One Synth Challenge #184: ToneZ 2 by Retornz (TheNeverScene Wins!)

[TheNeverScene]

Well that was quick! lol

[VCA-089]

Voted!

No matter what I do my track sounds like a poor quality mp3 on SC. This time it's rendered on a proper audio interface, 24 bit 48k, the best quality possible. I've also left -3db headroom. Seems to be they are biting people to use their mastering tools and buy a premium (which are pretty useless, besides the unlimited uploads).

[empphryio]

https://help.soundcloud.com/hc/en-us/ar ... ce%20codec.
What’s the best file I can upload?
We recommend you to upload in a lossless format like WAV, FLAC, AIFF, or ALAC. If you can, the bit depth and sample rate should be 16 bit and 48 kHz respectively.

When you upload a track on SoundCloud, we optimize it for streaming. As part of that process, we resample and transcode it to a high-performance codec. These codecs are highly optimized, but they can increase peak levels, which can cause clipping. We recommend that you leave between -0.5 and -1 dBFS of headroom to prevent artifacts like clipping during transcoding. Make sure to check the resulting stream in the rare case where more headroom is required.

[TheNeverScene]

Voted!

No matter what I do my track sounds like a poor quality mp3 on SC. This time it's rendered on a proper audio interface, 24 bit 48k, the best quality possible. I've also left -3db headroom. Seems to be they are biting people to use their mastering tools and buy a premium (which are pretty useless, besides the unlimited uploads).

Don't beat yourself up over Soundcloud. I think your track sounds great and is very well put together. I really like it.

Not sure if SC's compression tactics have changed over the last few years, but in the past it always seemed to chew up high frequencies. It will drive ya nuts, especially when we're stuck making cymbals and hi hats out of noise and resonance.

Not sure if it helps, but I generally use a fairly steep (not a cliff) lowpass somewhere around 15k so SC can't wreak too much havoc up there.

[TheNeverScene]

For fun, I added guitars and bass to my track. Kind of how I hear things when doing OSC but synthtars are generally a fail lol
https://soundcloud.com/the-never-scene/ ... al_sharing

[silverpants]

Voted!

No matter what I do my track sounds like a poor quality mp3 on SC. This time it's rendered on a proper audio interface, 24 bit 48k, the best quality possible. I've also left -3db headroom. Seems to be they are biting people to use their mastering tools and buy a premium (which are pretty useless, besides the unlimited uploads).

Don't beat yourself up over Soundcloud. I think your track sounds great and is very well put together. I really like it.

Not sure if SC's compression tactics have changed over the last few years, but in the past it always seemed to chew up high frequencies. It will drive ya nuts, especially when we're stuck making cymbals and hi hats out of noise and resonance.

Not sure if it helps, but I generally use a fairly steep (not a cliff) lowpass somewhere around 15k so SC can't wreak too much havoc up there.

I do the same. I can't hear above 15k anyway

[] Peter:H []

Voted!

No matter what I do my track sounds like a poor quality mp3 on SC. This time it's rendered on a proper audio interface, 24 bit 48k, the best quality possible. I've also left -3db headroom. Seems to be they are biting people to use their mastering tools and buy a premium (which are pretty useless, besides the unlimited uploads).

I made an observation during the Audible Planets round.
Audible Planets in particular produced a lot of high frequency content, even a great deal above my hearing range. Now think of an compressor getting this kind of matrial. You migh not hear it, but the compressor might get triggered by the inaudible frequencies AND in turn it migh duck the whole signal.
If you imagine a 4 band compressor with a upper band let's say starting from 8khz going up to 20khz, the compressor will duck a great deal of audible content (8 - 14 khz) based on content above your hearing range (14 - 20khz)...That is my intuitive explanation.
And in Audible Planet round it actually worked. After getting rid of all the high freq stuff I wasn't able to hear the mix got brighter. I think that is true for each and any synth, but it was espacially prominent for Audible Planets ...

