Ricebug
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Mixes Sound Different
Sometimes I miss those old days with my Commodore Amiga and Sonix...
Anyway, I have this Beatles tune I did. Got it all mixed up righteously in Sonar Plt. Exported it. Tossed the thing into Windows Media Player (WMP) and noticed one guitar and the vocals were too loud and the drums were too soft. So, thinking I must have zigged instead of zagged, I called it up in Sonar and played it. Sure enough, everything is nice and balanced. So I exported it again. Played this new mix in WMP again. Same problem. Some stuff too loud, drums too soft.
I also ran the mix through Sound Forge (ASIO), and it's nearly the same as WMP. I double-checked to make sure there was no EQ enhancement going on. Every box is checked in the Export dialog, BTW.
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John
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Re: Mixes Sound Different
April 14, 15 9:44 AM
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How did you export it? Did you export the entire project or did you export the master buss only?
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Bristol_Jonesey
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Re: Mixes Sound Different
April 14, 15 9:45 AM
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Make sure there's nothing in WMP affecting the sound - this piece of junk has been known to have awful EQ curves switched in by default.
Try playing your mix on as many systems as you can - mp3 player, car stereo (CD?), eventually you'll get a feel for what needs adjusting.
I also recommend you re-import your export into Sonar (same project) and listen to it there (bypassing your master buss and soloing it). If it sounds the same then it rules out Sonar as the cause.
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Sanderxpander
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Re: Mixes Sound Different
April 14, 15 9:51 AM
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Sounds like it might be a mono/stereo issue. Are you monitoring in stereo in Sonar? What is your bounce source?
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Cactus Music
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Re: Mixes Sound Different
April 14, 15 10:09 AM
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Playing it in Sound Forge rules out the WMP issue 100%.
++1 to what Sanderxpander said a mono mix will do what your describing and it's easy to have it happen if your interface has a GUI mixer or your signal path is not right.
I would double check all export settings. I myself always use "select none" before exporting.
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streckfus
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Re: Mixes Sound Different
April 14, 15 10:54 AM
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Agreed on the export settings. I ran into a similar issue recently when my bounced mix was super loud when played through Media Player and then realized that in addition to the master bus, I'd also exported two headphones buses on top of it.
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mettelus
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Re: Mixes Sound Different
April 14, 15 1:26 PM
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+1 to Jonesy's comment on checking WMP settings. There are a lot of playback options which totally distort the audio.
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bitflipper
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Re: Mixes Sound Different
April 14, 15 1:48 PM
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Try this:
Export your full mix as a 32-bit undithered wave. Import this exported file back into SONAR as separate track, so you can alternatively solo the full mix against the imported file.
They should sound identical. If they don't, there is a problem with the export process. If they do, then WMP is altering the tone. You might also try a different player - there are many free players around that can play back 32-bit waves.
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brundlefly
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Re: Mixes Sound Different
April 14, 15 2:39 PM
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bitflipper
Export your full mix as a 32-bit undithered wave. Import this exported file back into SONAR as separate track, so you can alternatively solo the full mix against the imported file.
My preferred approach to this is to just bounce the Master bus to a stereo track called Master Bounce that has its output assigned direct to Main Outs - parallel to the Master bus. Then you can group the solo buttons in opposite states to A/B the bounce against the live mix or invert phase on the bounce track and check for nulling (keeping in mind that it may not null perfectly if there are unfrozen synths or FX in the project that have random elements). Once you're satisfied that the Master Bounce track sounds right, you can export just that track to the desired format. Any changes due to dithering, resampling or MP3 compression should be all but undetectable so any significant difference you hear in the mix at that point would have to be due to the player or monitoring system.
