Audio output or Volume

XUnseenX

XUnseenX

New member
im fairly new to pro tools and am having difficulty with the sound quality or output when i bounce to disk. when i listen through the mbox sound card everything is loud and punchy, but when i bounce or export (then listening on my desktop) the sound quality is compromised and isnt nearly as clear lacking a lot of velocity. all my wave forms peak just at the top and bottom of the controller lane as to not clip. all my channel faders peak at green, maybe touching yellow on certain hits.

is this just the nature of home producing/recording, or am i missing something? any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated. good looking out.
 
Sounds like you're recording and mixing at a decent volume - I wouldn't change that. When you bounce to disk, you should have an accurate representation of your mix, provided you're exporting to a high-quality format. However, a typical mix has a lot more headroom than a finished mix with pre-mastering processing applied, so you won't be able to play it side-by-side with a song you bought, for example. That could be part of the issue. Or it could also be something with your signal chain on your desktop - does other music sound alright on it?
 
yeah all my other music sounds good. the mixed down track from pro tools sounds about 75% as good as any given mp3 i own (when i playback via itunes). its really when i upload to soundcloud that the quality drops to like 50%. ive uploaded ish to soundcloud before, having produced it on reason, and the quality is decent/good enough. nice and loud, with some clarity. its only when i bounce from pro tools, does it sound muddy and lacking a lot of quality. theres also an inconsistency in EQ. for example, in the mbox output, i'll hear everything as i want it to sound with EQs proper. when i bounce and upload, i'll hear disparity in certain levels. sometimes the vocals are too loud, sometimes the bass is too low, etc. and this is so despite the level readout to be hitting green and even yellow.

this is odd because when i bounce to disk from pro tools, and open it in an editing program ie. audacity, the wave forms are to the max limit before clipping. im just not getting the full potential of quality. id readily sequence in reason to get that quality punch, but if any of you are familiar with trying to sequence and edit in reason the same you do in pro tools, its suicide. any ideas?
 
It'd be easier to hear what you mean, I think, if we could hear some of what you've uploaded. Obviously, I won't be able to hear what you hear on your Mbox, but maybe hearing the final uploaded product will help.
 
Try setting the output of your mix bus to a new audio track, then record your mix to this track. Then just export the recorded track using the shortcut cmd, shift, K (if your working on a mac)

By doing it this way your track will be better quality because you have more headroom compared to the bounce to disk option.
 
themixspace said:
Try setting the output of your mix bus to a new audio track, then record your mix to this track. Then just export the recorded track using the shortcut cmd, shift, K (if your working on a mac)

By doing it this way your track will be better quality because you have more headroom compared to the bounce to disk option.
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is this done in the mixer? i apologize, im still learning it as we speak. like i understand what youre saying, but which is designated as the mix bus? then how do i record to an audio track within the mix window? thanks.
 
Yeah it is. Create a AUX track and set the output of each track in your mix to this track, this then becomes your mix bus (this should be the only track in the mix with the output set to your monitors)

To record in the mix window, all you need to do is to change the output from your monitors to the input of the new audio track you created. Then just record it how you would record anything else.
 
themixspace said:
To record in the mix window, all you need to do is to change the output from your monitors to the input of the new audio track you created. Then just record it how you would record anything else.
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okay, mix bus i understand now. the above is a little confusing. output from monitors: meaning change the output of each track to input of the new AUX track (mix bus track)? then you said record. i dont know if i am going about mixing down properly, but ive never recorded anything. all samples are imported. well i should say that, ive recorded instruments in pro tools before. so youre saying im recording the newly inputed signals of the new AUX track?
 
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Not sure specifically about pro tools, but many times when exporting, if there is a lot of clipping (if you're stuff is TOO loud), the DAW will really compress the audio.
 
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i created a master track. the monitor in it is already pushing high into yellow. raising the level in the master track (mix bus track) distorts the sound very much so. what to do...
 
XUnseenX said:
im fairly new to pro tools and am having difficulty with the sound quality or output when i bounce to disk. when i listen through the mbox sound card everything is loud and punchy, but when i bounce or export (then listening on my desktop) the sound quality is compromised and isnt nearly as clear lacking a lot of velocity. all my wave forms peak just at the top and bottom of the controller lane as to not clip. all my channel faders peak at green, maybe touching yellow on certain hits.

is this just the nature of home producing/recording, or am i missing something? any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated. good looking out.
Click to expand...

I am guessing that your song sounds exactly the same when you bounce as it does when you listen in pro tools... But when you at it outside of protools, you are just hearing it in a neutral environment and you are noticing how much different it sounds from co
commercial tracks and.

Remember, it takes a Lon time to begin to learn mixing and producing music.
 
dvyce said:
I am guessing that your song sounds exactly the same when you bounce as it does when you listen in pro tools... But when you at it outside of protools, you are just hearing it in a neutral environment and you are noticing how much different it sounds from co
commercial tracks and.

Remember, it takes a Lon time to begin to learn mixing and producing music.
Click to expand...

yeah, the playback during the bounce sounds the same. then playing it through another program via headphones, it sounds of less quality. then playing it through itunes via hifi speakers, it sounds really poor. however, yesterday i ran my laptop to some desktop speakers and it sounded fairly decent.

of course i understand how long it takes to even become proficient at anything.
 
Have you attempted to master this track? It sounds like you've got a serious problem with you mix translating across different systems. Try listening to it critically on each system and make notes on what you don't like about the mix, for example on smaller systems your bass might disappear, which means you need to go back and sort that out.

Try and play it on as many different systems as possible. Can you not upload it to the web and let us listen to it?
 
themixspace said:
Have you attempted to master this track? It sounds like you've got a serious problem with you mix translating across different systems. Try listening to it critically on each system and make notes on what you don't like about the mix, for example on smaller systems your bass might disappear, which means you need to go back and sort that out.

Try and play it on as many different systems as possible. Can you not upload it to the web and let us listen to it?
Click to expand...


yeah i just started to do so, hence playing it on desktop top speakers. i know what i need to increase, decrease and EQ more.
 
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