Best Practices - Conversion to MP3

brentandashley · Post by **brentandashley** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 4:29 pm

Hi - I've been struggling with MP3 conversion for a while, so I thought I'd turn to collective wisdom of this forum!

When I get done with a recording project I use the good old "Render to Disk" function to produce an .aiff file. Then I open the file in iTunes and "Convert to MP3". I've used multiple bit rates, etc... but it still seems like my MP3s are too quiet. I expect some loss with the conversion, but it seems like I have to push the volume knob all the way up to get a good sound out of my MP3.

What can I do to improve the MP3 quality? How do you convert your files? Your best practices would be most appreciated!

Ashley

laird · Post by **laird** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 4:58 pm

your mp3's are too quiet compared to "commercial" mp3s?

Well, there's stuff you can do... but remember:

1) Commercial mp3s were mastered by professionals with years of experience on very expensive equipment, so don't kill yourself if you aren't up to their level.

2) Commercial mp3s, especially these days, are considered TOO LOUD by many listeners. Not all, but many. Google: loudness wars.

What can you do?
Matser you aif files first. Add a little comrpession, EQ and even limiting to boost your average volume. Mastering is an art in and of itself. You will probably do more harm than good as you learn, but hey, that's part of learning.

For instance, read http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic. ... +tarakeith

dont worry if much of it goes over your head. Try a few things out.

djastroboy · Post by **djastroboy** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 5:32 pm

I'm guessing here, but I think you'll find that your aiff files are quiet too.
In other words, it's the mastering that you do on your source material that needs work, not a problem with your mp3 conversion which, in my experience, does not affect your levels.

I've had good luck using Ozone as a cost effective way to get a good mastering job done.

http://www.izotope.com/

brentandashley · Post by **brentandashley** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 5:43 pm

re: commercial MP3s - Yeah that's what I was getting at...I guess I hadn't thought of it that way. I am quite a newbie!

re: mastering - I don't know why I didn't think of this! I'm going to look into it right away.

Thanks for your input!

TigerStance · Post by **TigerStance** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 5:47 pm

Hey Ashley, I just came to the forum to post almost the same question. I'm exporting to .wav files and they always come out way quieter than any of my commercial .mp3s. It's been frustrating and I'm trying to work around it.

Laird, thanks for the tips, I think I'll try playing around with a few of the effects you've suggested here.

laird · Post by **laird** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 6:24 pm

Live has a bunch of effectspresets you might try out first... just drop them on your Master Channel and see if you can 1)get a boost in volume without 2)clipping and 3)muddying up your sound.

The pitfall : when making an A/B comparison, most people will pick the louder of the two as "best". Initially. Later, you may realize a louder version really sounds muddy, flat, abrasive or worse.

brentandashley · Post by **brentandashley** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 8:13 pm

That's a great tip too - Thanks!

re: Louder - Yeah, I can definitely see where things would get totally muddy with multiple layers of stuff. I'm going to try one of the mastering set ups and see what happens.

Ashley

Hegpetz · Post by **Hegpetz** » Sat May 24, 2008 1:50 am

Make sure Normalize is set to off in Live's render window. This was a big mistake on my part for a long time when I was suffering the same thing - playback through Live sounded lovely, but when exported it was bleh. This fixed things right up - worth a shot!

nbinder · Post by **nbinder** » Sun May 25, 2008 12:58 pm

For conversion I usually use CDEx on the PC, never experienced lower quality or volume than in usual beatport mp3s. Are you sure your wav/aiff is allright?

snakedogman · Post by **snakedogman** » Sun May 25, 2008 2:14 pm

if it's too quiet, turn up the volume on your amp

generally you want to be careful with trying to make something loud by using compression and limiting esp if your not sure what you're doing. Work on making your mix sound good first cause that's the most important thing.
Personally I do use compression on my "masters" but I try to keep it very light, just to make everything gel together a bit more and gain a couple of dB's of gain.

Freekster · Post by **Freekster** » Tue May 27, 2008 11:54 am

Platinum notes pretty good for RMS normalizing of audio files. You can easily do same thing with plugins, but that is easy to use on multiple files.

stonee · Post by **stonee** » Tue May 27, 2008 4:30 pm

did you check your itunes encoding settings?

in the advanced mp3 encoding setting in itunes, theres a bunch of dynamic options, including normalize, average volume, or boost or lower the volume of the encoded mp3.

so if your source files are too low, you can boost them up by a bit.

but as a rule, your audio when you export should be close to 0 db, and everything after that export shouldn't alter your volume level.

Best Practices - Conversion to MP3

Best Practices - Conversion to MP3

Mastering...

re: Louder