Topic: Exported WAV file sounds different for online rendering vs offline

This topic has 3 replies, 2 voices, and was last updated 7 years ago by Utpara.

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December 28, 2016 at 20:26 #32007

Utpara
Participant

Hi,
I’ve been using Podium 3.2.4 and really enjoy it. I’ve got a Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 audio interface. Exported wav files sound very flat and dull when I play it back on Podium or any audio player when offline rendering is used. Online rendering sounds less flat for the wav export. It happens for any type of bit conversion, and even no conversion. Should there be a difference between the two types of rendering?

I will try to stick to online rendering but overall no matter what I do I cannot get the same live sound that I hear just playing back the tracks. Is there a remedy for exported files sounding dull? I am using ASIO4ALL as the driver. Thanks.

February 18, 2017 at 01:34 #32291

Zynewave
Keymaster

Hi Utpara,

Sorry for not responding sooner. Can you elaborate on what you mean with flat and dull? Is it simply a matter of audio volume difference, or does the frequency spectrum change?

Depending on the plugins you use, they could produce a different output if their processing is called faster than realtime. Also, the Podium offline rendering uses a buffer size of maximum 128 samples, which also could produce slightly different results compared to if you are monitoring with a higher ASIO buffer size. Plugin parameter automation is processed at the beginning of each buffer, so a smaller buffer size should result in smoother parameter automation.

February 19, 2017 at 18:28 #32318

Utpara
Participant

It seems to be frequency spectrum change and shifts slightly lower, also the music has less dimension (less polyphonic sounding) when the wav file is created in offline mode.

December 10, 2017 at 20:32 #34405

Utpara
Participant

I’ve finally tracked down the issue with renderings (both offline and realtime) sounding dull and lack of headroom. It seems that eq vst plugins, including the higher end ones, cause this issue with Podium. When mixing the sound is great, but after rendering and export the quality of the WAV file sounds different, dull, muffled, sometimes thin depending on the eq plugin. You can tell the difference listening through headphones even more. For example, I love ZPEQ but having multiple instances on different tracks and also on the master, the sound changes after real time render and export to WAV (32bit floating). Same goes with other eq’s from different companies. If I remove all eq plugins but leave other effect plugins such as reverb, delay, etc. active the realtime bounce sounds pretty spot on with the exported WAV.

The way I’ve been able to temporarily go around this is to only eq each track, bounce them, disable the eq, and only do the final master rendering with the bounced eq tracks. The exported file sounds close, and the headroom is maintained.

Is it possible for you to check into this? Thanks.

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