I'm using Sonar X1 and some soft synths to produce instrumental electronic music.   Final results when listening outside my studio have not been good, with the songs really not sounding like the original wav at all.  This is not though a normal post about songs not translating well.   I would like to try and find the step along the way through my production process where I might be going wrong, the time where some mistake is made that causes the problem, or to find if any of equipment is responsible.

I wondered, if I record say a simple drum loop in Sonar, and nothing else - and follow my process to listening outside the studio on other media, and if that still sounds bad, well, I could eliminate mixing as the culprit?    

Normally I record the soft synth tracks as midi tracks in Sonar, then I bounce the tracks as audio.  I use mainly Izotope Alloy to adjust EQ etc on each audio track, adjust volumne/pan levels etc, before exporting as one stereo wave file.  I then bring that wav file into Izotope Ozone, tweak the EQ, adjust compression, and then limiting.   Usually there is quite a lot of limiting needed to get it to a reasonable volume.

Then, I'm taking this master wav file into iTunes, and dragging the track into my iPhone - from there I listen from the phone in my car, and also on a Bose Soundlink Bluetooth Mobile speaker.     

Any advice how to track what is the cause of the poor quality results welcomed.

Listen.

Form an opinion.

React.

Start listening again.




That's the best advice.


best regards,
mike

Generally electronic stuff with synths will sound pretty good internal to the computer..... no mics and stuff involved. 

So that could mean that the way you are listening... the monitor speakers, the room, etc are the culprit that is throwing the mixing off. 

If the room is not properly set up (acoustically) and you have poor acoustics, or are using sub standard speakers or no speakers (headphone mix) you will naturally mix so it sounds good to you in that room , on those speakers, or headphones.... 
When you take it to a totally different room or speakers it is not mixed for that system and it sounds bad. 

The solution is to do acoustic treatment to the room and mix on studio reference speakers to get the flattest sound possible. You have to hear the mix "AS IT IS" not how the room affects it in order to get a mix that plays well on many different systems. 

I have ARC which helps, but is not the "Be ALL Cure ALL"  to a bad room.... It is however, my only solution at this time to my non-treated room. 

Learn your system and it's speakers regardless of how you mix.... 

ULTRABRA

Normally I record the soft synth tracks as midi tracks in Sonar, then I bounce the tracks as audio.  I use mainly Izotope Alloy to adjust EQ etc on each audio track, adjust volumne/pan levels etc, before exporting as one stereo wave file.  I then bring that wav file into Izotope Ozone, tweak the EQ, adjust compression, and then limiting.

Do you export the file from Sonar on its way to Ozone as 24 bit or 16 bit?  You didn't say either way.  While it probably won't be a massive difference, you should not reduce the bit depth until the final export to a "playable" format.
 
The other thing you didn't say was whether you found the post-Ozone (presumably) 16-bit file to sound good or disappointing when played through your monitors.  Just play it in Windows Media Player of the equivalent.  There may be something in your export parameters from either Sonar or Ozone that's causing the problem before the audio ever leaves your computer.

Hi UltraBra. I produce a lot of quality instrumental electronic music and it has to go into a variety of mediums. In some ways it is a bit if a translation issue and it sort of falls into the same camp as getting any genre mixed tracks to sound good on a variety of systems. The answer to your question is that it is not just one thing but a lot of little things.

With electronic music you are dealing with synths and many of them have a very extended range of frequencies and can go very deep and very high too and can be bright. The same rules apply to getting individual tracks sounding good. They create way more issues sound wise right at the source. I try to:

1     Get them sounding as good as they can within the instrument itself. And that includes effects, filtering eg HP filtering etc. There is so much one can do before the sound even leaves the hardware device or the VST,

2     Look at how hardware devices are interfaced into the world. I feed my hardware synths into a very nice Samson mixer and it has got a few things going for it. One is a very cool HPF on the input channels and a nice EQ. Between these two things along I can completely reshape the sound of an incoming synth. Fine tune here to maximise the sound you are after.

3     As per standard production procedure keep an eye on your synth sounds at a track level. They may need some more slight filtering or EQ to bring out the best in the sound. Some synths can still have too much bottom end for their own good. Check it on nice main speakers with a good bass response. Often it is just the upper part of the sound you are really after. If you want to shake the floor be careful as to what synths are doing it. Control it too here right at the source. Things like 808 kick drums etc..Deep pads.. Check your velocity editing after you have played a part in or created a part. Make sure notes are of a similar velocity unless otherwise required to be otherwise. Print synth tracks to audio and go further with the dynamics processing on the parts. Compressors will often be needed to smooth part levels out further and keep certain things tamed and under control.

4     Get a great mix. Learn to balance things nicely. I bet your mixes are probably not half as good as the things you comparing them too. Listen and analyse great mixed tracks, do the same sorts of things. Use a single point source Auratone type speaker in mono at low volume to create perfect balances. Absolutely essential. Check up loud regularly at high volume on your main monitors for bass end and reverb levels.

5     Master your tracks correctly. I bet you are comparing un mastered poorer quality mixes to fantastically mastered great mixes. That will create a great divide and you are hearing it! Once you have got a great mix you then master well. This often means a further overall EQ fine tuning, cleaning up and filtering the bottom end a little more. The top end will be fine tuned as well. The compressor will even out and give your tracks that professional glue to the sound. Then final limiting will crank the levels up big time and right up to commercial levels.

If you do all this your final tracks will sound killer on everything you play them on. A great mix plus great mastering just transcends all the mediums they are played on. The is no magic potion for each medium just get greatness happening and it will sound great on everything. And that includes conversion to mp3. I pull levels down a bit before encoding to mp3. Choose a decent bit rate like 256 or 320 K/Bits per sec so that at least some quality is preserved. Make a full audio CD and test it in your car. When a track passes the car test it is perfect! The bass should be big and powerful without rattling my teeth. Mids and highs should be loud and punchy. Watch the bottom end for a great translation into ear buds.

