Burnt CD's....

[pdlstl]

Hi,

I'm looking for some answers and am hoping the illustrious experts here can help me.

Basically, my recordings consist of analog acoustic instruments and vocals and MIDI acoustic bass.

When I get a mix that sounds good in Cakewalk, I export it as a wav and open it in Cool Edit to put a few final touches on it.

Then when I burn the Cool Edit wav to CD, it comes out sounding nothing like it did in Cakewalk or Cool Edit. Muddy, undefined, dull etc.

What is a good source of mixdown/ cd burning info? Or if any of you folks have any tips, I'd like to hear them as well.

Thanks,

Earl

[JMAC]

I suppose my first question may be what are you listening to the mix on when you engineer the music in Cakewalk?

Small computer speakers tend to be very treble / mid range tweaked, and you end up boosting your bass a bit too much to try to compensate (which would explain the muddy sound after burning to disk).

If this is the case I would recommend getting a nice pair of powered monitors (shielded because of the monitor) and see if this helps. Roland, Yamaha, and Alesis make some pretty nice modules (that I'm sure Sweetwater would love to sell you!).

I do not believe you have a problem with your software or your burner. Basically digital information is digital information and "usually" stays pretty clean and exact from transfers. I know there are exceptions at times (sound degredation through compression and occasional transfer loss), but most of that stuff is not really noticable to the ear. Which explains why people enjoy listening to MP3 music (you don't hear that much difference).

If you have good monitors, you may try loading the information on another machine and seeing if you get the same results when burning. I would think that if your burner was giving you problems that it would show in not being able to burn or massive drop outs in sound during playback.

Keep investigating and try to eliminate as many possibilities as possible, and eventually you'll find the problem.

Good luck!!

[pdlstl]

JMAC,

Thanks for responding.

I may have been a little misleading in my original post.

The mix(s) sound great on my Alesis M1 Actives and my computer speakers (w/small sub) but the CD sounds crappy on my home stereo or in my truck.

Other sources (songs copied off my commercial CD's for compilation CD's) sound great in any source.

Maybe it's my mixing technique. Any good reference sources for mixing/mastering? As you referenced, the bass seems to be the culprit. Sounds sort of "flappy" (for lack of a better term) on any system outside my computer. I've tried pulling it back to where it seems too low but then it ends up being too low! When I boost the bass fader to where it sounds good on the Alesis', then it roars or sounds "flappy" when the CD is played on other systems.

Perhaps the BBE Sonic Maximizer plug-in would help?

Or perhaps an EQ issue on the bass?

Or, perhaps it's these 49 year old ears.....?

At any rate, I'm corn-fused.

Earl

[JMAC]

Yeah, I've been where you're at.

Here is something I learned a few years ago that has helped me when recording. Most of your bass is heard in the tweeters (high end) of your mix (I know it doesn't seem right). Most of the low end that you add to the mix is actually frequencies that you can't hear (too low, but your dog notices).

You hear bass in the high end, you feel bass in the mids. So if you want a punchier (not sure if that's a word) bass then back off the low end a little and boost the mids a little. This is great when you start playing with parametric eq's and can really hone in on that mid frequency that tightens everything up.

You'll have to play with it a little, but before long you'll find the right touch.

Also one other question. How loud do you listen to your mixes? Can make a difference on how long your ears can stand reviewing the music. Remember if you can hear the bass tones and feel them at a low volume you will feel them and hear them at high volumes too.

Manuals are great and I've picked up a lot through articles, but there is no replacement for just sitting there and messing around until you've got it. Start with a flat eq and go from there!

Good luck!

[pdlstl]

Thanks!

You're mid-boost suggestion was just the type of thing I'm looking for. I didn't have any idea where to begin regarding bass EQ.

One other question if you don't mind. Is the BBE plug-in product all that it's cracked up to be? I can get it through Cakewalk for $99 US. In other words, does it do what it says it can do?

Thanks again,

Earl

[JMAC]

Well it's getting deep now!! (just kidding)

Here are some things to ponder that may help in your engineering sessions.

Look at the basics first. What I mean here is what type of instrument are you using? Let's use a guitar for reference.

Is the guitar a Kmart special ($99) or is it a serious instrument (Les Paul $5,000 or more)? I'm not saying you can't achieve a good sound with a less expensive instrument, but if you start with a decent sound to begin with it will make things easier. I personally have an American Strat that I gave about $1,000 for and it gets great tone (but I think I'm getting my point across here).

The next step is the microphone. The better the mic....you guessed it.... the better the original sound. Now we come to the board, mic preamp, input device used to record. The cleaner / quieter the input the better the sound.

Now we've clarified that the input for recording should be quality tone, and clean right from the start. This is universal for all instruments / vocals.

Start flat in your eq and adjust as needed to achieve the desired tone. I personally record everything dry (meaning no effects added on original track other than effects used on the guitar amp for the desired sound).

I don't usually add effects until I'm ready to create the final mix (rare occasions I do, but more for ambiance). I try to keep the mix as "original" as possible (makes things easier in the final mix mode).

Sonic maximizers (BBE units) were originally designed to "align frequencys" in a mix. Meaning that it would take a signal and assign where the frequencys in a range would be sent when going to a speaker. Highs when to the tweeters, mids to mids, and bass to bass etc.... Trust me that is the short version of what those modules were designed for, but I think you get the drift. I first got exposed to them when I was doing live sound years ago. Can be helpful in a mix, but keep in mind the more you add the more you have to control.

I've learned over the years that the less you put into a mix (effects, eq points, etc..) the easier it is to achieve the sound and feel you are looking for. Less is sometimes more in a mix.

Mix magazine has good articles sometimes, and so does electronic musician on mixing. The best way to find problems is remove things from the mix. Do a complete mix dry, then go back and add eq. See what difference it makes and take notes. Then go back and add effects and so on.

