Every time I export an audiomixdown in cubase it sounds crap

[Sascha Franck]

Good old Davor:

[UltraWill]

methinks Davor was listening to something on a PC with out-of-the=box Dell speakers and then transfered it over to his other PC with some tuned reference monitors and decided the second PC makes things sound better.

[davor]

methinks Davor was listening to something on a PC with out-of-the=box Dell speakers and then transfered it over to his other PC with some tuned reference monitors and decided the second PC makes things sound better.

Youthinks wrong.

[UltraWill]

Seriously, I have no idea where you're going with this. Esp. your attitude of "Everyone at KVR-VST is an amateur 'def' (you mean DEAF, or are you saying we're all related in some fasion to Def-Jam, or we're all cool?) idiots EXCEPT FOR ME." The more you keep posting things like "No Im not an idiot, you are! Obviously you have iron ears and I'm better than you! =D" and not addressing questions, you are going to come off sounding like an ass.

[Glooper]

Erm... what a strange thread

Hard disks have error checking on them... playback from harddisks should be the same 99.9% of the time. They have to be like this other wise software would load incorrectly and crash your PC every n seconds (ah wait a minute! maybe that explains a few things). so If you can hear differences in hard drives then your more likely hearing the difference caused by the fan noise in it / or the seek times are not fast enough so your getting glitches.

I believe there can be differences in the mixing algorithms on daws... I guess, generally due to you lowering the levels of some tracks and panning... these involve reducing the bytes involved by a factor which can create slight distortion... I guess some daws have different algorithms to work out the reduction and reduce distorion. (I'm not sure if any use dithering techniques when mixing channels). hence why daws can sound different.

However I very much doubt that a daw will employ different alogorithms when performing a final mixdown as to when playing back in realtime... though I could be wrong.. maybe a daw could use a "quicker" algorithm when playing back...

as for.. i listened and it sounds different...

personally... Every time I listen to a piece of music.. it sounds slightly different to me... My ears pick out different sounds, will follow different instruments, will hear different mistakes... or my brain is slightly tuned differently... however good your ears are, your never going to hear a peice of music the same each time?

hmm.. it's late and I'm talking bollox...

Ben

[pooshka]

... I can mixdown a bunch of files in Cubase SX and I can bounce the same bunch of files in Logic - when I reimport them into any application and phase invert one of them, the result is silence. DIGITAL silence!
What else is there that would need prove?

This is what I cannot agree on. The result may be silence, and still they may not sound the same.

davor, could you please share your thoughts on why this might be the case? I'm not challenging you or anything - it's just that based on my limited amateur knowledge, when two things cancel out in phase invert test it means they are identical. So if they are identical, then that certainly means there is no difference between the two?

However, you can hear the difference. So in this case, you are the living proof proving that two wave files that cancel out when one of them is phase inverted still may not be identical! This is a revelation for me.

as we have a real life example in you that defies phase invert test result, I will accept your testimony as a fact. However, I'm very keen to learn and thus would be very grateful if you can perhaps explain to me why/how phase invert test still may not reveal differences in sound. Again, I stress, I don't doubt whether you are right or wrong. I mean, when you say you hear something that means you hear it and that's a fact! BUT i just think it would be enlightening to hear your explanation on this matter.

thank you

pooshka...

[pooshka]

btw...

i was checking out that vestman website and...

http://www.johnvestman.com/separations.htm

this sounds like some sort of a hybrid of mixing/mastering or... just another name for mixing. :p

[stefancrs]

edit: fwiw, I'm not an amateur. I'm a professional. Digital Audio Programming is what I do for a living.

Unfortunately, or luckily for you, your ears are far from gold. I'm a musician, composer, guitarist, arranger and producer. I'm not a f**king programmer, I don't code software, I deal with music. If you cannot hear the difference between different DAWs, and that difference is actually not as small as that between the rendered file, and the mixdown inside a DAW, then we've got nothing else to discuss.

1) Please learn to quote correctly
2) How do you know my ears aren't as perfect as yours? Most differences "pro's" and "audiophiles" hear are due to placebo effect which has been proved several times over. I also deal with music, if that's what matters to you. I'm a musician and have been doing music on computer for about 12 years.

