Why does a track sound bad at lower .mp3 bit rates

[muzician21]

I've got a file that sounds like crap at anything below 256kbps mp3.
Below that strings take on an obnoxious static, certain mid range
sounds sound crunchy/burbly. Other things I've converted at lower bit
rates like 160, 128, and they sound okay.

I've heard may commercial releases that sound fine at 128kbps.

This tells me there's some fundamental difference between my track and
others. Any idea what I should be looking at?

Thanks

[William Sommerwerck]

> This tells me there's some fundamental difference between
> my track and others. Any idea what I should be looking at?

Possibly a lot of high-frequency transients?

Are you using any kind of "enhancer" that compensates for loss of high
frequencies (such as the Aural Exciter)?

[muzician21]

On Aug 14, 7:01*pm, "William Sommerwerck" >
wrote:
> > This tells me there's some fundamental difference between
> > my track and others. Any idea what I should be looking at?
>
> Possibly a lot of high-frequency transients?
>
> Are you using any kind of "enhancer" that compensates for loss of high
> frequencies (such as the Aural Exciter)?


Not per se, though I did brighten some elements of the mix with EQ.
Sounds okay to me at CD audio level, but experience the above
mentioned problems in the mp3 realm.

[muzician21]

On Aug 14, 7:01*pm, "William Sommerwerck" >
wrote:
> > This tells me there's some fundamental difference between
> > my track and others. Any idea what I should be looking at?
>
> Possibly a lot of high-frequency transients?


Okay, so apparently mp3's don't get along well with certain enhanced
frequencies? After you said this, I've been experimenting, and find
that cutting down the highs makes the problem less obnoxious. But it
also kills some of the fidelity. Is it possible to "de-eq" the track
to make it mp3 friendly but retain the sparkle?

[Scott Dorsey]

muzician21 > wrote:
>On Aug 14, 7:01=A0pm, "William Sommerwerck" >
>wrote:
>> > This tells me there's some fundamental difference between
>> > my track and others. Any idea what I should be looking at?
>>
>> Possibly a lot of high-frequency transients?
>
>Okay, so apparently mp3's don't get along well with certain enhanced
>frequencies? After you said this, I've been experimenting, and find
>that cutting down the highs makes the problem less obnoxious. But it
>also kills some of the fidelity. Is it possible to "de-eq" the track
>to make it mp3 friendly but retain the sparkle?

No, not really. You have just discovered the basic evilness of lossy
compression.

You can try things like collapsing the stereo image and reducing the low
end a little bit, which can sometimes help.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Richard Crowley]

"muzician21" wrote...
> I've got a file that sounds like crap at anything below 256kbps mp3.
> Below that strings take on an obnoxious static, certain mid range
> sounds sound crunchy/burbly. Other things I've converted at lower bit
> rates like 160, 128, and they sound okay.
>
> I've heard may commercial releases that sound fine at 128kbps.
>
> This tells me there's some fundamental difference between my track and
> others. Any idea what I should be looking at?

Is this an original uncompressed source? It has never been
through any lossy compression cycle before?

[muzician21]

On Aug 14, 11:01*pm, "Soundhaspriority" > wrote:

> Take a look athttp://lame.cvs.sourceforge.net/*checkout*/lame/lame/USAGE
>
> You may not be using LAME, but the options are pretty universal. Also take a
> look at maximum bitrate. This must not be confused with average bitrate, and
> you don't want to limit it.
>
> "JOINT STEREO is the default mode for stereo files with fixed bitrates of
> 128 kbps or less. *At higher fixed bitrates, the default is stereo.
> For VBR encoding, jstereo is the default for VBR_q >4, and stereo
> is the default for VBR_q <=4. *You can override all of these defaults
> by specifing the mode on the command line.


I'd been using Audacity to encode but forgot that CDex gives you
options to control the quality. When I fiddled with the options in
CDex, I can get good results, but the problem I'm ultimately running
into is uploading to Youtube, where I have 0 control.

