I have a MONO track with 3 effects (Trash->SIR->Sonitus Delay). It sounds great in the mix. If I freeze the track, or bounce to tracks, or export audio, that track sounds different. It sounds muffled, with less bite. The same thing happens if I toggle the track's interleave setting from mono to stereo. The track sounds different. I assume this is due to sending a different signal through the effects, but I can't figure out what is going on. What can possibly make a track sound different on bounce than it does when listening to it live?
> What can possibly make a track sound different on bounce than it does > when listening to it live? Are you using a Native Instruments soft synth by chance? That's one possibility: http://www.cakewalk.com/forum/tm.asp?m=279121&mpage=1&key=&anchor#279188 My recent problem was with the FM7. Someone else in this newsgroup complained about a similar problem with Kontakt. I don't know if this is a SONAR 4 thing or an NI thing. I have not yet heard back from NI support. Shane
Hi DaveR- What do you have the "Source" set to when you do the export or bounce? I think the default is "Entire Mix", which might not be what you want. You might try some other options. I'm still playing with this myself, but for now I'm going with "Tracks" or "Buses", depending on what I want to bounce/export. Make sure you include the Track or Bus FX, depending on what you want included in the mixdown. -Susan On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 17:24:31 GMT, DaveR <NOSPAM_drubin@NOSPAM_i-2000.com> wrote: >I have a MONO track with 3 effects (Trash->SIR->Sonitus Delay). It >sounds great in the mix. > >If I freeze the track, or bounce to tracks, or export audio, that >track sounds different. It sounds muffled, with less bite. > >The same thing happens if I toggle the track's interleave setting from >mono to stereo. The track sounds different. > >I assume this is due to sending a different signal through the >effects, but I can't figure out what is going on. > >What can possibly make a track sound different on bounce than it does >when listening to it live?
On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 13:19:04 -0500, Susan G <> wrote: >Hi DaveR- > >What do you have the "Source" set to when you do the export or bounce? >I think the default is "Entire Mix", which might not be what you want. I have tried various options, and all have the same result of "deadening" the track. Even if I use 'Export audio' to create a WAV file with the entire mixdown, the track sounds different in the WAV file than it does when I play it back live. I'm pretty sure it's a stereo/mono thing, but I don't know how to solve it...
"DaveR" <NOSPAM_drubin@NOSPAM_i-2000.com> wrote in message news:... > On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 13:19:04 -0500, Susan G <> wrote: > >>Hi DaveR- >> >>What do you have the "Source" set to when you do the export or bounce? >>I think the default is "Entire Mix", which might not be what you want. > > I have tried various options, and all have the same result of > "deadening" the track. > > Even if I use 'Export audio' to create a WAV file with the entire > mixdown, the track sounds different in the WAV file than it does when > I play it back live. > > I'm pretty sure it's a stereo/mono thing, but I don't know how to > solve it... It stands to reason that whenever multiple signals of a given bandwidth are compressed into one channel with the same bandwidth, or close to the same bandwidth, a bit of loss of every quanitity in any one single contributing track will occur. Kind of like pushing a loose bunch of straw through a funnel and then expecting it to be as bushy and fresh looking coming out as it was when it went in, wouldn't you say? Ed Cregger
On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 20:18:21 -0500, "The Amazing Seismo" <> wrote: > >"DaveR" <NOSPAM_drubin@NOSPAM_i-2000.com> wrote in message >news:... >> On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 13:19:04 -0500, Susan G <> wrote: >> >>>Hi DaveR- >>> >>>What do you have the "Source" set to when you do the export or bounce? >>>I think the default is "Entire Mix", which might not be what you want. >> >> I have tried various options, and all have the same result of >> "deadening" the track. >> >> Even if I use 'Export audio' to create a WAV file with the entire >> mixdown, the track sounds different in the WAV file than it does when >> I play it back live. >> >> I'm pretty sure it's a stereo/mono thing, but I don't know how to >> solve it... > > >It stands to reason that whenever multiple signals of a given bandwidth are >compressed into one channel with the same bandwidth, or close to the same >bandwidth, a bit of loss of every quanitity in any one single contributing >track will occur. > >Kind of like pushing a loose bunch of straw through a funnel and then >expecting it to be as bushy and fresh looking coming out as it was when it >went in, wouldn't you say? Not sure what you mean ... are you saying that by using the mono interleave, I am actually feeding less signal to the FX and that is the explanation for the loss in quality? It doesn't seem very logical. I'm still not clear, based on the Cakewalk documentation, exactly what happens to a mono-interleave track as it passes through and out of the FX bin. I am pretty sure I am hearing a stereo effect, as if the FX are processing a mono signal but producting stereo output. Ironically, when I switch the track interleave to stereo, the stereo effect is not evident. Nevertheless, I would expect "what you hear is what you get" when it comes to mixing down audio. I don't see any reason why bouncing a mono track to a stereo track should sound any different from feeding a mono track to a stereo bus in real time.
