annoying stutter issue with my songs

F

Frocco

New member
Hows it going guys! This problem has been bugging me for a long time and I can't figure it out. I use Ableton live 9 and ASIO for a soundcard. I produce/mix/master everything through Ableton. I make mostly dubstep/trap music and a lot of that type of music has very fast transients either in the beat or during the buildup; (I figured that I would tell you what kind of music I make before telling you the problem so your not confused).

I'm having a real annoying issue with my songs where if I have something like hi hats that are playing real fast around 16th to 32nd notes, it makes a fluttering/stuttering effect to where everything in the song sounds like its being side chained to the hi hat. When the hi hats are playing fast, every other sound in the song ducks and it feels like the hi hats are cutting through my songs.

When I playback my songs on the Iphone at around 75-100% volume, its extremely noticeable and nasty sounding. I can't really notice it on other speakers and i'm wondering if anyone else can. The part that's really confusing me is if its a problem with my Iphone, then why in songs that have fast hi hats like mine I hear no flutter/stuttering on my iphone?

I've tried seeing if its a limiting issue, tried no limiting but without clipping, tried no dithering, tried to see if its a bit depth issue and kept it at 24 instead of 16, tried all of these and nothing works. It's really frustrating.

Here's a song with fast hi hats that I played on my Iphone with no stuttering:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKAHD-orBYs
Now here's my song with hi hat flutter :(:https://soundcloud.com/frocco/im-goin-in

Thanks.
 
do you have a master buss limiter or compressor active? deactivate and see if the problem persists

if this fixes the problem then maybe you should consider

1) not using the master dynamic processor at all and learn how to balance your mix without it present
2) consider getting someone else to mix your tracks for you to see if it is a common problem or just you
3) if you insist on using some form of master buss dynamic control then consider using a multi-band device that allows to switch off it's sensitivity to the high freq trigger of your hi-hats
 
I'm working on a track rite now and I don't have one compressor or limiter on the entire project and the funny part is i'm getting fluttering with or without mixing, its really weird lol.. I wish someone would understand what i'm saying by maybe using there Iphone if they have one and listen to my soundcloud song i posted:https://soundcloud.com/frocco/im-goin-in
 
I just listened to both on my computer speakers and could not hear what you are describing

try this in your iphone audio settings turn off any sound gooderer eq settings and see if that helps

also consider whether this a conversion artefact at soundcloud - i.e. what is the quality of your source file for soundcloud? if you are sending them mp3's or other lossy-compressed file formats chances are you are getting conversion artefacts as they are transcoding your file to their 128kbps streaming format

better to upload 44.1/24 or better to soundcloud to give their process the chance of doing the least damage to your sound
 
Thanks so much man for responding, you always give me a response. The one thing i noticed is that i dither down to 16 bit. I checked the file details of my songs and they all have a bit rate of 1411kbps. why is my bit rate 1411kbps and professional songs have 320kbps. how do i get my bit rate to 320kbps?
 
why would you want to downgrade your sound quality???

that is what you are doing by going to 320kbps, which is the best you can get for an mp3 stereo constant bitrate file, from a 44.1/16 pcm encoded file (wav/aiff)

dithering will not cause the problem you claim to hear
 
You are exporting your songs to an WAV (uncompressed) file format which utilized linear pulse code modulation. That is why you are seeing a bit rate of 1411kbps. This is better quality than the "professional songs" you. These songs are in MP3 format hence the bit rate of 320kbps. Hope this helps.

(Bandcoach beat me to it.)
 
Last edited:
Maybe just try cutting the very high highs of the hats and slightly lowering the volume. They seem a bit too prominent to me personally.
 
^Yup, couldn't really hear any "fluttering" either, but they do seem a tad too prominent in the mix.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top