Why do my exported recordings sound like burning garbage?

[Angstrom]

I'm not sure that gain staging is the issue here as he's hearing the project play back OK, the render should sound exactly the same as the playback.
gain staging issues would be equally evident on playback, and in both cases Live is very lenient.

I was thinking this earlier, and it's good to hear someone actually say the render should sound the same as play back. I've adjusted and rendered this at least 40 times using different render settings as well as adjusted track levels with no acceptable results. Not only that, the fluctuating volume levels in the rendered project is blowing my mind as well. Could it possibly be a faulted Live 10 download issue? I didn't have this problem in 9.

Nah corrupted executables simply dont run. Its not like biology where you get a mutation.

Not yet at least. I hear Ableton L11 is an RNA injection into the hypocampus.

I think you need a dude who knows about Live to call around to your house, or take your laptop and install over to someone. You have a very unusual issue here. Ive never experienced it in the 10 years Ive used Live.

[buj818]

OK, so peep this.. I rendered for the first time without including the encode for mp3 option and the wav it produced sounded beautiful and as advertised. Just like within Live itself. Im 100% stoked right now about it. Now, of course I gotta question why the rendered mp3 still sounds like an abortion with vocal cords. Orrrrr am I possibly misreading and not correctly understanding what the mp3 render option truly does? Progress is being made, so at least I dont feel like flushing Live down the toilet.... for now.

[JSOUNDJB]

When you export, in witch position is the NORMALISE option ? ON or OFF ?
Maybe it's the problem !

[Mark Williams]

If you dont gain stage carefully, and your clipping slightly within the plugin chain, as soon as you render to audio it shows itself horribly.... Doesnt manifest truelly until rendered to audio..

[buj818]

Normalize has always been set to off. My understanding from the get go was that it makes everything louder. My latest concern is that I cannot render to mp3 to save space. When that render option is turned on, both the wav and mp3 sound horrible. When turned off, the rendered wav sounds flawless. I just updated to Standard from Intro this morning. Im goin to re-record everything from scratch tonight and see how it plays out. I'll let y'all know the results.

[Coupe70]

Ok, so at this stage you are able to produce a proper WAV file and convert it to a proper mp3 file outside of Live if needed?
So at least you are able to work now and should contact Ableton support about the not working mp3 export.

[buj818]

I wonder if the fact Im not using an audio interface (other than the laptops internal soundcard) has anything to do with these issues. When checking out the signatures of fellow members, almost everybody is running an external AI of some sort. Anybody have any kind of opinions on that? Only external gear I use are midi controllers (MPK Mini II, and an Alesis Nitro drum kit) and my Line 6 UX2 Guitar Port. Would a small AI do wonders for my sound quality? I dont know the first thing about them other than that its a roided out sound card, but I wouldnt even know what one to buy. Thanks again to yall for your interest in helping this fella out.

[buj818]

UPDATE: First run at rendering since updating my Intro to Standard. Sounds perfect in both MP3 and WAV formats. Now, being I bought the Standard license off ebay for a killer deal, after the install, Intro was still on my computer. So I opened up Intro and the render, sample, bit rate, buffer, etc. settings were 100% the same. Re-rendered it from Intro, and again got garbage sound from MP3 but great WAV sound. Closed Intro, opened Standard, rendered same project, and both MP3 and WAV were perfect. Uninstalled Intro. At least it doesnt seem its going to be a problem anymore. Im definitely leaning towards a bad Intro install being I never had this issue in 9, and not an issue in 10 Standard. We can close the book on this one, but if youre reading this, instead of opening another thread, Id still like opinions on an audio interface that matches my gear in my post above this one. Thanks everyone!

[Coupe70]

You said when selecting mp3 export the rendered WAV was crappy, too.
If it was only the mp3, I'd say maybe some problem with a mp3 library that Live installs or something.
But this sounds more like a bug to me as soon as you select mp3 export.
You should consider informing support about the problem you had only with Live Intro,
even if it's not YOUR problem anymore.

An additional soundcard will give you a better recording and listening quality,
but will have no influence on the render quality.

[Stromkraft]

I opened up Intro and the render, sample, bit rate, buffer, etc. settings were 100% the same. Re-rendered it from Intro, and again got garbage sound from MP3 but great WAV sound. Closed Intro, opened Standard, rendered same project, and both MP3 and WAV were perfect.

