Distortion issue with Omnisphere

G

GovernMental

New member
Hi there,

I just finished to mix/master a few tracks with Omnisphere synths in it. When listened on my Focal monitors they just sound great but then I had the idea of listening to these tracks on my laptop and TV speakers. Some synths are distorted from time to time, just like if the TV/comp speakers can't handle it.

My guess is those poor quality speakers are just too bad for Omnisphere synths that are really complex, they get overloaded because of too much transients. But I'd rather know this is because I'm doing something wrong, otherwise I will just have to change the synths. I mean, a lot of people listen to music through low quality speakers, what if they play my sound and it get disrtorted every 20 sec ?

It is good on my monitoring headphones but distorted on low quality headset aswell. The raw synth soud is as bad as the one with audio processing when it comes to this distortion.

Anyway, if someone's got a tip to get rid of this, let me know please, thanks

EDIT : I tried everything, cutting low or high frequencies, turning down synth's cutoff till there is almost no sound, lowering synth gain.. Still crappy distortion on every other speakers than monitoring material. This is driving me crazy, why would a synth do that ???
 
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As I have a Focusrite 2i2 soundcard, I'm using its audio driver within my DAW. I assume it could be this.. I've tried changing many render options but not what you've said, I hope it'll solve the problem ! Thanks anyway, i'll let you know
 
>>>>I just finished to mix/master a few tracks with Omnisphere synths in it. When listened on my Focal monitors they just sound great but then I had the idea of listening to these tracks on my laptop and TV speakers. Some synths are distorted from time to time, just like if the TV/comp speakers can't handle it.

My guess is those poor quality speakers are just too bad for Omnisphere synths that are really complex, they get overloaded because of too much transients. But I'd rather know this is because I'm doing something wrong, otherwise I will just have to change the synths. I mean, a lot of people listen to music through low quality speakers, what if they play my sound and it get disrtorted every 20 sec ?<<<<

It could be a lot of things, there's not enough info now to diagnose the issue, but your post points to the fact that you should not always and only mix on your "nice" speakers. Many people burn CD's, listen in the car, on boom-boxes, computers, etc. to see how well their mixes "translate" to other systems and devices. At The Sonic Vault, we have 7+ sets of speakers, some amazing, but also some older stereo sets and a tiny, tinny little set of iPod speakers as well. The more you check your mixes on other systems, and eventually, the more you know your primary set of monitors, the less problems like these you will have.

GJ
 
rhythmgj said:
It could be a lot of things, there's not enough info now to diagnose the issue, but your post points to the fact that you should not always and only mix on your "nice" speakers. Many people burn CD's, listen in the car, on boom-boxes, computers, etc. to see how well their mixes "translate" to other systems and devices. At The Sonic Vault, we have 7+ sets of speakers, some amazing, but also some older stereo sets and a tiny, tinny little set of iPod speakers as well. The more you check your mixes on other systems, and eventually, the more you know your primary set of monitors, the less problems like these you will have.

GJ
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Thanks man, the fact you listen to your tracks on those so much different settings just confirm what I was thinking. I'm pretty sure the Omisphere patch is just too much for low quality speakers after almost every possible test. I'll just lower the volume a lot and layer it with another synth for med high frequencies, at the end of the day I was probably right listening to this on my laptop !

Want me to upload a short sample of raw synth, so you can play it on your "worst" systems ? I definitly want to know more about this issue, first time I experience this.
 
If you want to, yeah, please do. Also, it would be helpful for any wishing to post suggestions if you could post the whole mix in-question.

GJ
 
I'm thinking this is an issue with DAW resolution vs compressed mp3 resolution, with all those transients its almost like its playing a complex chord with just 2 notes playing and the mp3 cant process it like your DAW, so it doesn't get them all in exactly the right place. I don't hear "distortion" just dissonance. Think of it like a picture on your screen, with a high resolution the pixels are very accurately placed, with a low resolution the computer would have to choose a spot for the pixel near the correct spot, but not exactly.

Not sure how to fix this without heavily altering the sound of that electric piano. Its just a thick heavy sound that wont end up stacking well unfortunately i think.
 
DirtyThirdBeats said:
I'm thinking this is an issue with DAW resolution vs compressed mp3 resolution, with all those transients its almost like its playing a complex chord with just 2 notes playing and the mp3 cant process it like your DAW, so it doesn't get them all in exactly the right place. I don't hear "distortion" just dissonance. Think of it like a picture on your screen, with a high resolution the pixels are very accurately placed, with a low resolution the computer would have to choose a spot for the pixel near the correct spot, but not exactly.

Not sure how to fix this without heavily altering the sound of that electric piano. Its just a thick heavy sound that wont end up stacking well unfortunately i think.
Click to expand...

Well, thank you for your answer. Eventually, I export my tracks as 32bit 512-point WAV before mixing. There is strictly no difference wether the synth is an mp3 or a wav.
But your answer is mainly correct, I think the enveloppe of the synth causes transients to melt too much, if you will. I'll just play with decay/sustain/release and probably lower the volume to layer this with another synth.
Thanks for leading me to this conclusion anyway, cheers
 
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