I've heard plenty of files with decent sound on YouTube, including
some I've uploaded, but for some reason this one is a problem.

[Wecan do it]

"Scott Dorsey" > wrote in message
...
> muzician21 > wrote:
>>On Aug 14, 7:01=A0pm, "William Sommerwerck"
>
>>wrote:
>>> > This tells me there's some fundamental difference
>>> > between
>>> > my track and others. Any idea what I should be looking
>>> > at?
>>>
>>> Possibly a lot of high-frequency transients?
>>
>>Okay, so apparently mp3's don't get along well with certain
>>enhanced
>>frequencies? After you said this, I've been experimenting,
>>and find
>>that cutting down the highs makes the problem less
>>obnoxious. But it
>>also kills some of the fidelity. Is it possible to "de-eq"
>>the track
>>to make it mp3 friendly but retain the sparkle?
>
> No, not really. You have just discovered the basic evilness
> of lossy
> compression.
>
> You can try things like collapsing the stereo image and
> reducing the low
> end a little bit, which can sometimes help.
> --scott
>
> --
> "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Scott:
Didn't you use a belt sander to do that in the tape-op
article?

peace
dawg

[Wecan do it]

OP wrote:

I'd been using Audacity to encode but forgot that CDex gives
you
options to control the quality. When I fiddled with the
options in
CDex, I can get good results, but the problem I'm ultimately
running
into is uploading to Youtube, where I have 0 control.

