KVR Audio

bh9090 · Post by **bh9090** » Wed Jan 20, 2016 11:21 pm

Taron wrote:Oh, I might be risking to lose sympathies here, but I really don't think the highest quality sound reproduction is a necessity for a good tune.

I can't agree more. Jasinski's, Z's, and Hokey's tunes (and I'm sure others) usually sound great regardless of bit rate/encoding/whatever. I think worrying about bit rate and encoding can be a distraction from improving ones mixes.

doctorbob · Post by **doctorbob** » Thu Jan 21, 2016 12:26 am

For sure, I agree. It's just sometimes we get very very disappointed when we listen back to an uploaded song which just sounds dreadful compared to the original we have been mixing and hearing.

I did 6 versions before the one up now is at least satisfactory to my ears, fixing little bits here and there - the fixes were mainly in the bass vs high frequency and transients area. It's worth noting that most of my songs transcoded really well.

The last thing I do is obsess over any one patch. I too like to layer up sounds so they work together - very much "into" soundscape and quite dense sounds, when the composing takes me there.

But, watch out for the usual suspects this time round - I bet their tracks will be awesome compositions and sound design to blow us all away .

dB

ontrackp · Post by **ontrackp** » Thu Jan 21, 2016 2:03 pm

doctorbob wrote:For sure, I agree. It's just sometimes we get very very disappointed when we listen back to an uploaded song which just sounds dreadful compared to the original we have been mixing and hearing. I did 6 versions before the one up now is at least satisfactory to my ears, fixing little bits here and there - the fixes were mainly in the bass vs high frequency and transients area. It's worth noting that most of my songs transcoded really well.

The last thing I do is obsess over any one patch. I too like to layer up sounds so they work together - very much "into" soundscape and quite dense sounds, when the composing takes me there.

But, watch out for the usual suspects this time round - I bet their tracks will be awesome compositions and sound design to blow us all away .

dB

I agree with DB. After spending many hours fine tuning sound design and mix, it would be nice if those details came across properly in the Sound Cloud version of the song. Of course a good song works across any kind of reproduction, and for things that are going to be released to the world it makes sense to check your mix on small and big speakers and headphones, but as a component of this competition is sound design, it would be appropriate if the base level reproduction of the songs accurately reflected our efforts.

psmacmur · Post by **psmacmur** » Thu Jan 21, 2016 3:00 pm

Folks, just to keep the discussion thoroughly sidetracked on soundcloud encoding, could the issue be that SC is using Joint Stereo? Maybe encoding to 128kbps VBR Joint Stereo would exhibit the same artifacts? Would be nice to know what the exact soundcloud encoding is, for cases like this, to avoid 7angram's situation. Alas, I most definitely don't have time this month to do the science myself. (Admittedly, it'd be even nicer if they used a better encoding; srsly it's 2016 ppl)

mehum · Post by **mehum** » Thu Jan 21, 2016 3:32 pm

Yes, Joint Stereo would explain the stereo issues. I'm guessing CBR though since that's implied (to me anyway) when you say 128kbs MP3.
I would be nice of Soundcloud actually told their user's exactly which algo they used. That way you could actually test the same settings yourself and experiment when mastering.

General advice I've read (but rarely apply...) is to band limit ~30-~17000Hz before transcoding. Sure, you'll lose some clarity, but the end result might be better than the scrambled mess the hihats sometimes end up sounding...

Touch The Universe · Post by **Touch The Universe** » Fri Jan 22, 2016 5:17 am

Had to switch to fl studio, are there tips to make it play nicely there. I recall something but can't seem to find it after skimming a few pages.. Getting some timing issues and way too much cpu.

Meakaale · Post by **Meakaale** » Fri Jan 22, 2016 10:41 am

Tjgoa wrote:Had to switch to fl studio, are there tips to make it play nicely there. I recall something but can't seem to find it after skimming a few pages.. Getting some timing issues and way too much cpu.

Works fine for me in FL 12 but eats a bit of RAM. Maybe you read about going to: SETTINGS=>Settings and deactivating GPU acceleration.

bh9090 · Post by **bh9090** » Fri Jan 22, 2016 4:25 pm

Entry:
https://soundcloud.com/hennessey/bh9090-reedwounds

34 instances in Live 9.5
DAW Effects: EQ8, Compressor, Auto Pan, Auto Filter, Saturator, Simple Delay, Filter Delay
3rd Party: Voxengo OldSkoolVerb, Tal Reverb 4, Camel Crusher, Molot, Limiter6

(BJ - Sorry for the multiple Soundcloud submits.

Hope that doesn't foul you up)

7angram · Post by **7angram** » Fri Jan 22, 2016 10:37 pm

Meakaale wrote:
Tjgoa wrote:Had to switch to fl studio, are there tips to make it play nicely there. I recall something but can't seem to find it after skimming a few pages.. Getting some timing issues and way too much cpu.
Works fine for me in FL 12 but eats a bit of RAM. Maybe you read about going to: SETTINGS=>Settings and deactivating GPU acceleration.