"DaveR" <NOSPAM_drubin@NOSPAM_i-2000.com> wrote in message news:xuWYQcYRkuU=pX02H90asOW9R1=... >I have a MONO track with 3 effects (Trash->SIR->Sonitus Delay). It > sounds great in the mix. > > If I freeze the track, or bounce to tracks, or export audio, that > track sounds different. It sounds muffled, with less bite. > > The same thing happens if I toggle the track's interleave setting from > mono to stereo. The track sounds different. > > I assume this is due to sending a different signal through the > effects, but I can't figure out what is going on. > > What can possibly make a track sound different on bounce than it does > when listening to it live? By definition any track that is true stereo is going to sound different when bounced to mono. Even if the track is mono if the effects are stereo (as with the SIR and Sonitus Delay) the output will be stereo. If you collapse that to mono it's going to sound different. There is a setting when bouncing or exporting that chooses the output format. Try bouncing or exporting the track as STEREO and it should sound exactly like it's supposed to.
On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 09:24:53 GMT, "Ricky W. Hunt" <> wrote: >... Try bouncing or exporting the >track as STEREO and it should sound exactly like it's supposed to. Exactly. It should. But it doesn't. That's where I'm stuck. Bounce to mono, bounce to stereo, source tracks, source mixdown ... I've tried every combination of options. The bounce never sounds the same as the live playback.
As a test, try stripping all FX and all envelopes from the track before bouncing and see if that makes a difference. "DaveR" <NOSPAM_drubin@NOSPAM_i-2000.com> wrote in message news:... > On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 09:24:53 GMT, "Ricky W. Hunt" > <> wrote: > >>... Try bouncing or exporting the >>track as STEREO and it should sound exactly like it's supposed to. > > Exactly. It should. But it doesn't. That's where I'm stuck. > > Bounce to mono, bounce to stereo, source tracks, source mixdown ... > I've tried every combination of options. The bounce never sounds the > same as the live playback.
Dave, do you have a small sample project (say less than 5MB to download) that demonstrates it (I think you said it used Trash, SIR, and the Sonitus:fx delay, all of which I have)? Without actually seeing/hearing what is going on it is tough to say much. There are only a few things that come to mind generically: First is if you are driving the tracks really hard level-wise, which may sound fine in playback mode due to 32-bit operation, but may get crunched somehow when it needs to get reduced to 24-bit (or, much worse, 16-bit) files during a bounce or export operation. A second one is if there are some kind of phase issues in applying the stereo effects to the mono source. However, I think you'd hear the same issues on playback if this were it. The final one is if you are using pre-fader sends and are freezing a track that has plug-ins in the FX bin. This is the one specific case I know about where frozen output will sound different from normal playback. Whether it affects actual mixdown or not will depend on if you unfreeze the track before mixdown, so that you get your original routing taking place or whether you mix using the frozen track. In particular, when you freeze a track that uses pre-fader sends with plug-ins in the FX-bin, after doing the freeze what is going to the pre-fader send will be post-FX bin, instead of pre-FX bin as it would before the freeze. This could conceivably create signal cancellation possibilities if you were relying on whatever the aux bus (or whatever the bus you were using pre-fader is) was doing having an input that was notably different from the post-FX bin signal. You should hear it on playback after the freeze, too, of course. I'd think this would be a pretty unusual scenario for all the things to come together to make it deaden the signal, but, if you need to do something like this, the way to do it would be to freeze (or bounce) once without FX enabled, copy audio to a separate track to configure for use with whatever bus was on the pre-fader send in the original track, then unfreeze the original track, reenable the FX, and freeze the original track. This keeps the original, pre-FX bin signal going to the bus that was used pre-fader while still preserving the signal path for the rest of the original track on the frozen track. (I've used something like this when trying to mix direct signal with software-based amped signal, where the pre-fader send would be used to stream off the direct signal to a bus with the software amp simulator prior to hitting any separate processing I might be doing on the direct signal for its part in the mix.) Rick -- ========================================== Rick Paul Closet Cowboy Music (ASCAP) Lake Forest, California E-mail: Web: http://home.earthlink.net/~rickpaul MP3s: http://www.soundclick.com/rickpaul More MP3s: http://rickpaul.iuma.com ========================================== "DaveR" <NOSPAM_drubin@NOSPAM_i-2000.com> wrote in message news:... : On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 09:24:53 GMT, "Ricky W. Hunt" : <> wrote: : : >... Try bouncing or exporting the : >track as STEREO and it should sound exactly like it's supposed to. : : Exactly. It should. But it doesn't. That's where I'm stuck. : : Bounce to mono, bounce to stereo, source tracks, source mixdown ... : I've tried every combination of options. The bounce never sounds the : same as the live playback.
