Rendering: this sounded nice in Live!

[john doe by choice]

Also, I have this twisted urge to post some screenshots from Total Recall, but in the interest of keeping down the "4chan" element, I will restrain myself

[snakedogman]

There's definitely room for improvement in your basic mix. All the dither in the world isn't gonna help you unless you improve the mix first. I don't know what kind of speakers you are using to listen back on but it sounds like you might be mixing on some bass-heavy hifi speakers because in your track the bass is nearly non-existent. Same with the kickdrum which should be the center point of the groove of a track like this, but I have a hard time even hearing it over all the mid-range synth stuff. I'd definitely change the sample on that.
Actually in the outtro bit suddenly the main trance synth drops in volume (around the 8 minute mark) and suddenly the balance is much better. Try mixing the whole track like that last bit. Take down the levels on those synths, and pan them a bit so they're not all in the middle.

It might help to do an a-b comparison between your track and a professionaly mixed commercial record and try and really listen to how the sounds are distributed in the frequency spectrum.

[Ed J]

Thanks for the comments guys, but here's the problem:

Yes there are a shitload of mid-high synths, *but* they each have an EQ on them, with the chuggy one that comes in at about 3 minutes being given a reasonably wide band pass with EQ8, then the others given low pass filters using auto-filter or EQ depending on the automation I wanted. None of them share EQ space directly, except some minor overlap with the gated synth and the chuggy one, to re-inforce the chordline at the end.

There is a *very* heavy kick on it (four kicks layered with an added click at about 15khz for a bit more punch), and a slighlty less prominent bassline (heard right at the beginning but getting very quickly lost at about 3 minutes.

When I play it in Live, it's a little top-heavy, a with not much mid, but whatever I do to export it it seems to make it very muddy in the mid-frequencies, and for future reference all my comparisons are with the direct WAV out, not the encoded AAC version, that's just for use on soundcloud cus uploading an 800meg file takes too long on my shitty connection.

So, the real question is: WHY THE FUCK DOES MY RENDER SOUND NOTHING LIKE THE TRACK DOES IN LIVE?!?!?!?!

you high end - all those fizzy Operator sounds are going FizzZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzz because there is too much high end in the 11-14kHz range. Try low pass filtering some of those synths at around 8-9Khz or bring down the 11-14 Khz range about 3 to 3.5dB - You mid highs are fairly quiet but balanced but then it's like someone introduced a 'female' flasher with 3 breasts and a huge penis in the 11-14 Khz range, it stands out that much !

yeah, I know about this, it's mainly to do with my efforts to make it less muddy, if I can get the render to sound like it does from Live I can sort that stuff out.

oh and it's Toxic Biohazard, which is basically operator on very pure speed

[[nis]]

and for future reference all my comparisons are with the direct WAV out

"Direct WAV out" from where?

Best,
Nico

[Ed J]

"Direct WAV out" from where?

the WAV that is produced from the render from Live

[[nis]]

No, I mean which application do you use to playback the rendered WAV file.

Best,
Nico

[Ed J]

Oh, sorry!

I played it in both iTunes and windows media player, both without any extra EQ, and then burned it to CD and played it in my car

that's my standard post-render procedure, normally gives a good impression of the overall sound.

[[nis]]

Have you checked if the "sound enhancer" was disabled in iTunes, too? You can enable/disable the sound enhancer in iTunes' "playback" preferences pane.

Another thing you should try it to export a 32-bit WAV file at the same sample rate as you have selected in Live's audio preferences pane. Then reimport the WAV into Live and turn off WARP. This should sound 100% identical as in your original project, doesn't it?

Best,
Nico

[Ed J]

Have you checked if the "sound enhancer" was disabled in iTunes, too? You can enable/disable the sound enhancer in iTunes' "playback" preferences pane.

Another thing you should try it to export a 32-bit WAV file at the same sample rate as you have selected in Live's audio preferences pane. Then reimport the WAV into Live and turn off WARP. This should sound 100% identical as in your original project, doesn't it?

Best,
Nico

No, I haven't enabled it so I wouldn't expect it to be, and it sounds the same in itunes anyways.

I'll give the export/import thing a try when I get back from work, although I'd assume it would sound just as bad!

[[nis]]

No, I haven't enabled it so I wouldn't expect it to be, and it sounds the same in itunes anyways.

It's enabled by default in iTunes. (At least it always used to be like that).

I'll give the export/import thing a try when I get back from work, although I'd assume it would sound just as bad!

Well, that would be a bug then.

If you don't change the bit depth (i.e. stay at 32-bit, which is what Live's internal audio engine runs at) and use the same sample rate, then the resulting audio file should be an exact replica of your Live set. The only things that may cause a slightly different sound are Live devices / plug-ins which make use of any randomize functions. In this case you will obviously get slightly different results any time you playback your song or render it. Otherwise your exported file should be 100% identical. You can verify this if you reimport the rendered file into Live, turn warp off, load the Utility effect on the track and invert the phases of both channels (L and R). If you now playback the unwarped, phase-inverted WAV file together with your set, it should phase-cancel completely, i.e. there's nothing else than pure silence left on the master. That's the physical proof that the WAV file is 100% identical. Note that you will need to remove/disable any effects from the master track in this case (before you export).

Best,
Nico

[Ed J]

It's enabled by default in iTunes. (At least it always used to be like that).

Oh, I only ever use iTunes for exporting to AAC normally, only stared using it to preview recently!

I'll try the phase inversion; like I said I've done the export the same on previous tracks and it's been fine, but this one isn't: I know my mixing isn't exactly amazing but I'm quite capable of making thing sound nice and crisp without too much mud!

Coincidentally, this is the first track I've rendered since I moved onto live v8.0.5, so maybe it is a bug

Cheers, Ed

[Ed J]

Ok, I now have physical proof the render is different, just rendered operator doing an arpeggio, one single sine wave, no FM, no LFO etc., put it in the track, inverted the phase, and !!!! I CAN STILL HEAR IT!!!

admittedly, it's a little quieter, so the mix is *close*, but it's not identical!

Can anyone recommend and upload site so I can stick the set up for people to have a look at?

Cheers, Ed

[Ed J]

Ok, here are the relevant files:

http://rapidshare.com/files/290007021/o ... t.zip.html

Hopefully someone can tell me what I'm doing wrong

[Ed J]

bump

[[nis]]

Your demo set phase-cancels completely if you set the sample rate in your audio preferences to 96 KHz. I assume that you were running it at a different sample rate, but selected 96 KHz in the export options.

Best,
Nico