Muffled Mumbled Mess

I have a problem. Here's the short of the long of it. The wife sings contemporary christian/gospel (point of grace, amy grant, casting crowns type etc) she uses the performance tracks purchased in any music store, etc. friends, family, folks at church ask if she has these tunes on a cd or something. So... I open a new project (btw this is my first attempt at creating a listenable tune in SHS7XL) import the track from cd @ 24bit. No effects added. She sings the song. I add eq, comp verb etc to the vox, bed the vocal nicely and it matches up real well... export the mix to a wav file @ 32bit. Open a mastering project, and import the wav audio file. I'm just using the Sonitus Suite multiband, comp, and boost11 on it. ( I got it, mastering tools work better... just ain't got'em ) Through the monitors I get a beautiful sound with good lows & highs and strong vocal. It sounds great to me. THEN...

I export to wav @ 16 and play it back on my fairly nice computer sound system. @@ I swear to you I haven't changed the sound of anything up to this point. The whole (mastered) wav mix just sounds muffled and not crisp at all. I mean, I'm no engineer, but my ears are as good as any. I can't make the wife sound like Amy Grant but I don't want people thinking I bound and gagged her while she sang either. The music should sound like it was inspired by God, not Lucifer... atm I feel the heat on my rear end! @_@

I've been reading mix & mastering threads all over the net. My summation, trust your ears and not much else. In one of those threads the gentleman talked about his topic being for 'electronic dist' as mp3 and not for CD. That CD mastering was another topic. I got that. I decided to export the mix to mp3. What I got back on the computer sound sys was the closest yet to what I hear in the monitors. A bit less crisp and clear, but very noticeably better compared to the wav file.

Question: To keep me from burning in hell, someone plz tell me the secret to producing a wav file that sounds closer to the original. Remember, I git it, the comp sound ain't never going to match my Fostex monitors. TIA

ETG aka Drue

there's no way an mp3 export should sound BETTER than a wave export!  what are your export settings in the dialog box that pop up when you choose EXPORT?

Thanks Herb, I wasn't using any preset. I'll try that. Yep, or no... I haven't touched the imported track prior to exporting it out as the final finished with it song. Vocal is being done just as you describe.

Reece, I know mate. That is what blew me away, but I swear it is so. The wav file is noticeably different from the mp3 in clarity. When I go File->Export->Audio in SHS7XL... in the 'Bounce Setting' dialog area:
Source Category: Entire Mix
Source Buss/Tracks: Lambda ASIO Out
Channel Format: Stereo
Sample Rate: 44100
Bit Depth: 16
Dithering: Triangular
Using No Presets
All 'checkable' Mix Enables are checked

Select the wave file type, give it a name and hit export. At first I wanted to blame it on the hardware, but then that goes against everything I know to be so with my system. Just kinda baffling.

glad that solved it.... I found that preset early on and use it every time.....

One last question I'll I will stop bothering you guys... ( on this issue ^..^ ) should the 'What You Hear' be used when exporting the mix as 32 bit also?

(( herb is right - the what you hear is necessary to get those FX on the bus.  )) from that statement I'm assuming you would use it.

Why are you exporting as 32 bit? I always export at 16bit... that is CD quality.

44.1/16 is the most common wave format that assures the maximum compatibility with the majority of CD players on the market.

Oh... I see.... well, I have done that a time or two.....

Most often now, I simply do my mixing, set levels and envelopes, insert FX into tracks. (at times bouncing the tracks with FX to audio), rendering all my synths and midi to audio as well....... and then placing my mastering plugs in the master buss.... so when I export it's pretty much done.....

it works well as long as the computer can handle the CPU load.

I really appreciate all the info/help you guys have given... but ya workin' me t'death here! LoL  Not fully understanding how 'dither' applied to audio, and Reece mentioning dithering to 16 bit at the final export I had to go exploring. I found this... (link below) read it all and now completely understand the concept. (back in my younger days I worked with electronic controls on numerical controlled milling machines. The controls were hydraulic back then. We applied trace "dithering" to the valves to prevent them from sitting idle (sticking) in any of the 3 axis. :-) ) This guy's explanation made perfect sense. So now I have to go back and export the mixes @ 32 bit w/o the dither and master out @ 16 with the dither. LoL I'm gonna be a 'real engineer' when I grow up!

Dither Explained

if your bit rate of your project is at 32 when you export at 32 then dithering does nothing anyway.  I always turn it off when exporting to the same bit rate my project is, but I don't think it matters because nothing should be done if you're not reducing your bit rate anway.  dithering only needs to be applied when reducing your bit rate and preferably only during the final export (there's a couple of threads in the big boy forum about dithering right now.  most of it is just senseless arguing, but there is some good information in them).

Yep Bats, I understand. I'm only experiencing a small portion of the dynamic issues with what I'm doing at the moment, and I'll keep that in mind in the future. There are a couple of songs the wife wants to sing that she can't find music for... so I've stepped in IT now... looking at being composer/musician/recording-mixing-mastering engineer which is what most of you guys are already. I just wasn't planning on being so versatile myself! LoL  I'm fairly sure my first attempt at the full monty will sound like a matchbox full of roaches. :-/ But... just as sure you guys will line me out in the end! :D

actually that's the way I do it as well.