I've heard plenty of files with decent sound on YouTube,
including
some I've uploaded, but for some reason this one is a problem.
`````````````````````````````````````````````````` ``````````````````

I doubt that youtube or any streaming website is sending out
high bitrate audio.

1) can you give us some information like a chart of
what sounds okay and what sounds nasty listed like this

Source rate source MP3 youtube stream
wave ok 256 okay nasty
128 okay nasty

so we can have some idea of where the breakdown is. I suspect
that when you send youtube the MP3 rate that they use they
will stream that back, if you send them higher bit rate they
will resample and stream the resampled rate back. The youtube
resampling of your compressed MP3 is perhaps the culprit.

peace
dawg

[muzician21]

On Aug 15, 9:45*am, "Wecan do it" > wrote:

> I doubt that youtube or any streaming website is sending out
> high bitrate audio.
>
> 1) can you give us some information like a chart of
> what sounds okay and what sounds nasty listed *like this
>
> *Source rate * * * * source MP3 * * * youtube stream
> * wave ok * * * * * * 256 okay * * * * * *nasty
> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 128 okay * * * * * *nasty
>
> so we can have some idea of where the breakdown is. I suspect
> that when you send youtube the MP3 rate that they use they
> will stream that back, if you send them higher bit rate they
> will resample and stream the resampled rate back. The youtube
> resampling of your compressed MP3 is perhaps the culprit.



Well, I've pretty much got the mp3 issue licked as far as simply
encoding to .mp3, as mentioned in a post above when I use an interface
with more options I can get decent quality. Yes, the problem is
definitely what happens when it hits Youtube.

For reference for all subsequent renderings, here's a .wav of the
sample they're all made from

http://tinyurl.com/qawx5q

Here's a sample of the audio in question at a VBR encoded rate of
204kbps

http://tinyurl.com/oe78qk

Even at 116 - still passably okay

http://tinyurl.com/odtanw

But when that same audio goes through Youtube I run into problems. The
most obnoxious is the burbly crappiness in the low bass/piano at the
beginning and the scratchy static in the string section. There's also
some breakup in the live horns. The mpeg-4 with 320kbps audio seems
marginally better but only marginally. I included a scene with a fair
amount of motion hoping that might nudge the bitrate and quality up,
but it doesn't appear to make any difference. I even tried creating
Faux HD - made one 1280 x 720 hoping it might invoke some higher order
audio processing but it sounds about the same. Actually the problems
in the sound are about what I was getting when using Audacity for
encoding with no options but bit rate.

The titles of the videos tell what kind of video and audio was
uploaded.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhFKCw7Jdpw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUvaF0ui0yw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpGKgljBi4Q

[muzician21]

On Aug 15, 10:38 pm, Soundhaspriority > wrote:

> > But when that same audio goes through Youtube I run into problems. The
> > most obnoxious is the burbly crappiness in the low bass/piano at the
> > beginning and the scratchy static in the string section. There's also
> > some breakup in the live horns.
>
> So you're looking to blame someone else for you're bad recording technique?
>
> Get some education, sport.


You're that Ritalin case Robert Morein imposter from Australia or
wherever?

I guess that's "you're" excuse?

[Wecan do it]

If you can figure out what youtube streams back to you and
send them that bitrate I bet that would sound most like what
you send them when they send it back to you.

My encoder, Audioactive Production Studio, uses the Fraunhofer
engine and offers a pile of output options depending on what
the source wave is. If for instance I hand it a 44.1/16 file I
get options for 128K

128kBit/s,48000Hz , Stereo+Resample
128kBit/s,44100Hz , Stereo
128kBit/s,32000Hz , Stereo+Resample

This indicates to me that there is much more to it than purely
stating the bit rate of the MP3.

It is possible that your player/ converter does not like to
play files with high fidelity other than 441000 or direct
multiples of it which need no resampling like
64kBit/s,22050Hz , Stereo

So try to figure out what it is that youtube streams out and
upload that.


peace
dawg

PS: And please let me know what rate you find works best.

[brassplyer]

On Aug 16, 12:01 pm, "Wecan do it" > wrote:

> So try to figure out what it is that youtube streams out and
> upload that.


From the ones I've looked at, there isn't any one specific audio rate
YouTube spits out.

[brassplyer]

On Aug 16, 5:04*am, "Soundhaspriority" > wrote:
>
> "CodecMP3 or AAC preferred
> Sampling rate44.1kHz
> Channels2 (stereo)"
>
> Oddly, they don't actually specifiy the bitrate they send out.


There isn't one. If you retrieve a number of Youtube videos from your
cache and analyze them you'll find various bitrates, though none of
them very high.

> But another
> statement here:http://www.lafcpug.org/Tutorials/basic_you_tube.html, gives a stere bitrate
> of 128kb/s. This is pretty generous; *I hear very enjoyable Internet radio
> from KPLU at 64kb/sec (http://www.kplu.org/listen_now.html)


I appreciate the research but something from 2007 is hopelessly out of
date - things have changed many times on Youtube since then. For
