A mystery ... At least to me

I've been working on a new song (working title "Pink") in X1E and I'm ready to start laying down some crunch rhythm guitars. I always use two different mics going to two different tracks. So, I mute all of the other tracks just to dial in my guitar tone. I really can't seem to get what I want...kinda mushy and not enough growl. I took a break and came back a few hours later and decided to create a new scratch song with just two tracks so that I could focus on getting the guitar tone I wanted. Without making any changes I recorded two tracks and they sounded great right off the bat. Hmmm...I saved and closed the scratch song and opened "Pink." I recorded the same guitar parts and they again sounded mushy and lacked growl. I've got the same levels, and EQ on both the scratch song and the real song. There's definitely a sonic difference that I can't account for. Watcha think?

bitflipper


Import the muffled tracks into the scratch project. This will you tell if they were recorded that way or the muffling is happening during playback, which in turn reduces the number of possible explanations in half.

Excellent idea...I'll give that a shot tonight to see what happens...thanks!

Zo


check the routing (buses , send ..).... the more you do the more you lose ....

Yeah, that's what I originally thought.  I only have a drum bus and Master bus setup...no insert busses yet.  I'll check again to see if there's anything else along those lines.

Jim, P-Bass is my favorite all-around work-horse.  Sits in the mix for almost every style (for me), esp if picked just a bit close to the bridge to cut through.
 
And to your point, psycho-acoustics are a funny thing.  I just did a track with a Rhodes piano with a ton of low-mids and lows EQ'd out.  Sounds really weird in solo, but sounds like a nice Rhodes in the track.  Without the EQ it sounds like a mushy mess in the mix.

Hey Jim, I totally understand the concept of an instrument sounding different in context. In this case I've muted ALL other tracks and I'm only playing back and comparing the test guitar tracks.

Hey Jim, I totally understand the concept of an instrument sounding different in context. In this case I've muted ALL other tracks and I'm only playing back and comparing the test guitar tracks.

 
Hi Al,
 
I figured you knew...  
What happens if you paste the track data into a new empty X1 project?
Or what happens if you import the Wav files into a different DAW?
Does the sound change?
 

Jim Roseberry

Hey Jim, I totally understand the concept of an instrument sounding different in context. In this case I've muted ALL other tracks and I'm only playing back and comparing the test guitar tracks.

 
Hi Al,
 
I figured you knew...  
What happens if you paste the track data into a new empty X1 project?
Or what happens if you import the Wav files into a different DAW?
Does the sound change?
 

As a test, I cross imported the guitar tracks.  The tracks from the test song imported into Pink sound fine.  The guitart tracks from Pink imported into the test song have the mushy dull issue.  So, it looks like something is up with tracks recorded in the song Pink.
 
To be clear, the difference is subtle but obvious.  I'm guessing I have something set wrong on the Pink tracks.

The guitart tracks from Pink imported into the test song have the mushy dull issue

 
Hi Al,
 
FWIW,
From your test results, I don't think the issue is a Sonar setting.  Nothing was bounced/rendered...
The bad sounding tracks sound consistently bad.
If you record onto fresh tracks in the Pink project, do new tracks sound mushy/dull?
 
What happens if you copy all track data from Pink into a fresh/empty project.
Do newly recorded tracks sound mushy/dull?
In the past, when encountering a Sonar issue that made absolutely no logical sense (and it couldn't be tracked down), this sometimes resolved the problem.

Jim, I've already imported the tracks from Pink into the test song...tracks still sound mushy and dull. Do the tracks settings export/import as well?

I think you've proven that the damage, whatever it was, happened while recording those tracks initially. You may never know what went wrong. It could have been a slightly different mic placement, maybe even a cardiod condenser inadvertently turned around. The important thing is it's not something inherently wrong with your setup.

Track properties in SONAR can't affect the recorded audio. That comes directly from the audio driver.
Some troubleshooting steps:

- Check the bit depth and sample rate in the project that has problems
- Check that the track you are recording on is using the desired audio input port
- Check that the track is outputting to the desired bus/output. Send it diretly to your hardware main to isolate it further.
- Insert a new track in the project and try recording on that

VariousArtist


From what I've read it sounds like there's a good possibility that the track's output is going to a bus (which may then be going to other busses or sends) which has effects or levels or some settings that are changing the sound on playback.

One thing to try would be to play the audio clip OUTSIDE of Sonar and see how it sounds.  Use the clip's inspector properties to determine the name and location of the WAV file (in X1 you can press "i" to show the properties, whereas in 8.5 you can right-click the clip or use ALT+ENTER).  Then simply use Windows Explorer to find the WAV file and just play it in Windows Media Player.

Note that in X1 you can reveal the entire routing of the track, all the way to your sound-card, by a specific key combination (I think you ALT-click the track) which will highlight all the busses involved.  That might help you in your research.

Good luck!

Thanks for the tips.