Most of all the music should be great first, everything else will fall into place much easier. Here is the big one! Make sure your parts are interesting and weave in and out of each other. Keep an eye on what parts are playing what and what parts are silent when other parts are playing. Rather than just layer stuff up, try integrating the parts more in what I call serial phrasing. Think three parts making up one phrase or statement. This all effects the production later on and adds huge amounts of clarity (and interest) to your mixes. When mixing use the minimum voltage maximum illusion approach. ie pads can be very low in a mix and yet still be heard clearly. That type of thing.

The guys above have given some good guidance, but put shortly:
Your comment
" Final results when listening outside my studio have not been good, with the songs really not sounding like the original wav at all"
makes me think the key is your monitoring/studio acoustics. If the projects sounds like you want them to (and acceptable compared to commercial stuff) in your studio, but not outside, you maybe just haven't "learned" your studio yet.
 
Do you use commercial tracks for A/B-comparison inside the project? Do you use a frequency analyzer to compare the frequency curves of your stuff to those of commercial productions?  
 
IMO, no particular software or hardware alone is guilty or saviour, as with any set up you should be able to produce tracks that translate acceptably to "outside world" if you only know the strengths and weaknesses of your monitoring. The more reliable monitoring/acoustics, the easier it is to get there.
 
I'm an amateur, and my skill level is very modest, and my monitoring/acoustics is far from pro level. I make several mixes of a project, then I listen to them "outside", make notes about the strengths/weaknesses of each mix, then make changes, and pick the one that I consider the "official" version.

ULTRABRA, if I were you I'd be finding out if Kalle is local to me and offer him a lunch and a beer in exchange for picking his brain! 

It is a translation problem.  No monitoring system is flawless.  What sounds brilliant on one system can produce obvious flaws on another.  The real trick is to learn your monitoring systems (emphasis on the plural).

Another problem is electronic music - there are no hard and fast models to follow.  Everyone has an idea of how an electronic guitar sounds, or a kick drum and how that fits into a song.  Synths that model acoustic instruments should fit into this scheme, but as soon as you start turning knobs you get ... differences.  Turn knobs on two synths and you get all kinds of ... interference between the two - unlike traditional instruments.  And as Jeff notes synths, unless told not to, produce the full range of sound we can hear, 20-20,000 Hz.  That puts a strain on any monitoring system, esp. when you get several of these going at once.  It becomes a real challenge.

Reading your explanation of how you work sez a couple of things.  The fact you say you need a lot of limiting means the mix might be low.  This is usually not a problem w/  synths.  Pushing digital limiters is a delicate thing.  Pushing analog can be delicate too, if you don't want saturation turning to distortion.  I had a light old standard done w/ vocals, guitar and a lead drop.  When pushing the vol for modern sensiblilies of this soft song the limiter introduced some "hair"  on the vocals, esp.  Perfect for rock, not so good on a pretty jazz song tho I doubt my other systems would have revealed it as other than a smudge (which is still not good).  Alloy and other digitial systems can do this in spades.  I've heard a lot of good mixes that end up flat and, if my song above had hairs, they have boar snouts afterwards.  iTunes and other compression software can mulitple this effect, as well, with every sound in a mix pushing the limits of sonic decency.

Modern loudness is hard to get right - you need to remember that that mix and mastering engineers probably don't have better ears than you, but the mistakes they make they do them 8 hours a day w/ others around them only too willing to point mistakes out.  This makes for a quick learning curve.

Still, if your " mix" sounds bad on every other system but your mix system, that is the first place I'd look for an external fix.  The rest is just learning.

@

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Thanks everyone for the replies.   Some interesting and informative stuff in there.   I think I get the point :-)    

Just to answer/respond to a few things :    

#Guitarhacker - yeah, my "room" is a mess, acoustically.  Well, its not even a room really, its more like a cupboard.  I have acoustic panels in it, and leave the door at the back open (as someone else on here suggested).   Still, I do spend more time listening on (top quality) headphones, than I do listening through monitors (Yamaha HS80, one with a dodgy hissing radio frequency .... I'm thinking my "cupboard" is probably too small for ARC.   

#dmbaer - I export at 44100/24 bit.  I think the exported unmastered wav sounds OK, but when using Ozone, particularly the limiting, I can hear it can affect the sound not in a good way.   But, even when it sounds reasonable in Ozone, it can sound awful somewhere else.    

#Jeff Evans - thanks for some great suggestions and advice.  just one thing : I am comparing my tracks mainly not to professional music, but tracks on Soundcloud that are similar-ish.   So, mastered tracks yes, but usually, at least attainable.    I find its my bass which sounds most "out" in comparison.       

#Kalle - I don't actually A/B from inside the project, thanks for the tip.   I do compare outside the project using ozone to check the overall frequency of other songs.    

#bitflipper - ha ha, I had even though the same!   Kalle, missä sä asut?!    

#AT - I think mostly my mixes in Sonar are quite low - eg, peaking at something like -12db, or maybe more.   Is it better to up the levels to get it up naturally to more like -6/-3db, meaning less limiting? I notice when limited a lot in Ozone - this is when I can really here something bad coming in, not quite distortion, but pushing it certainly degrades the overall sound. I'm not sure what is considered "a lot" though ... pulling the threshold down to -9/-10, maybe that's too much, or maybe it depends on the source material?    

Anyhow, I'm in a rubbish room, with electrical issues, how much worse can it get :-)    I'll probably go back to basics, keep things as simple as possible, and try and learn where it starts to go wrong.