Why does sending my track to WAV make it sound terrible?

[ChrisMack99]

When I play my song in Ableton, it sounds nice...all the levels are where I want them, its mixed pretty decently, it pretty much sounds how I want it to sound. Why is it that as soon as I try to make a wav file out of it, when I play the wave file it sounds really, really bad? All the levels are off, and the whole thing just sounds like mud. I'm using the highest possible settings for the wav, I really dont get it.

[hacktheplanet]

What do you mean by "highest possible settings?"

[ChrisMack99]

Highest bit depth and sample rate. Is that not what I should be doing?

[m.nowakowski]

Even with the standard (16bit/44.1khz) settings, it shouldn't sound different from what you hear inside the DAW. You sure you haven't accidentally checked the "convert to mono" button? Do you have any EQ turned on in your playback program (foobar/itunes/winamp etc) that could alter the sound?

"Highest bit depth and sample rate. Is that not what I should be doing?"
16bit/44.1khz really is enough, you might consider a 24bit render for mastering tho - but everything is converted down to 44.1khz sample rate when mastered anyway (alsao this sample rate is mandatory for burning the track to CD)

[Tone Deft]

your levels are probably low in the mix. post a screen shot of your set playing where tracks are active and pumping hard.

[Machinesworking]

yep, sounds like mix issues. once it gets into another program or in your car stereo etc. things like over all volume and too much bass, too many conflicting frequencies etc. make it sound muddy. nothing to do with converting to wav and everything to do with mixing and mastering. It's a safe bet most of us did the exact same things mix wise when we first tried it in a DAW!

[leedsquietman]

Because what you hear in Live is 32 bit floating point audio, which allows you to redline mixes and not notice clipping with it's massive headroom. If you don't leave proper headroom in your mix and don't watch your frequencies, stuff which goes unpunished monitoring live, will stick out like a foot long penis on Michelle Obama's head when you export it into 16 bit / 44.1 - Sampling frequency plays a very minimal role here.

Basically what MW said. Commercial products are mixed with lots of space in the mix (correct use of EQ and dynamics) and then made loud through dedictated mastering.

Learn how to mix. Watch your levels. Turn your levels down so that the master channel is not peaking above -3.0 dB and individual track channels are not peaking above a minimum of -6dB (and preferably lower). Learn how to use hi pass EQing to filter out muddy low end on instruments which don't require it. Learn how to use compressors for glue and sound design and also so they're not sucking the life out of a mix or distorting the crap out of it.

[mihai]

if your 2buss is showing you red, that's your problem. if your monitoring situation is poor, that's your problem. if your 2buss is showing you red on your poor monitoring situation, that's your problem.

[3phase]

and waht is the highest samplerate? how do you play that back? maybe some samplerate conversion kicks in in your audio player?

you should render allways in the projekt samplerate and do a higher samplerate version only as extra to the mastering engineer.. the file you are passing around shoud have a normal 44,1 samplerate to avoid confusion.. even 48 k files can lead to situation where the recipient might litsen to the whole track 10% slower..

[sebvalencia]

Hi

I'm brand new at this live business ( cubase since the st )
But had this problem.

I had to turn down the little headphone type dial on the master track.
Think that is due to having the monitoring on for a drum buss.
When I was exporting my wav files, they sounded kinda flanged.


Hope it helps
Seb

[ChrisMack99]

How are you supposed to mix if what you hear in Live isn't what its actually going to sound like? That's annoying haha.

[beats me]

I'll be the voice of the simpleton in this thread. It seems to me that when anybody has an issue with sound differences between what they are hearing in Live and what is in the mixed file it's because they start unintelligently farting around with sample rates and whatnot. I pretty much leave this area alone and I can honestly say my shit mixed file sounds no different than my shit mix within Live.

[MacGuffin]

I'll be the voice of the simpleton in this thread. It seems to me that when anybody has an issue with sound differences between what they are hearing in Live and what is in the mixed file it's because they start unintelligently farting around with sample rates and whatnot. I pretty much leave this area alone and I can honestly say my shit mixed file sounds no different than my shit mix within Live.

+1, this is exactly my thoughts.

[Tarekith]

Turn off warping where you don't need it too.

[outershpongolia]

Hi

I'm brand new at this live business ( cubase since the st )
But had this problem.

I had to turn down the little headphone type dial on the master track.
Think that is due to having the monitoring on for a drum buss.
When I was exporting my wav files, they sounded kinda flanged.


Hope it helps
Seb

That flanged sound is probably Phasing, you might be doubling up the signal at some point with your routing