Second thing: Don't upload mp3s to soundcloud or any "compressed" format. Best thing is to upload a wav file that exactly meets the spec they describe. otherwise you'll get your audio "treated".

[Eauson]

Voted!

No matter what I do my track sounds like a poor quality mp3 on SC. This time it's rendered on a proper audio interface, 24 bit 48k, the best quality possible. I've also left -3db headroom. Seems to be they are biting people to use their mastering tools and buy a premium (which are pretty useless, besides the unlimited uploads).

I made an observation during the Audible Planets round.
Audible Planets in particular produced a lot of high frequency content, even a great deal above my hearing range. Now think of an compressor getting this kind of matrial. You migh not hear it, but the compressor might get triggered by the inaudible frequencies AND in turn it migh duck the whole signal.
If you imagine a 4 band compressor with a upper band let's say starting from 8khz going up to 20khz, the compressor will duck a great deal of audible content (8 - 14 khz) based on content above your hearing range (14 - 20khz)...That is my intuitive explanation.
And in Audible Planet round it actually worked. After getting rid of all the high freq stuff I wasn't able to hear the mix got brighter. I think that is true for each and any synth, but it was espacially prominent for Audible Planets ...

Could you try something like this!?
https://www.airwindows.com/acceleration2/

[liqih]

What works best for me is to upload FLAC 16 bit 48000 samplerate, normalized at -0.5 dB or -1.0 dB, also my audio rendering is bandlimited on mastering by EQ within 50 Hz and 19000 Hz. So that all extremes are damped for the benefit of SC codec.
The losseless FLAC is cross-platform and saves some MB in upload.

[BrainBeatMusic]

I have only just started doing my voting and as I have left comments on a few so far what I had thought was some lacking warmth in the sound design but I am beginning to think now that the synth itself is the problem often to my ears at least a slightly tinny sound. I think I may need to up score some tracks that I felt were good but didn't sound like I would have expected. I would love to know what everyone else is thinking on this.

[silverpants]

I always render and upload my songs as uncompressed WAV. I don't treat them in any special way.
I've never noticed my Soundcloud tracks sounding bad.
But I'm no audiophile.

[doctorbob]

I always up load WAV files. I make sure there's a bit of headroom in case their transcoding introduces overs. I do my best to get a track close to LUFS-I of -14dB. That LUFS value will depend somewhat in the "genre" of the track and that will also have a big influence on the dynamic range (DR) I aim to achieve.

Done with ancient ears ...

dB

[liqih]

...
But I'm no audiophile.

+1, cassettes still sound good to me, they have their charm as lo-fi

Done with ancient ears ...

dB

+2, what happens above 12k hz is just what I see with the eye.

My main reason to upload as FLAC is that is lossless, it saves from 20% to 50% of upload time, also when in download I guess. I may be naive but I still care about reducing bandwidth usage everywhere. Also WAV is a com.microsoft.waveform-audio, where FLAC is a org.xiph.flac

[doctorbob]

My ears will soon be 75 years young! I feel bad now as I know I should use FLAC, having been part of the vorbis-dev team at the beginning of .ogg development (building and testing alphas), eeking out those little niggly bugs. Also wrote a 4 channel .ogg (not surrournd!) codec for use on SGI Indy systems. [Did the same for GIMP 0.52, and wrote a video codec for SGI computers].

My coding days are long past now, spend my time taking photos, gardening, fishing and of course, OSC!

dB

[liqih]

My ears will soon be 75 years young! I feel bad now as I know I should use FLAC, having been part of the vorbis-dev team at the beginning of .ogg development (building and testing alphas), eeking out those little niggly bugs. Also wrote a 4 channel .ogg (not surrournd!) codec for use on SGI Indy systems. [Did the same for GIMP 0.52, and wrote a video codec for SGI computers].

My coding days are long past now, spend my time taking photos, gardening, fishing and of course, OSC!

dB

You did great things and still do