Ableton Forum

When I play my song in Ableton it sounds great. But when I export it to an mp3 it sounds like a tin piece of crap? I basically use the default settings...

What is the trick?

Thanks in advance

you might want to encode it using a higher bitrate. the default on some encoders is 128 which sounds like its playing from a tin in an aquarium. opinions on the best encoding rate vary, these days im not happy with anything under 256-320 depending on the source material.

Even the best sounding mixes I've done sounded better straight off of the computer then they did in the final render. That's just one of the many challenges.

Rather than rendering try recording the audio from Live's out into another app. real time. That said, rendering issues and conversion to mp3 are different processes. You say you're using default settings, so try using non-default settings and see if it helps.

In ableton i export to .wav. Then open in Adobe Audition and convert to .mp3. Sounds great.

muthafunka wrote:Rather than rendering try recording the audio from Live's out into another app. real time.

Have you done this? If so, what was your method and what applications were used?

Using Audio Hijack on Mac, just set the input to Live and hit record. That said though, there really shouldn't be a particuarly noticeable difference from a rendered file, I usually just render then convert in iTunes to mp3 if I need it, usually to 256 kbps minimum.