It's not my fault you don't know how to compare hosts or that you hear stuff that isn't there. I can put up two different mixdowns of the same tracks but in two different hosts, I'll even let you know which hosts, then you'll tell me which is from which host, ok? Granted, I will make the mixdowns by setting the two hosts up in a similar manner. What kind of material do you I should work with? You can give it to me if you like, otherwise I can just use some synthesized pads / bass / whatever.

[stefancrs]

btw...

i was checking out that vestman website and...

http://www.johnvestman.com/separations.htm

this sounds like some sort of a hybrid of mixing/mastering or... just another name for mixing. :p

Master Separations - The Format

When you mix, assign all tracks and effects to stereo groups (also referred to as "submasters" or "subgroups") and assign those groups to the stereo 2-track output. Record your normal stereo mix, and then make additional recording passes of each separate subgroup - thereby creating Separations. Similar in concept to color separations used in printing, you now deliver both the 2-track mix and the Separations to the mastering studio.

Separations Mastering - Our Technique

We load your Separations into our source computer and recombine them to re-create your complete mix. The key to this technique is that we also load in your full 2-track mix and A-B it with your Separations to ensure that we're honoring the vision you intended for your mix. The sound is immediately improved and we have more selective ways to apply mastering enhancements to make an amazing - practically transformed final master for you.

SEEMS TO BE SOME KIND OF MAGIC TO ME!!!!!!!!!

[Spaceman Sounds]

I can agree with the Placebo effect, but I'm also sure that I heard a difference in tone with an export of a vsti and how it sounded playing back live.

Again this could have just been my imagination, I'll check on it later and see. Might as well do some scientific experiment

[j_T]

Good old thread

Seventeen pages and still alive and kicking

Funny ...

Regards,

Tommy

[popsych]

And MY DAW is 100% exact too. I can mixdown a bunch of files in Cubase SX and I can bounce the same bunch of files in Logic - when I reimport them into any application and phase invert one of them, the result is silence. DIGITAL silence!
What else is there that would need prove?

This is what I cannot agree on. The result may be silence, and still they may not sound the same. 1) different daws sound different - that's my experience. Check out also:
http://www.johnvestman.com/DAWSUM.htm

2)when you render a multitrack mixdown in a DAW to a single stereo file, that stereo file (played from the same DAW) doesn't sound the same as the multitrack project file played from the DAW.

It may not sound the same due to realtime dither but is most probably the same. DAWS may "sound" different but I doubt they export differently

[pooshka]

And MY DAW is 100% exact too. I can mixdown a bunch of files in Cubase SX and I can bounce the same bunch of files in Logic - when I reimport them into any application and phase invert one of them, the result is silence. DIGITAL silence!
What else is there that would need prove?

This is what I cannot agree on. The result may be silence, and still they may not sound the same. 1) different daws sound different - that's my experience. Check out also:
http://www.johnvestman.com/DAWSUM.htm

2)when you render a multitrack mixdown in a DAW to a single stereo file, that stereo file (played from the same DAW) doesn't sound the same as the multitrack project file played from the DAW.

It may not sound the same due to realtime dither but is most probably the same. DAWS may "sound" different but I doubt they export differently

but I think Davor's actually saying that two wave files that cancel out 100% when one of them is phase inverted still do not sound the same - and this is something I don't understand. :p

[popsych]

but I think Davor's actually saying that two wave files that cancel out 100% when one of them is phase inverted still do not sound the same - and this is something I don't understand. :p

Of course they don't sound the same if they null and they they're played from a firewire drive. Digital silence sounds so phat when played from external drives - everyone knows that. Actually any stream of zeros sounds so much more alive especially when it that retro 4200 rpm disks. That's why mac mini is great for music

[pooshka]

but I think Davor's actually saying that two wave files that cancel out 100% when one of them is phase inverted still do not sound the same - and this is something I don't understand. :p

Of course they don't sound the same if they null and they they're played from a firewire drive. Digital silence sounds so phat when played from external drives - everyone knows that. Actually any stream of zeros sounds so much more alive especially when it that retro 4200 rpm disks. That's why mac mini is great for music

ooh- i got a 10 years old 520MB hard drive laying around. do you think it would make my drum loops sound more organic if I transffer my wave loops to this drive and re-import? My guess is that i need to do this by using copy command from the DOS window to ensure the best result because the mouse cursor movement during the transffer can cause jitters...

on the other hand, I don't believe you. you are just another amateur quasi musician from kvr cursed with iron ears... i think i'll just wait for Mr. Davor's reply.