How to make song sound the same on Soundcloud as it does in your DAW?

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JMolter

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I recently started uploading some of my tracks to Soundcloud, and they sound great in Fl Studio, but completely different and terrible on Soundcloud. Does anybody have tips on how to get the best quality out of your tracks on Soundcloud?
 
That just how that site is, they compress your track to 128kbs Mp3. Only advice is to do not compress your final mix and let soundcloud do it for you. Practice with a few wav uploads, eventually you'll get it right.
 
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JMolter said:
I recently started uploading some of my tracks to Soundcloud, and they sound great in Fl Studio, but completely different and terrible on Soundcloud. Does anybody have tips on how to get the best quality out of your tracks on Soundcloud?
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For SoundCloud mp3 type quality you need to leave a lower ceiling than the standard -0.6 dB ceiling for AAC encoded standard CD quality 44.1 kHz 16-bit audio. The more compressed, the lower the ceiling. With a true peak of 0 dBFS you might have up to 2 dB of distortion in the signal, depending on a few things... Avoid dithering, instead do a high quality DAAD route during mastering straight to the final playback format.
 
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SoundCloud allows to download the original file if the download feature is enabled.
 
No, he is asking how to maintain his final mix as it sounds on his DAW to soundcloud. You don't wanna lower the threshold, for it will get even lower on soundcloud. An uncompressed wav file would be best imo.
 
The 128 kbps player can't compete about quality with the original file especially at high sampling rate and 24 bits.
If quality loss needs to be minimized on the SC player, keeping the peaks under -1dBFS helps.
 
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It used to be the case that if you upload an mp3 @128kbps soundcloud would just use that rather than re-code it. Makes sense else you would be forced to use a vast amount of space uploading wavs when you might not allow downloads.
 
Pretty much every streaming or distribution site these days will convert what you send them to their own proprietary file format.
You want to send 16/44.1 lossless at the minimum or else you'll get double encoded lossy, which sounds gnarly.
It's best to check with each site or the aggregator you are using for online distribution for what they prefer.
Good to use a conservative peak ceiling (-.5 to -1dBfs) and not super hammered. gl
 
The issue on soundcloud is that whatever you upload is whatever they let you download. They only seem to have an mp3 licence for streaming.

As far as I'm aware if you upload the right mp3 type it won't re-encode it.

Check the documentation.
 
ILL GREEN said:
No, he is asking how to maintain his final mix as it sounds on his DAW to soundcloud. You don't wanna lower the threshold, for it will get even lower on soundcloud. An uncompressed wav file would be best imo.
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Uncompressed as in no limiter on the master or as in not uploading an mp3? Because an uncompressed wav file is still going to 128kbps mp3. I think what DarkRed is saying is that mp3 conversion can dramatically change the peak volume, and often turns a track that wasn't clipping at all into a noticeably clipped mp3.
 
crimsonhawk47 said:
Uncompressed as in no limiter on the master or as in not uploading an mp3? Because an uncompressed wav file is still going to 128kbps mp3. I think what DarkRed is saying is that mp3 conversion can dramatically change the peak volume, and often turns a track that wasn't clipping at all into a noticeably clipped mp3.
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Yes, exactly. The best route is to convert the signal into analog during mastering and on the way in back to digital record with the ceiling compensating for the amount of headroom required for that particular song on the particular target mp3 encoding quality, in other words to record various versions dedicated to various quality levels (hence also bypassing the need to dither). For CD I think a true peak value of -0.6dB is fairly optimal. For mp3 you often need a bit more than that, depending on the mix and quality level of the mp3. Better safe than sorry, a great master is not great because it peaks at -0.5 or -0.6 dB, but you should try to get as much signal as possible, the voltage curvature is cumulative, so a lot happens on these last .1 dB steps.
 
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It always sounds the same to me, Maybe its be cause i am using logic, try playing around with your export settings
 
Sol-Ra said:
It always sounds the same to me, Maybe its be cause i am using logic, try playing around with your export settings
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To be honest, it usually sounds the same to me too, but MP3 conversion can be very unpredictable sometimes, which can result in clipping. I think people hate on MP3 too much for the most part. They should get used to 128 kbps. Some services are using 96, and some radio stations are even less.
 
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