example it used to be possible to fool their encoders by uploading
an .flv with a high bitrate segment of video with a low bitrate all
black segment appended on, and as long as the average bitrate was
under 350kbps as I recall and under 11 minutes it wouldn't re-encode.
Youtube got wise and put the kibosh on that. Then it was found you
could fool the encoders by hacking the metadata in the file, they got
wise to that as well.

[Geoff]

muzician21 wrote:
> On Aug 14, 7:01 pm, "William Sommerwerck" >
> wrote:
>>> This tells me there's some fundamental difference between
>>> my track and others. Any idea what I should be looking at?
>>
>> Possibly a lot of high-frequency transients?
>
>
> Okay, so apparently mp3's don't get along well with certain enhanced
> frequencies? After you said this, I've been experimenting, and find
> that cutting down the highs makes the problem less obnoxious. But it
> also kills some of the fidelity. Is it possible to "de-eq" the track
> to make it mp3 friendly but retain the sparkle?

Basically ' no', but suck it and see. Results may vary with different
encoders. With some at some rates any low-level hf content sounds like a
phaser....

geoff

[Geoff]

Soundhaspriority wrote:
>
> There isn't one. If you retrieve a number of Youtube videos from your
> cache and analyze them you'll find various bitrates, though none of
> them very high.

And pretty much everything goes through Youtube's re-encoding, I guess.


geoff

[Scott Dorsey]

brassplyer > wrote:
>On Aug 16, 12:01 pm, "Wecan do it" > wrote:
>
>> So try to figure out what it is that youtube streams out and
>> upload that.
>
>From the ones I've looked at, there isn't any one specific audio rate
>YouTube spits out.

Yup. YouTube does their own encoding, on the fly, with their own setup
parameters. You can specify different coding on playback too, with the
&fmt= option.

There is apparently a trick that allows you to upload a pre-encoded file
to Youtube, but I don't know what it is. Folks have done it, as you will
note from the amount of stereo material out there on youtube.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[ChrisCoaster]

On Aug 14, 9:25*pm, "Richard Crowley" > wrote:
> "muzician21" wrote...
> > I've got a file that sounds like crap at anything below 256kbps mp3.
> > Below that strings take on an obnoxious static, certain mid range
> > sounds sound crunchy/burbly. Other things I've converted at lower bit
> > rates like 160, 128, and they sound okay.
>
> > I've heard may commercial releases that sound fine at 128kbps.
>
> > This tells me there's some fundamental difference between my track and
> > others. Any idea what I should be looking at?
>
> Is this an original uncompressed source? *It has never been
> through any lossy compression cycle before?
_______________________
My sentiments exactly...I have "256"k mp3s that sound worse than some
I have at 128! One wonders how many stops some mp3 tracks have made
along the way to the web. ;)

-CC

[Wecan do it]

"brassplyer" > wrote in message
...
> On Aug 16, 12:01 pm, "Wecan do it" >
> wrote:
>
>> So try to figure out what it is that youtube streams out
>> and
>> upload that.
>
>
> From the ones I've looked at, there isn't any one specific
> audio rate
> YouTube spits out.

Do you have any experience with testing if it spits out the
same thing you upload?

peace
dawg

[ChrisCoaster]

On Aug 17, 9:04*am, "Wecan do it" > wrote:
> "brassplyer" > wrote in message
>
> ...
>
> > On Aug 16, 12:01 pm, "Wecan do it" >
> > wrote:
>
> >> So try to figure out what it is that youtube streams out
> >> and
> >> upload that.
>
> > From the ones I've looked at, there isn't any one specific
> > audio rate
> > YouTube spits out.
>
> Do you have any experience with testing if it spits out the
> same thing you upload?
>
> peace
> dawg
__________________
Semi-OT, but concerns bitrates so I thought I'd grandfather it in
here....

I used http://www.musiciansbuy.com/mmMBCOM/images/ZOOM_H4.jpg to
record some old cassettes to make them into mp3s. So I started at the
factory default encode rate of 128kbps, then got "smart". I increased
the encode bitrate to 192kbps, continued transferring the cassettes to
the Zoom, and, voila! No PC would play back the files!!

So I set the bit rate back to what gramma and grampa used - 128 - and
the computer once more was able to play them.

Whaddupwidat?

-CC

[RD Jones]

On Aug 16, 7:31*pm, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:
> brassplyer > wrote:
> >On Aug 16, 12:01 pm, "Wecan do it" > wrote:
>
> >> So try to figure out what it is that youtube streams out and
> >> upload that.
>
> >From the ones I've looked at, there isn't any one specific audio rate
> >YouTube spits out.
>
> Yup. *YouTube does their own encoding, on the fly, with their own setup
> parameters. *You can specify different coding on playback too, with the
> &fmt= option.
>
> There is apparently a trick that allows you to upload a pre-encoded file
> to Youtube, but I don't know what it is. *Folks have done it, as you will
> note from the amount of stereo material out there on youtube.
> --scott
> --
> "C'est un Nagra. *C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

I've never seen anything on YouToob that I considered acceptable
quality, either for the audio or video.
It would seem obvious that they do not care to be known for quality
playback, only accessability, which is contributed to by the easily
streamed very low bit rates.

rd