quote:

Originally posted by phantom limb I have the master channel set at -35 decibels. Bear in mind, I tend to not adjust the individual track levels, but just the master level. Albeit, my method is very backwards, but it makes it easier to manipulate one level than 17 others! Normalize is off. Is normalizing really necessary? When I master the final mix, I just tend to EQ and then proceed to compress. 16/44.1 comes out still sounding muddy. Not as bad as say going to 192 kbps though.

There's your problem right there. The master should be left alone in most cases.

The whole point of a mixdown is to reduce all of your tracks to off pretty much and then work them slowly until you get a nice balance. If they are all at the same level, you're going to have problems regardless of how good your EQing is.

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quote:

Originally posted by Fledz There's your problem right there. The master should be left alone in most cases. The whole point of a mixdown is to reduce all of your tracks to off pretty much and then work them slowly until you get a nice balance. If they are all at the same level, you're going to have problems regardless of how good your EQing is.

I'll try testing this theory out. I still believe there is some other culprit involved in this issue.

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Originally posted by phantom limb I'll try testing this theory out. I still believe there is some other culprit involved in this issue.

Yeah I don't think that is the answer either. I also turn down the volume on the master channel quite a bit on the mixdown as a bad habit and my mixes turn out fine.

If you can eq the mix in your editor after and make it sound ok, maybe the problem is with one or more of your EQ's in Ableton. I have found that sometimes ableton can screw up the automation on the render.

To see if this is the problem, one by one freeze your tracks and listen.

If your individual tracks sound different once they are frozen you will need to play with the envelops to get them working properlly.

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Just to rule out that its not Ableton rendering actually playing up, just resample the track in ableton.

Create audio track, set audio from to resampling. Arm track. Hit record. Record entire set/session.

Find where live has stored the recording, open that up in whatever program. Does it still sound different to playing it in Ableton?

I have had rendering issues (different to what you describe though) in the past in live and this is the way round it.

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I will test out both of your guys' theories near the end of this week. Unfortunately, I've just been swamped with work this week. I'll post a report sometime near Friday evening.

quote:

Originally posted by Fledz There's your problem right there. The master should be left alone in most cases. The whole point of a mixdown is to reduce all of your tracks to off pretty much and then work them slowly until you get a nice balance. If they are all at the same level, you're going to have problems regardless of how good your EQing is.

I tested this theory out and it appears that there is nothing different between adjusting each individual track or just the master track. Both come out very muddy and different when listening in Ableton.

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Originally posted by d4dirty Yeah I don't think that is the answer either. I also turn down the volume on the master channel quite a bit on the mixdown as a bad habit and my mixes turn out fine. If you can eq the mix in your editor after and make it sound ok, maybe the problem is with one or more of your EQ's in Ableton. I have found that sometimes ableton can screw up the automation on the render. To see if this is the problem, one by one freeze your tracks and listen. If your individual tracks sound different once they are frozen you will need to play with the envelops to get them working properlly.

I froze all of the tracks in my songs. When I listened to the playback, there appeared to be no difference between the frozen and unfrozen tracks. I was hoping this might be the answer, but alas, it was not. Thank you for the input though--it was and is much appreciated.

Since nothing else seems to be working so far, perhaps you could try to render/mixdown each track individually and then use each exported track to make one final mixdown. I don't really know if that will do anything, just a thought.

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Originally posted by G-Con Just to rule out that its not Ableton rendering actually playing up, just resample the track in ableton. Create audio track, set audio from to resampling. Arm track. Hit record. Record entire set/session. Find where live has stored the recording, open that up in whatever program. Does it still sound different to playing it in Ableton? I have had rendering issues (different to what you describe though) in the past in live and this is the way round it.

Your theory has proven to be the most helpful, but I am still enduring some mishaps with my rendered file. When I do resample my rendered song at the correct tempo (did not realize that I had to adjust tempo to song's original for a while), and I dig up the file, it appears to have minutely some better quality to it.

Now, this is not the best thing to reference, but when viewing Winamp media player's (fairly crude) wave spectrum analyzer, some of the higher frequencies are shaved off. More of the higher frequencies are salvaged when resampling, but not all and when, I do try to master in Soundforge, I can bring it to a fairly decent quality, but because of the shaving that occurs from Ableton's rendering process, there are some higher frequencies that are out-of-whack and disturb the final product.

My audio conundrum appears to be more complex than I had hoped and along with that, much more perplexing. If anyone can offer any more advice, I will gladly look into it. Thank you very much for your patience, everyone and the wonderful technical expertise that many have shared.

By the way, if someone could recommend a good wave spectrum analyzing program or VST (that is on the cheaper/free side), I would be honored if you share such information with me. Thank you.

quote:

Originally posted by DJChrisB Since nothing else seems to be working so far, perhaps you could try to render/mixdown each track individually and then use each exported track to make one final mixdown. I don't really know if that will do anything, just a thought.

I am very open to suggestions. I will give it a shot--no harm in doing so. I will update as soon as I can.

Phantom limb, may I suggest you post this problem over at the ableton forum. There are many people over there that are absolute experts with ableton and understand comletely how it works on a technical side and should be able to tell you what the problem is or what you are doing wrong.

Just make sure you are as specific as possible, give all the info you have given us and don't let it sound as though you are bashing live's audio quality (they are a bit touchy over there )

I'm pretty sure you'll solve the problem quicker than you will here

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