Taking good notes on what you've done is very helpful when trying to disect a problem. It's a little tedious at first but when you get in the practice of writing down what you do it will help when you go to record the next time, and will help you avoid mistakes for the future.

Hope this helps, I'm about plum tired from writing!! Do I get royalties if you get a hit record?

Take care!

[pdlstl]

Jmac, you are the salt of the earth for helping an old man get up and on my feet!

And yes, 50/50 split on the royalties.....! :)

Instrument-wise:

Martin D-18V
Taylor 415 jumbo
Flatiron Festival F mandolin
1976 Dobro squareneck resonator

Generic MIDI acoustic bass

Mics:

AT 4033 (primary mic)
CAD E100
SM 57

Other stuff:

Mackie 1202 VLZPro

Delta 44

HP 1.4 ghz P4
60 gig HD
384 megs RDRAM

Alesis M1 Actives


Next issue....

I usually record everything with no EQ or effects of any kind on the tracks. Now as I said earlier, I lay down the tracks in CWPA 7.0, mixdown to 2 stereo tracks and import them into Cool Edit 2000. I found I had to do this because the resultant wav file was very low volume-wise. The "normalize" function in Cool Edit seems to be easier (for me at least), so, I normalize to 110% (doesn't seem to clip) and add small amounts of EQ,a reverb wash etc. It sounds really good at this point. But when I burn the CD, it sounds quite a bit different than it does in Cool Edit (or CW for that matter).

Someone at another forum said I should check to ensure I'm using a 16bit/44k file to burn the CD from. This had never even occured to me.

Can't check it until I get home. Will report back.

Thanks again for all you help.

Earl

[JMAC]

I usually normalize after I EQ, but there have been times when I don't "normalize" at all. I try to keep the song a breathing thing. When the song gets soft it's the "ex-hale" and when the song gets loud it the "in-hale". Volume dynamics really make a song sing. The subtle variations in volume can really make a song (this takes a lot of practice and an attention to detail) but well worth it.

I've had songs that I've never had to normalize or EQ after making subtle volume changes in the song. If you do it right minor clipping won't even be noticed in the final mix.

One of the things that has always helped me is listening to all kinds of music and different mixes. Notice subtle changes in the dynamics in the songs, and it won't be long that you'll figure out how they are achieving that.

It looks like you have some good equipment to work with and should be able to produce some grade A stuff. I've used analog tape based systems, Adats, hard disk recorders, pro-tools, and cakewalk over the years and they all come down to preperation and attention to detail.

Unfortunately they don't make a miracle box that you put on auto-pilot and record (boy how we all wish they did, but then where would the fun be in that?). Keep plugging away and you'll get good. Save your ears!!

Take care!! May many pleasant sounds come your way!!

:)

[pdlstl]

I suppose I've been doing this all wrong but the reason I normalize is because the wav files created when I export to wav in CW are way too low in volume. I couldn't figure out how to raise the volume within Cakwalk so, I open the wav in Cool Edit and normalize.

When listing to my tracks in CW, the volume is perfect but once I export to wav, the volume drops dramtically.

Sound I be using "Amplify" instead of "Normalize" in Cool Edit to accomplish this?

Earl

[Foreverain4]

check out this company www.izotope.com . they have and excellent mastering pluggin called Ozone that includes eq, mastering reverb, harmonic exciter, etc. they have a demo that you can download. let me know what you think. i have had it for about two months an i am lovin it



lynn

[JMAC]

Well I have to be honest that I've never used Cool Edit for mastering so I'm not sure what the problem is there. Sounds like Cool Edit may be compressing the signal for some reason, but once again not sure why without checking out the software.

Most mastering software I've worked with will allow you to highlight an area of the song and bring the volume / eq / effect up on just that area (thus allowing you to add dynamics to the song). Normalizing is nice and brings all your levels up evenly, but sometimes I want presence more than volume in certain sections of the song.

I'm finding mastering to be just as much of an art as engineering the original tracks. Sometimes I refer to my work as "turd polishing", because you struggle to get the right sound and mix then you have to do it all over again in the mastering phase. To be quite honest some of the stuff I've had to master sounded like sh@# (thus the turd polishing phrase). Not that the musicianship was all that bad, but more that the people who originally engineered it didn't know what they were doing.

I recommend digging into the Cool Edit software and looking for the problem there. You may want to contact the company to see if there is any compatability problems or if it compresses signals that are imported to the platform.

Good luck and many happy returns!

[pdlstl]

Thanks for the tip! I've gone and looked at the Ozone software and will probably purchase it here in the next hour or so.

I had already dowloaded the Vinyl plug-in a month or 2 ago and had forgotten about Ozone.

Will let you know how it goes.

Earl

[wrave]

Hi, I just glanced through your postings and was wondering if you are maybe doing unnecessary bit conversions along the way. If somewhere in your processing trail you convert to 16 and then to 24 and then maybe back to 16 or any combination of the above, you are introducing lots of places where dithering may be added and that will cause muddyness in your finished product.

Also, I would not normalize anything but your final mix. Normalizing boosts the signal to the maximum then moving it into another application (i.e.. from Cakewalk into Cool Edit) you may get clipping.

I bought Ozone a couple of months ago and I think it does a fine job. Try creating the best mix possible without any processing and then at the end, in post production just before you burn to CD, you can normalize or increase the gain.

Good luck!

[Man10]

Hello,

As you can see I am new to this BB. I read this topic and recognized a lot of the problems and solutions. Using Cakewalk and CE I walk the same path trying to brush up the sound. I would like to know if you Eq the completed song or the separate tracks, as I do. I finally got an acceptable sound using a compressor of CE, but to be honest it is a case of experimenting.

KR