Too much low end and mp3

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jimmyman
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2009/10/01 20:36:07 (permalink)

Too much low end and mp3


    If all the conditions are right such as to much sub sonic
bass and too high a mix level may make an mp3 conversion
play this mp3 back garbled on some mp3 players/decoders.

  some people call it distortion and some call it an under water
sound. (the listeners that is). I don't know what to make of this
but it does seem to be related to the low end. 

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    bitflipper
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    Re:Too much low end and mp3 2009/10/01 22:28:26 (permalink)
    It's probably just too hot. There is much more energy in the low end, and you can have excessive subsonics and not know it.


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    Guitarhacker
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    Re:Too much low end and mp3 2009/10/02 08:28:45 (permalink)
    try a mix as an experiment. roll off the low end more than normal first...leave your levels alone.... just eq it first.... listen.....

    if it still has issues, back off the level, changing nothing else.....listen......


    keep doing this until you get a reasonable sound.

    The "loudness war" might have something to do with it too... using O4 it is too easy to end up with a brick shaped song if you are not careful. I have had to go back and redo several of my songs......they sounded OK, and were plenty loud, but looking at them in my wave editor..... they were solid rectangles..... not a sweet looking wave with lots of dynamics and stuff.....

    also remember that you are loosing a lot of data.... if a 50MB wave ends up as a 5MB mp3...... you do the math.  90% of the data is gone somewhere.

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    jimmyman
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    Re:Too much low end and mp3 2009/10/02 13:10:53 (permalink)


       Herb
         mamabear had this warbely sound issue on "angles
    medley". it played that way on some systems but not others.
    I had remarked that she had an extreme amount of
    "woofy" sounding subsonics on the bass guitar.

       I said she could do some eq on the bass but she may not
    like the change. She did eq the bass and re uploaded and
    now its ok.

      I don't know what/how she eq-d but she not only resolved
    the warbely sound issue she also got the  bass tone under
    control in the process. You've got some good points
    about what a person can do and what to look for.

       Biflipper.

        After reading up on your subject of level before converting
    to mp3 a while ago I've been converting at no higher than
    -2 db. In janets case of this warbley sound I'm guessing
    it's an "over" of sorts but the extreme subsonics may
    have caused the conversion to become sort of like
    a "chorus" because of the slow wav length.

     

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    Guitarhacker
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    Re:Too much low end and mp3 2009/10/02 14:53:54 (permalink)
    Jimmy,

    I have also seen some major issues with MP3's.... I'm thinking that something went wrong in the encoding process or a glitch in the data as it was up loaded. Because the tune sounded horrid when I listened to it (not yours...one of mine) so I deleted it and reloaded it to SC...and it was fully functional.

    Maybe something like happened...

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    AT
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    Re:Too much low end and mp3 2009/10/02 15:21:45 (permalink)
    Soundclick and other sites re-mp3 your uploaded mp3s, so you get double the problem.  Try a higher rate, tho it may spit back a longer song.

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    jacktheexcynic
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    Re:Too much low end and mp3 2009/10/02 18:51:26 (permalink)
    you need to roll off the highs, not the lows. mp3 encoding strips off the highs, and does it fairly poorly. use a high shelf/low-pass combo around 12k and that should clear it up. also remember you're going from stereo to M/S so might want to check that in the mix before exporting. you could have some phase in your highs which the mp3 will bring out nicely. really, you should check the mix in mono before sending it anywhere...

    i always go for the highest quality/bit rate that fits under 10MB. i actually use VLC for encoding, it does a fair job (better than LAME in my opinion). winamp might work as well although i have pro so don't remember if you can convert with basic. yes, they will mess with your mp3 but it doesn't hurt to give their nasty encoder more to work with.

    - jack the ex-cynic
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