"Rick Paul" <> wrote in message news:9Armd.28017$... > Dave, do you have a small sample project (say less than 5MB to download) > that demonstrates it (I think you said it used Trash, SIR, and the > Sonitus:fx delay, all of which I have)? Yes, that would be good.
On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 18:23:01 GMT, "Rick Paul" <> wrote: >Dave, do you have a small sample project (say less than 5MB to download) >that demonstrates it (I think you said it used Trash, SIR, and the >Sonitus:fx delay, all of which I have)? I plan to put one together tonight. >First is if you are driving the tracks really hard level-wise I don't think so, because the track and its route through the effects all have a reasonable level. The source material is 16-bit. >A second one is if there are some kind of phase issues in applying the >stereo effects to the mono source. However, I think you'd hear the same >issues on playback if this were it. Could be a phase issue, because it does seem as if some of the higher harmonics may be cancelling out. But you're right, I should hear it live if that were the case. >The final one is if you are using pre-fader sends and are freezing a track >that has plug-ins in the FX bin. There are no sends on the track, but this is good information to know. One guess is that when the interleave is mono (and I listen to the live sound) it is feeding the mono signal to the FX which produce a stereo result, and I hear the stereo result. But when I bounce to tracks (or set the interleave to stereo) it feeds a stereo signal to the FX which makes a distinguishable difference to the effect that Trash produces, since it is very sensitive to the input levels. Or, when bouncing, it sums the FX bin stereo output to mono, which is consistent with what I think I'm hearing. Thanks for the offer to check it out on your system. I'll post a URL with the test file when I create it.
"DaveR" <NOSPAM_drubin@NOSPAM_i-2000.com> wrote in message news:... : One guess is that when the interleave is mono (and I listen to the : live sound) it is feeding the mono signal to the FX which produce a : stereo result, and I hear the stereo result. But when I bounce to : tracks (or set the interleave to stereo) it feeds a stereo signal to : the FX which makes a distinguishable difference to the effect that : Trash produces, since it is very sensitive to the input levels. : : Or, when bouncing, it sums the FX bin stereo output to mono, which is : consistent with what I think I'm hearing. I just tried several experiments along these lines, getting the expected results in most cases when using Freeze or Bounce. In particular, I started with a mono track, put various FX in the bin, including some that gave notably stereo results, then bounced to a second track, inverted the phase, using the Interleave, button on the second track, then played it against the first one. The result should be silence if playback and bounce were identical, and it was indeed silence I got. Another thing I tried was Freezing the original track (i.e. instead of playing it back live), and then playing the frozen track against the phase-inverted track. Again, the proper result of silence. Basically, the freeze and bounce operations were handling stereo interleave properly. However, then I tried one more thing. Instead of doing a freeze or bounce, I tried applying audio FX to the original track, using the option where it deletes the FX from the bin. That properly renders a stereo track, but leaves the interleave set to mono (probably as intended given the setting in track properties, but, if you think about it, undesirable here in terms of the notion that what you get after applying FX will be the same as what you heard with the FX running live). In this case, playing the original track with the FX applied versus the phase-inverted bounced track doesn't give a silent result. However, if you toggle the interleave button on the original track to stereo (i.e. so you aren't forcing the stereo track to mono as is being done after the bounce by having the mono interleave button set even though the new waveform after applying FX is stereo), then it does again zero properly. This result brings up the question of whether you may have an actual stereo track that is being forced to mono somewhere in your chain. The original mono track with stereo plug-ins still seems to give a stereo result when I bounce to a new track. However, if somehow the resulting track is forced to mono, it would give a different result as shown by my results above. : Thanks for the offer to check it out on your system. I'll post a URL : with the test file when I create it. If you could also e-mail the info to me directly, that would increase the odds I see it sooner as I tend not to check newsgroups anywhere near as frequently as e-mail. Rick -- ========================================== Rick Paul Closet Cowboy Music (ASCAP) Lake Forest, California E-mail: Web: http://home.earthlink.net/~rickpaul MP3s: http://www.soundclick.com/rickpaul More MP3s: http://rickpaul.iuma.com ==========================================
