Guaranath.
GuaranathHi all!
I started uploading a couple of the tracks I have been working on to Soundcloud. In the one I most recently uploaded (titled “Aquifolia”), I am getting some harmonic distortion/buzzing following each notes decay that was not present at all in the exported WAV file (32-bit). Unfortunately it is an open, dynamic piece of music so the distortion is annoyingly present. As I mentioned, I am new to working with DAWs, so I wanted to know if anyone had an ideas on anything I could do to eliminate this problem?
The track is posted on the Podium Soundcloud group if anyone would like to hear what I am talking about. Or the direct link: http://soundcloud.com/guaranath/aquifolia
One frustrated DAW newb,
beseeching the DAW gods for any advice,
Guaranath
The TelenatorSoundCloud is one of the relatively few outlets for musicians and composers that will accept your submission in WAV format and then convert it themselves to Mp3 pretty promptly for you just before posting it on their site. I used to know but haven’t thought about it nor have I posted much there so far this year, but I think they format them to 320kps Mp3, which is about the best of most common lossy formats these days. At 320, you are loosing at least 75% of the musical information of your original WAV file; at 192kbs, the next lower bit rate, you loose some 90%. Aside from checking to make sure they play, I won’t even listen to playback of my songs in Mp3.
Converting to Mp3 not only loses the bulk of the musical info — and these lost parts are those that express much of the ‘breath’ and ‘3D’ depth of the tune which can result in a song sounding very flat and lifeless without it — but the conversion also adds a small amount that you can call the ‘psycho-acoustic’ data. This last is the garbage in the form of algorithms that fool your brain into thinking the song is still lush and rich.
The TelenatorOh! So sorry — I just caught the part about you actually SENDING them 32 bit. Oh no, I doubt their machinery can do that well and that could account for this noise you mention. Even if they can, technically, handle it, I wouldn’t trust them to it.
You should only be sending an outfit like this 16-bit WAV at no more than 44.1k. That is the only safe WAV to pipe to anybody over the internet at our current state of things.
GuaranathAwesome thank you for the ideas Telenator! I uploaded a 16-bit version and am still hearing some of the buzzing/distortion, but it seems a bit less so.. though hard to say for sure because I didn’t do a side-by-side (now that I think about it, I should have uploaded the 16-bit version separately so I could do a side-by-side). I transcoded my own mp3 version to see if it was just a digital compression thing, but was not getting the same buzzing/distortion.
Looking at your your discussion regarding depth or ‘breath’ loss with the transcoding, it makes me wonder if that may be a factor, because I used a spatial enhancer to expand the depth of the sound. So maybe it is just bounce it flat, because it is better to be flat and clean than deep and distorted (well, not always, but for this piece of music at least).
I was also reading that Soundcloud does some audio compression and normalizing as well, so not sure if these may be factors. Anyways, thank you for the tips and I will keep playing around with different versions to see if I can find something clean enough to make me happy.
LevendisI think the file you upload is transcoded for playback. I assume this because of the short amount of time for tracks to cache. This allows for uninterrupted streaming and renders the track preview quality.
When downloading tracks, however, the file format and size varies widely. Most likely it is the same quality as when originally uploaded. Have you tried downloading the track to see if the distortion is present in that file?
GuaranathI have not tried downloading it yet to check but I will do so. I have heard that Soundcloud transcodes to mp3 and you make a good point that this is intended to be preview quality and intended for streaming, which Soundcloud does reliably and admirably.
However, I am still left with the feeling that there is something beyond transcoding going on; when I transcoded the track to mp3 (with Audacity) I could not here the harmonic distortion present in the Soundcloud version… so… they are probably normalizing… audio compression too?
In the end, you are right… those who like what they hear will download or seek out the ‘real’ version… I will post again regarding whether my download sounds like my original upload. Thanks for your input.
GuaranathOk, downloaded the file from the Soundcloud server and it sounds fine… no harmonic distortion present..
Though I am no expert, reading more about transcoding I had another thought… could the harmonic distortion have something to do with dithering?