Yes, a good idea to do this from the get go. On my laptop(quad core i7 Win7) with Reaper4 , I couldn't get more than 3 instances before I got an error message. After disabling the GPU acceleration, I never had any problems.

If you are on a Windows laptop with a dedicated GPU, then switching your DAW to use you dedicated GPU instead of the integrated GPU would probably also work. Not sure if it is using CUDA or OpenCL for acceleration though?

The nice thing is that you only have to disable it on your first instance, and subsequent instances of the plugin are automatically disabled.

doctorbob · Post by **doctorbob** » Sat Jan 23, 2016 3:26 pm

Tjgoa wrote:Had to switch to fl studio ...

Aha, I smell a great entry here. The electronic pads are great, good deep sub bass, percussion is very acceptable.

Modulation, well, you can go into quite uncharted territories if you have time.

Can we have a sweepstake on how long your track's going to be??? Hehe!

Looking forward to it though - the last section of mine (20 seconds or so) reminds me of some of the nice stuff I have heard from you - perhaps it's been rubbing off???

Cheers,

dB

Hanz Meyzer · Post by **Hanz Meyzer** » Sat Jan 23, 2016 3:49 pm

https://soundcloud.com/hanzmeyzer/a-dar ... powersynth

My entry for One Synth Challenge #83. Most presets created from scratch. Tried to let it sound analog-like

It's not mastered or finalized.

Genre: Dreamwave, 80s
BPM: 88
DR: 12

DAW: Renoise 3.1, mostly purely MPowerSynth (with its fx section) + some DAW internal fx: 8x Compressor, 4x multi tap, 3x EQ5, 2x digital filter

z.prime · Post by **z.prime** » Sat Jan 23, 2016 7:14 pm

bh9090 wrote:
Taron wrote:Oh, I might be risking to lose sympathies here, but I really don't think the highest quality sound reproduction is a necessity for a good tune.
I can't agree more. Jasinski's, Z's, and Hokey's tunes (and I'm sure others) usually sound great regardless of bit rate/encoding/whatever. I think worrying about bit rate and encoding can be a distraction from improving ones mixes.

Yes, I think a couple things are in play here:

Listening to your mix after transcoding and/or on other systems generally reveals deficiencies in the mix
- Does the bass sound funky? It may not be leveled properly across the track or there may be multiple bass frequencies overlapping - make sure to HPF ALL the other tracks that shouldn't be overlapping the bass!! Probably at 120-140Hz+. Is the bass stereo? Make it mono < 100Hz! Is there very low frequency bleed < 30-40Hz? HPF it out if you need to!
- Have you properly compared it to a 'pro' track? The overall EQ audibly and through a spectrum analyzer?
SoundCloud encoding seems to be optimized for louder volumes
- Is it a listenable level? Does it sound about as loud as other tracks on SoundCloud after you compare apples to apples with the uploaded SoundCloud version?

You don't need to compress your mix to hell, but get a decent limiter and boost the levels to be somewhere in the ballpark of other 'pro' tracks within the genre you're going for (e.g. Limter 6). You can use a compressor or ideally a multiband compressor (e.g. TDR Nova, which is similar) for some pre-limiting eq leveling. Those two plugins are very good, rivaling the pro stuff. If it starts to sound distorted, you're boosting too much... unless you have already distorted sounds

But most importantly, is the mix good? Have you spent the time to automate levels of the parts so they're not really loud in some places but quieter in others - so they don't 'get lost' at times when they shouldn't because of other competing parts? If you kill all the plugins on the master channel and listen to your mix raw, is it going over 0 a lot? for certain parts but not others?

I've started to mix with nothing on the master (no limiter, nothing). This forces you to get a good sounding track *in the mix*. After that, simply boosting a bit with the limiter takes it to just about where it needs to be with no other fiddling. Some of the best advice I've read is very simple and seems obvious now: learn your level meters. This seems silly, perhaps, but it's invaluable and will lead to a much faster mixing process. What I mean by 'learn your level meters' is: learn where the different sounds should fall. Once you get your tracks falling at the "right" level, the track basically 'mixes itself' as they say. High frequency sounds are easier to hear so low frequency sounds need to be louder. For example, a kick maybe would be -10db, a snare -11db, sub bass -12db, other basses -16db, hats/other perc -30/-20db, pads/leads/other stuff -20/-16db... as a very rough ballpark. Then the main melody would be boosted up just a bit to be louder. This way you'd not be going much over 0 anywhere, ideally, and the limiter can just have the signal boosted into it to get your levels up.

Anyway, hope that helps.

z.prime · Post by **z.prime** » Sat Jan 23, 2016 7:17 pm

Side note: I've not started a track this month. I might tomorrow and see how far I can get. Chances of me finishing an OSC track in a week are slim, though it's happened before.

z.prime · Post by **z.prime** » Sat Jan 23, 2016 7:19 pm

Last thing... I highly recommend the 'Xilentify' plugin. It does wonders for your mix:

mehum · Post by **mehum** » Sat Jan 23, 2016 7:28 pm

Very subtle effect but certainly makes everything shine a bit more.

One Synth Challenge #83: MPowerSynth by MeldaProduction (Z.Prime Wins!)