On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 20:31:25 GMT, "Rick Paul" <> wrote: >I just tried several experiments along these lines, getting the expected >results in most cases when using Freeze or Bounce. In particular, I started >with a mono track, put various FX in the bin, including some that gave >notably stereo results, then bounced to a second track, inverted the phase, >using the Interleave, button on the second track, then played it against the >first one. But was the second track's interleave set to STEREO or MONO? In my case, the interleave on the source track is MONO, but the bounced track interleave is STEREO (which makes sense to me since the FX produce a stereo result). However, my feeling is that Cakewalk may be summing the stereo output of the FX bin to produce a mono result (even though the resulting track is stereo). >However, then I tried one more thing. Instead of doing a freeze or bounce, >I tried applying audio FX to the original track, using the option where it >deletes the FX from the bin. That properly renders a stereo track, but >leaves the interleave set to mono (probably as intended given the setting in >track properties, but, if you think about it, undesirable here in terms of >the notion that what you get after applying FX will be the same as what you >heard with the FX running live). In this case, playing the original track >with the FX applied versus the phase-inverted bounced track doesn't give a >silent result. However, if you toggle the interleave button on the original >track to stereo (i.e. so you aren't forcing the stereo track to mono as is >being done after the bounce by having the mono interleave button set even >though the new waveform after applying FX is stereo), then it does again >zero properly. This is consistent with what I am seeing. However, as soon as I toggle the interleave on the original track to stereo, the sound is no longer the same. It is the same effect as bouncing the mono track. >This result brings up the question of whether you may have an actual stereo >track that is being forced to mono somewhere in your chain. The original >mono track with stereo plug-ins still seems to give a stereo result when I >bounce to a new track. This doesn't seem to be happening in my case; the resulting track is stereo, but it doesn't "sound" stereo. Another thing I did not mention, which may or may not be relevant, is that the original track is panned about 30% right. -- Dave
"DaveR" <NOSPAM_drubin@NOSPAM_i-2000.com> wrote in message news:... : On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 20:31:25 GMT, "Rick Paul" <> : wrote: : : >I just tried several experiments along these lines, getting the expected : >results in most cases when using Freeze or Bounce. In particular, I started : >with a mono track, put various FX in the bin, including some that gave : >notably stereo results, then bounced to a second track, inverted the phase, : >using the Interleave, button on the second track, then played it against the : >first one. : : But was the second track's interleave set to STEREO or MONO? Stereo. This is using the default bounce choices in "Bounce to Track". You can, of course, override that and force mono, but that would not be the right thing to do here because it is indeed a stereo result in terms of the nature of what is going on, so forcing it to mono would give you something decidedly different than the mix you'd be hearing during playback. : In my case, the interleave on the source track is MONO, but the : bounced track interleave is STEREO (which makes sense to me since the : FX produce a stereo result). Correct (i.e. same result here, and agreeing with the "makes sense to me" bit). : However, my feeling is that Cakewalk may : be summing the stereo output of the FX bin to produce a mono result : (even though the resulting track is stereo). This is not what I'm seeing or hearing. Also, if you hear something that is stereo on playback, but SONAR forced the result to mono when bouncing, then you reversed the interleave setting on the bounced track and played that against the original track, you would not get silence as your result (which I am getting, thus proving the bounced result and the original playback result are identical). : >However, then I tried one more thing. Instead of doing a freeze or bounce, : >I tried applying audio FX to the original track, using the option where it : >deletes the FX from the bin. That properly renders a stereo track, but : >leaves the interleave set to mono (probably as intended given the setting in : >track properties, but, if you think about it, undesirable here in terms of : >the notion that what you get after applying FX will be the same as what you : >heard with the FX running live). In this case, playing the original track : >with the FX applied versus the phase-inverted bounced track doesn't give a : >silent result. However, if you toggle the interleave button on the original : >track to stereo (i.e. so you aren't forcing the stereo track to mono as is : >being done after the bounce by having the mono interleave button set even : >though the new waveform after applying FX is stereo), then it does again : >zero properly. : : This is consistent with what I am seeing. However, as soon as I toggle : the interleave on the original track to stereo, the sound is no longer : the same. It is the same effect as bouncing the mono track. This part does not seem consistent what I'm seeing. As I've indicated above, the only way I could get that forced mono result was by forcing mono *after* the bounce. The forced mono on the original mono source did not end up with an actual mono result due to the stereo FX after the mono sound source in the audio chain. I don't remember, but have you updated to the 4.0.1 patch? I don't know if anything is changed there that would make a difference or not, but that is the version I am on, just in case... : >This result brings up the question of whether you may have an actual