine is not giving exactly what i`m listen inside the DAW and after i export it.. Sorry for the long texts but this i stoping me to finish any music..