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Ricebug
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Re: Mixes Sound Different
April 14, 15 6:46 PM
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To answer some of these, here's how I export a finished song:  ...which I learned from watching Groove3 tutorials. ( http://www.groove3.com/str/SONAR-X3-Explained.html) @jonesy: WMP is set at default settings--no EQ. @Cactus Music: My interface has no GUI mixer. If it did, I wouldn't use it anyway. @Sanderxpander: I always review in stereo. I'll try a couple of the things suggested. Also, I always burn a CD and play it in the car stereo, as it seems to emphasize a bad mix. The home stereo is pretty forgiving but the car is more honest. EDIT: OK, I just bounced the mix to MAIN OUTPUTS. The mix sounds like I want it (in WMP). However, the waveform acoustic guitar did not get added. Strange, as my vocal tracks are wave files, and they got mixed.
post edited by Ricebug - April 14, 15 6:59 PM
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RobertB
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Re: Mixes Sound Different
April 14, 15 8:59 PM
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Watch out for this section:  If I were to select Out 1 here, my levels would be attenuated because of the position of the Monitor knob. My personal preference is to select the Master Bus as the export source. This give me a hard reference within Sonar, and is not subject to monitoring.  For some reason, effects are no longer, um, effective, in the Master Bus, so all of my tracks and buses ultimately filter down to the Preview bus. The Preview Bus output is set to the Master Bus. I have a limiter and Voxengo SPAN in the Preview Bus as a final view of my project output. This gives me the true output from Sonar, and I can trust it. ymmv, hth. ps: Good to see another EIE Pro user. It's an awesome interface, and deserves more exposure.
post edited by RobertB - April 14, 15 9:10 PM
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Bristol_Jonesey
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Re: Mixes Sound Different
April 15, 15 4:36 AM
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Ricebug
To answer some of these, here's how I export a finished song:
...which I learned from watching Groove3 tutorials. (http://www.groove3.com/str/SONAR-X3-Explained.html)
@jonesy: WMP is set at default settings--no EQ.
@Cactus Music: My interface has no GUI mixer. If it did, I wouldn't use it anyway.
@Sanderxpander: I always review in stereo.
I'll try a couple of the things suggested. Also, I always burn a CD and play it in the car stereo, as it seems to emphasize a bad mix. The home stereo is pretty forgiving but the car is more honest.
EDIT: OK, I just bounced the mix to MAIN OUTPUTS. The mix sounds like I want it (in WMP). However, the waveform acoustic guitar did not get added. Strange, as my vocal tracks are wave files, and they got mixed.
Make sure your acoustic Ricebug
To answer some of these, here's how I export a finished song:
...which I learned from watching Groove3 tutorials. (http://www.groove3.com/str/SONAR-X3-Explained.html)
@jonesy: WMP is set at default settings--no EQ.
@Cactus Music: My interface has no GUI mixer. If it did, I wouldn't use it anyway.
@Sanderxpander: I always review in stereo.
I'll try a couple of the things suggested. Also, I always burn a CD and play it in the car stereo, as it seems to emphasize a bad mix. The home stereo is pretty forgiving but the car is more honest.
EDIT: OK, I just bounced the mix to MAIN OUTPUTS. The mix sounds like I want it (in WMP). However, the waveform acoustic guitar did not get added. Strange, as my vocal tracks are wave files, and they got mixed.
Make sure your acoustic guitar tracks have their output set to your master bus. If you mute your master bus you should hear total silence. If you can hear something, there is a routing problem somewhere in your project.
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lfm
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Re: Mixes Sound Different
April 15, 15 4:45 AM
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Bristol_Jonesey
Make sure your acoustic guitar tracks have their output set to your master bus.
This - I made that mistake a couple of times. Look over all your busses and tracks where they go. Inspector show you one level extra on the right side where the selected track go. Only master should go to hardware outs.
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Ricebug
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Re: Mixes Sound Different
April 15, 15 8:53 AM
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RobertBps: Good to see another EIE Pro user. It's an awesome interface, and deserves more exposure. The ASIO4ALL driver apparently gave the AKAI a bad rep. I had D/L'd and installed it before I even bought the AKAI, and the interface latched onto it. Also, the latest driver update from AKAI is corrupt, so keep with the one before that. Once I removed ASIO4ALL, 99% of the problems went away. Anyway, back on target... thanks for all the good info, guys. I'm going to buy the book from Amazon, just to see what else I'm doing wrong. http://www.amazon.com/SONAR-X3-Power-Comprehensive-Guide/dp/1305090195/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1429102309&sr=1-2&keywords=sonar The Groove3 site is good, but they don't get into any hardware stuff at all.
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