stereo : >track that is being forced to mono somewhere in your chain. The original : >mono track with stereo plug-ins still seems to give a stereo result when I : >bounce to a new track. : : This doesn't seem to be happening in my case; the resulting track is : stereo, but it doesn't "sound" stereo. Well, it does in my case. Thus, we seem to be getting different results. But I am also not working with the same project you are working with, so perhaps there is something special in what is going on in that particular case. : Another thing I did not mention, which may or may not be relevant, is : that the original track is panned about 30% right. I wouldn't expect that to make a difference, and, in fact, I just did a quick test to check that, and it made no difference. I can definitely hear the stereo in both the original playback and the bounced result. And the bounced results still zeros to silence when polarity is inverted on the bounced track and it is played against the original track with the FX in it. Rick -- ========================================== Rick Paul Closet Cowboy Music (ASCAP) Lake Forest, California E-mail: Web: http://home.earthlink.net/~rickpaul MP3s: http://www.soundclick.com/rickpaul More MP3s: http://rickpaul.iuma.com ==========================================
> : Another thing I did not mention, which may or may not be relevant, is > : that the original track is panned about 30% right. > > I wouldn't expect that to make a difference, and, in fact, I just did a > quick test to check that, and it made no difference. I can definitely hear > the stereo in both the original playback and the bounced result. And the > bounced results still zeros to silence when polarity is inverted on the > bounced track and it is played against the original track with the FX in it. Could bounce to track be assuming one particular pan law irrespective of what pan law is actually selected in audio options?
"Kevin Perry" <> wrote in message news:... : Could bounce to track be assuming one particular pan law irrespective of what : pan law is actually selected in audio options? I don't know the answer to that, but should add I have not changed pan law on my setup from whatever is the default. Thus, in my case, based on my test results, whatever is the default pan law used for playback is also what is used, at least by default, in the bouncing to track. However, your point is a good one in that, if bounce to track uses a different one from playback in a non-default scenario, and Dave has changed the pan law in his setup, that could yield different results. Even then, there would still be the question as to whether that would affect an actual mixdown via File/Export, as he also indicated things are different from playback when that is done. Rick -- ========================================== Rick Paul Closet Cowboy Music (ASCAP) Lake Forest, California E-mail: Web: http://home.earthlink.net/~rickpaul MP3s: http://www.soundclick.com/rickpaul More MP3s: http://rickpaul.iuma.com ==========================================
Re: Bouncing Makes Track Sound Different: UPDATE Over on the other forum, a Cakewalk developer responded that this is indeed a bug in Sonar and has been fixed (hopefully in the next patch). My suspicions were correct: on bounce Sonar was forcing the track to mono, but when playing live, it was stereo. This is due to the behavior of the Sonitus plug-in, which outputs a stereo signal even when fed a mono input. The bounce function was not paying attention to the plugin's behavior; only to the state of the interleave button.
Re: Bouncing Makes Track Sound Different: UPDATE Hi Dave, Sorry, I haven't been following this thread... is this Sonar 4? Thanks, -- Sue Morton "DaveR" <NOSPAM_drubin@NOSPAM_i-2000.com> wrote in message news:... > Over on the other forum, a Cakewalk developer responded that this is > indeed a bug in Sonar and has been fixed (hopefully in the next > patch). > > My suspicions were correct: on bounce Sonar was forcing the track to > mono, but when playing live, it was stereo. This is due to the > behavior of the Sonitus plug-in, which outputs a stereo signal even > when fed a mono input. The bounce function was not paying attention to > the plugin's behavior; only to the state of the interleave button.
Re: Bouncing Makes Track Sound Different: UPDATE I can understand reasons this sort of thing might be considered a bug, but this explanation doesn't seem to correspond to the results I got in testing this earlier, where I was definitely getting stereo results in a bounce since, when phase-inverted, they nulled with the live playback track which you are indicating, and which my own listening seemed to confirm, was stereo. Rick -- ========================================== Rick Paul Closet Cowboy Music (ASCAP) Lake Forest, California E-mail: Web: http://home.earthlink.net/~rickpaul MP3s: http://www.soundclick.com/rickpaul More MP3s: http://rickpaul.iuma.com ========================================== "DaveR" <NOSPAM_drubin@NOSPAM_i-2000.com> wrote in message news:... : Over on the other forum, a Cakewalk developer responded that this is : indeed a bug in Sonar and has been fixed (hopefully in the next : patch). : : My suspicions were correct: on bounce Sonar was forcing the track to : mono, but when playing live, it was stereo. This is due to the : behavior of the Sonitus plug-in, which outputs a stereo signal even : when fed a mono input. The bounce function was not paying attention to : the plugin's behavior; only to the state of the interleave button.
