Why does it sound totally different after bouncing to disk?

[John Beef]

Hi! Protools 8.05 LE user with a 003 rack. I have been working on this project here for several months and am now mixing. I have a mix together that I am happy with.

It doesn't matter whether I bounce to disk, or use the bus to mix down to a stereo track and then export that as a wave file. No matter what, there is this overall compression going on the whole thing. The low end is massive compared to what it sounds like normally. It just sounds terrible compared to how it sounds running it in pro tools. I can take the exact same wave file, play it back from in pro tools, and it sounds fine, but as soon as I load it up in Windows Media Player or Audacity, it sounds like poo.

I did some research and read about running it through a master fader to bring the signal down a bit to prevent the compression, but this did not help. I just had quieter final mix tracks that have the same problems, nowhere near peaking out the tracks.

Is there some check box somewhere I need to be checking or need to uncheck? Why would my mixes change so drastically?

[John Beef]

http://thebovinefury.bandcamp.com/tr...very-rough-mix

I went ahead and uploaded what I'm getting out of Pro Tools if you care to check it out. All I can say is trust me, it doesn't sound like this in pro tools. There is none of the compression and the low end is under control. Sounds great through speakers and two sets of headphones.

[John Beef]

Well, now I listened to the bandcamp thing here at work, it sounds almost anemic in the low end.

Obviously I have some sort of issue with my sound card at home. Nothing else ever sounds bass heavy or compressed. But maybe that's because everything else is mastered (compressed already) and the sound card is reacting strangely to the uncompressed mix.

Bah!! You know what I miss? Recording on tape, without any damn computers. Never had these issues recording on ADATs.

[Dism]

Three questions:

1. From what bit depth/sample rate are you converting, and down to what?

2. Are you correctly using dither?

3. How are you playing back the mix down? (On your computer? Your car? Quicktime? VLC? WMP? Etc)

[John Beef]

1. From what bit depth/sample rate are you converting, and down to what?
The sessions are 24/48, and I'm converting down to 16/44.1

2. Are you correctly using dither?
I'm using whatever it is Protools uses by default. I'm not sure how to correctly or incorrectly use dither, or where I would go to change any settings associated with that.

3. How are you playing back the mix down? (On your computer? Your car? Quicktime? VLC? WMP? Etc)
Playback on either Windows Media Player or Audacity through the built in sound on my Dell XPS 8400, Windows 7 64 bit. Core i7 2600 3.4, 16 GB RAM.

[Dism]

Originally Posted by John Beef

1. From what bit depth/sample rate are you converting, and down to what?
The sessions are 24/48, and I'm converting down to 16/44.1

Dithering is very important for this.

Originally Posted by John Beef

2. Are you correctly using dither?
I'm using whatever it is Protools uses by default. I'm not sure how to correctly or incorrectly use dither, or where I would go to change any settings associated with that.

I'm not going to go into the details of why you should be using Dither, but there are many resources available for that. Check out these links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dither

http://www.izotope.com/products/audi...eringGuide.pdf

There aren't any particular settings... but there's a whole category in your plugins for Dither. Pro Tools comes with a couple Dither plugins, as do most mastering suites.

Originally Posted by John Beef

3. How are you playing back the mix down? (On your computer? Your car? Quicktime? VLC? WMP? Etc)
Playback on either Windows Media Player or Audacity through the built in sound on my Dell XPS 8400, Windows 7 64 bit. Core i7 2600 3.4, 16 GB RAM.

So you're going from playing on your 003 in Pro Tools through reference monitors (I hope), to an onboard soundcard via WMP, and you don't expect a significant sound difference? Try playing a song directly from a CD in Pro Tools, then play it through WMP on your built in soundcard. There's going to be a huge difference. This is why most sound engineers will have more than one pair of monitors to work on, and then will listen to a mix in the car, on a laptop, through earbuds... etc. Every new system will make your mix sound different.

Before faulting anything, try bringing your mixdown back into Pro Tools and listening to it on your main system. The difference shouldn't be anywhere near as significant... but I digress, this is where dither comes into play.

[albee1952]

FWIW, I usually bounce at the session sample rate/bit depth and then do any conversion as a separate step(and usually in WaveLab). When I do need a quick 16 bit/44.1K file, I will still BTD but stick a Dither plugin in the last Master fader insert(actually I usually use Waves L2 with its built-in dither option). In all cases, my bounced files sound exactly as the mix sounded during the bounce

[John Beef]

Thank you both! This is all very helpful. I'll get back to it this evening and give it a shot.

John

[graveleye]

I wouldn't think that lack of dither would account for an anemic sounding mix though... I can think of a vast number of other reasons, but dither wouldn't be the first thing to come to mind.

[Shan]

Originally Posted by John Beef

Playback on either Windows Media Player or Audacity through the built in sound on my Dell XPS 8400, Windows 7 64 bit. Core i7 2600 3.4, 16 GB RAM.

Most software media players have a compressor enabled on them, hence the sound will be very different than playing it through Pro Tools.

Shane