Subject:Cd Burning

Posted by: Rawbag

Date:12/5/2001 4:04:24 PM

I've posted the following 2 messages in Cubase Forum
Can anyone here advise?

1.
"I've written a dance song in Cubase (24 bit)
The mix sounds good to my ears and I have used Waves RCL to compress it a little.
I mixed it down to a Stereo wav 16 bit and tweaked it a bit more in Sounforge, EQ etc.
The problem is when I burned it to CD it sounded bad, like dull at the bottom and pumping as if over compressed?,it just doesn't sound like the original Wav.
My goal is simple, I just want to get the same sound that I have on the Wav onto the CD
Could the problem be that I'm using easy CD creator? Do I need Better CD's? or is this a mastering issue?"

2.
The problem is that I achieved the mix I wanted in Cubase using Waves RCL and
TC Native Parametric EQ (both in moderation as it was a nice mix to start). I exported it to 16 bit, opened it in Soundforge and it still sounded how I wanted it.
As an experiment I recorded it to a Teac
V-390CHX Stereo tape deck and it still sounded OK.
The problem comes when I burn it to CD,
I have even tried burning it with other demo CD software (Nero)
I can't understand what I am doing wrong??
What possible reasons are there for it to sound different when burned?
The CD version just seems boomy at the low end and the mix sounds over compressed.
Also there seems to be an over presence of reverb that is not on the Wav??

Any Ideas Team?

Subject:RE: Cd Burning

Reply by: VU-1

Date:12/5/2001 8:06:55 PM

When you burned your CD, what program were you using to burn from and to what type of burner?

Please give us some specific details so we can help.

Jeff Lowes
On-Track Recording

Subject:RE: Cd Burning

Reply by: Rawbag

Date:12/6/2001 10:30:33 AM

I am using Nero as my software and a Sony CR-RW CRX160
in a PIII, 1Gig, 384meg ram (barely 6 months old)PC running Win ME. I am using TDK CD-RW and CD-R's.
I am burning at the lowest rate.
I have lifted the audio from a commercial CD and burnt it back onto a CD-RW, it sounded OK.
To try and explain the problem more precisely I would say that....
When I listen to the wav in Soundforge it sounds punchy and tight, the compression, I feel, is just doing enough, i.e. nothing jumps out of the mix and the sound is tight and crisp.
The CD version seems over compressed, i.e. when the drums come in on the second bar after the intro, the rest of the mix goes dull and after seems to be fighting to get back. The mix overall sounds duller, and there has been an increase in the bass frequencies.

I thought that once I had achieved the sound in Soundforge, the CD would replicate this exactly? It seems somehow as if it can't handle the frequencies??

I have for the last few months been composing in Cubase using a Korg Triton and some SoftSynths. The mixing of the tracks has been done so this is my final hurdle. I haven’t done any "in house" burning so I admit this is new to me and the problem is obviously something that I am doing wrong. The question is what?
I realize this could be a mastering issue, but if I am happy with the mix in SF and Cubase, how can I rectify it?

cheers

Subject:RE: Cd Burning

Reply by: VU-1

Date:12/6/2001 11:21:21 PM

I'm not familiar w/Nero. I use CDArchitect.
Does Nero burn to your CD-RW via a SCSI (computer interface) connection or thru your soundcard? If it goes thru your soundcard, its possible that you may have some kind of undesireable processing enabled on the master (or another) buss. This would not be a factor in Sound Forge as it has no such routing - but if it exists in Nero, you may be adding add'l processing to your mix unknowingly.
I have run across this type of thing in Vegas once or twice when the "master" buss would have some plug-ins enabled on it that I was unaware of thus over-processing the sound file. Only difference is, I could immediately hear the problem.
One thing you could do just to double-check Sound Forge is to go to My Computer or WinExplorer and find the .wav file in question, right click on it and go to one of two places:
1) Click on 'Properties' and see if there is a 'Preview' tab and open it and click 'Play' - does it sound right?
2) Click on 'Play' and Win Media Player will open the file and play it - does it sound right?
A 3rd place to preview it would be in the SF 'Open' menu ('Play').

If all else fails, can you dump it to DAT & then burn your CD from there?

JL
OTR