Definitely sounds like you've hit on a bug, I hope you reported it for the benefit of others.

[Irrlicht]

hello my friend,

I have just had the same problem. Sometimes some plugins (differs.. it's not specifically ONE plugin) don't do what they are supposed to do. While the system has "more time" to emulate the plugins while you play the song live in live, it has to work "faster" when you export files. This is why sometimes, for instance a compressor is not doing it's job, because it was calculated to slow, or not at all in the splitsecond that a note is played. So while your mix isn't clipping at all (usually) it can actually clip in some instances, causing all kind of noise action on your export, which was not audible beforehand.

I put a stealth limiter that "shouldn't" do anything on top of every track that I suspected could have a problem of processing all that I've put onto it. The master and each individual clip was fine when playing the tracks in live, mind you. Still this way I gave the computer an "additional chance" to keep the track from clipping. It worked, my export is no longer disturbed by any noises that have no right to be there.

Hope that helped, if it didn't I hope you find a way.

Best regards

M.

*edit*
I take that back, it just made them less audible. The only real solution I've found is exporting it again and again until there are magically no noises.

[EDHEDH]

I'm not sure that gain staging is the issue here as he's hearing the project play back OK, the render should sound exactly the same as the playback.
gain staging issues would be equally evident on playback, and in both cases Live is very lenient.

I was thinking this earlier, and it's good to hear someone actually say the render should sound the same as play back. I've adjusted and rendered this at least 40 times using different render settings as well as adjusted track levels with no acceptable results. Not only that, the fluctuating volume levels in the rendered project is blowing my mind as well. Could it possibly be a faulted Live 10 download issue? I didn't have this problem in 9.

Nah corrupted executables simply dont run. Its not like biology where you get a mutation.

Not yet at least. I hear Ableton L11 is an RNA injection into the hypocampus.

I think you need a dude who knows about Live to call around to your house, or take your laptop and install over to someone. You have a very unusual issue here. Ive never experienced it in the 10 years Ive used Live.

Regarding "Not only that, the fluctuating volume levels in the rendered project is blowing my mind as well."
I'm having the exact same problem. I'm using Live 11 Suite, but I also had the problem in eg Live 10 Standard.

When I play my recording from the arrangement view in Ableton the song sound good.
When I play my exported wav and mp3 via Windows Player through my PC speakers (Logitec) the song sounds good as well.

However when I play the mp3 in my car via my high-end car speakers the song sounds crap: it's not clipping, but the volume of some tracks varies throughout the song. Going from ok loudness level, to more louder than the rest, to too quiete in comparison to the rest. Not continuously but in different parts of the song. Eg the rythm part sounds ok in comparison to the rest, then suddenly it sound louder, then suddenly too quiete.

Does anybody have an idea what could be the cause and why it sound good when played in Ableton via my monitors connected to my audio interface, and played directly on Windows via my PC speakers, but not when played via my car speakers ?

Kr

[[jur]]

Does anybody have an idea what could be the cause and why it sound good when played in Ableton via my monitors connected to my audio interface, and played directly on Windows via my PC speakers, but not when played via my car speakers ?

Pretty sure the answer is that your mix simply isn't good enough to play well enough in "every" room/listening environnement.
Or your car's system adds some crap like a hard limiter or some "enhancing" shit or something, in which case there's most certainly a way to bypass such option.

[EDHEDH]

Does anybody have an idea what could be the cause and why it sound good when played in Ableton via my monitors connected to my audio interface, and played directly on Windows via my PC speakers, but not when played via my car speakers ?

Pretty sure the answer is that your mix simply isn't good enough to play well enough in "every" room/listening environnement.
Or your car's system adds some crap like a hard limiter or some "enhancing" shit or something, in which case there's most certainly a way to bypass such option.

Ok.
Any tips or internet resources I can look at to create a mix that sounds good on all or at least the most common listening environments, or do you need a mix for each specific environment ?

[miyaru]

What often is used next to the nice sounding monitor setup is a supplement of grotboxes - which don't sound nice at all. If it sound good enough on these kind of monitors, it will sound ok everywhere. That's the thought behind it. I'm looking for Auralex/Avantone ones for this function. They are single driver full range without ports, so ideal for mixing in this purpose.

https://www.dv247.com/en_GB/GBP/Avanton ... 011013-000