rendered tracks sound muddled -ACID Product Family

Subject:rendered tracks sound muddled Posted by: rezdog Date:5/21/2002 12:30:30 PM hello my friends: i've working on an acid 3 pro project with about 40 tracks. it sounds fine when played through my monitors. most of tracks received some compression when recorded and have a little fx added in the software. when i render to a new track the mix sounds dull and highs not so bright. i've been using sound forge 5 to try to clean up the mixed file, but still can't seem to get the project to shine. i'd appreciate any advice, thank you david
Subject:RE: rendered tracks sound muddled Reply by: Iacobus Date:5/21/2002 12:47:02 PM When you say muddled, does the volume suffer as well? I always suggest to set a newly rendered track to 0.0 dB if you intend it to sound just like the original tracks before they were bounced together in volume. (By default, whatever volume the Preview fader is set at dictates what the newly rendered track's volume will be.) HTH, Iacobus
Subject:RE: rendered tracks sound muddled Reply by: rezdog Date:5/21/2002 5:01:32 PM i'll try changing the preview volume. the muddled sound doesn't seem to effect volume; mostly the dynamic range. i'm also trying filtering out any low hum and rendering individual busses (vocals, violins, guitars, percussion, flutes bass and background vocals) thanks for the feedback.
Subject:RE: rendered tracks sound muddled Reply by: anon Date:5/21/2002 5:28:12 PM I'll second mD's suggestion. I had your problem with tracks sounding muddy after rendering, but after I started rendering at 0.0 dB they sounded much better (not just volume-wise, but clearer as well). I think it might have to do with keeping all the settings the same pre and post rendering.
Subject:RE: rendered tracks sound muddled Reply by: rezdog Date:5/22/2002 10:26:00 AM thanks for the advise. to clarify -rendering at 0db i set which faders to 0? individual tracks, busses, master and/or preview faders?
Subject:RE: rendered tracks sound muddled Reply by: Iacobus Date:5/22/2002 11:58:17 AM I wouldn't set anything at 0.0 dB before rendering. You'll risk clipping the signal, especially if it's a group of tracks. (You can tell this is happening by consistent, flat plateaus at the top and bottom in the rendered waveform.) Say you had a drum track that was at -5.5 dB, a guitar track at -6.0 dB and a bass track at -7.5 dB. Solo the tracks and listen to them and note how they sound together. Now render them to a new track. Solo the newly rendered track (be sure to mute the original tracks), set it at 0.0 dB and play it back. Compare it to the original set of tracks it was rendered from. It should sound identical both in dynamics and volume to the original set of tracks. The master ouput meter should tell you this when you look at it. HTH, Iacobus
Subject:RE: rendered tracks sound muddled Reply by: rezdog Date:5/22/2002 7:21:53 PM thanks for the comments. i'll try them along with burning various combinations of busses (vocals and instruments) to hear if i'm getting too much of a good thing somewhere:-) david

Subject:rendered tracks sound muddled

Posted by: rezdog

Date:5/21/2002 12:30:30 PM

hello my friends:
i've working on an acid 3 pro project with about 40 tracks. it sounds fine when played through my monitors. most of tracks received some compression when recorded and have a little fx added in the software. when i render to a new track the mix sounds dull and highs not so bright. i've been using sound forge 5 to try to clean up the mixed file, but still can't seem to get the project to shine. i'd appreciate any advice, thank you
david