MP3 quality degradation on my mixes

[Ludwig77]

I know that I've ready that MP3 quality is lower than 16 bit .wav, but
I've honestly never heard the degradation that everyone talks about
with professional recordings.

However, I AM noticing the following degradation on mixes that I have
recorded on my DAW system.

It seems that all recordings that I export to MP3 (192k) sound like
the vocal needs a de-esser. The crashes on the drum kits sound overly
compressed as well.

I've confirmed that I DON'T hear this problem when I export the same
mix to .wav

I just don't understand why I don't hear this problem professionally
recorded audio.

Greg

[Beauchampy]

Ludwig77 wrote:
> I know that I've ready that MP3 quality is lower than 16 bit .wav, but
> I've honestly never heard the degradation that everyone talks about
> with professional recordings.
>
> However, I AM noticing the following degradation on mixes that I have
> recorded on my DAW system.
>
> It seems that all recordings that I export to MP3 (192k) sound like
> the vocal needs a de-esser. The crashes on the drum kits sound overly
> compressed as well.
>
> I've confirmed that I DON'T hear this problem when I export the same
> mix to .wav
>
> I just don't understand why I don't hear this problem professionally
> recorded audio.

Do you own uncompressed versions of the 'professionally recorded audio'?

>
> Greg
>

[philicorda]

On Mon, 05 Feb 2007 14:11:19 -0800, Ludwig77 wrote:

> I know that I've ready that MP3 quality is lower than 16 bit .wav, but
> I've honestly never heard the degradation that everyone talks about
> with professional recordings.
>
> However, I AM noticing the following degradation on mixes that I have
> recorded on my DAW system.
>
> It seems that all recordings that I export to MP3 (192k) sound like
> the vocal needs a de-esser. The crashes on the drum kits sound overly
> compressed as well.

You know those mixes so well that you can hear the degradation.

What program are you using to convert to MP3? It might be worth using LAME
rather than the export in your DAW.
There are quite a few options that can be tweaked to get that little bit
of extra quality from the conversion.

>
> I've confirmed that I DON'T hear this problem when I export the same
> mix to .wav
>
> I just don't understand why I don't hear this problem professionally
> recorded audio.

Perhaps it's because there are real transients in your mixes.
Most CDs nowadays don't have any as they have been mastered so hard.

>
> Greg

[Ludwig77]

On Feb 5, 6:53 pm, philicorda > wrote:

>
> Perhaps it's because there are real transients in your mixes.
> Most CDs nowadays don't have any as they have been mastered so hard.

What do you mean by transients?

[philicorda]

On Tue, 06 Feb 2007 12:02:23 -0800, Ludwig77 wrote:

> On Feb 5, 6:53 pm, philicorda > wrote:
>
>>
>> Perhaps it's because there are real transients in your mixes.
>> Most CDs nowadays don't have any as they have been mastered so hard.
>
> What do you mean by transients?

Any sharp sudden sound, with a fast rise time. A snare drum hit, ride
cymbal bell, triangle, stick click, finger snap, that sort of thing.

The heavy limiting commonly used on CD masters lops off these peaks.

MP3 encoders really don't like transients and actually switch to slightly
different mode when they detect them, one which is more precise in the
temporal domain but less in the frequency domain.

[Peter Larsen]

Ludwig77 wrote:

> I know that I've ready that MP3 quality is lower than 16 bit .wav,
> but I've honestly never heard the degradation that everyone talks
> about with professional recordings.

This is serious. Go to some real concerts, those with small cats, large
cats and a sphinx and listen to some real music.

> However, I AM noticing the following degradation on mixes that I have
> recorded on my DAW system.

> It seems that all recordings that I export to MP3 (192k) sound like
> the vocal needs a de-esser. The crashes on the drum kits sound overly
> compressed as well.

I use the largest quality setting and variable bandwith for mp3 now.

> I've confirmed that I DON'T hear this problem when I export the same
> mix to .wav

Makes sense.

> I just don't understand why I don't hear this problem professionally
> recorded audio.

Well, one reason might be that you end up with mp3 overshoot, se (hear)
my mix examples on raw-tracks.com, with one of them I had to lower the
level 2 dB to get a clean mp3 becase of the encode-decode overshoot.
Another might be that you should try a different mp3 encoder.

> Greg


Regards

Peter Larsen

[Peter Larsen]

Ludwig77 wrote:

> On Feb 5, 6:53 pm, philicorda > wrote:

>> Perhaps it's because there are real transients in your mixes.
>> Most CDs nowadays don't have any as they have been mastered so hard.

> What do you mean by transients?

Again: go to some real concerts. Ask and perhaps you can get permission
to make on site stereo recordings of them.


Regards

Peter Larsen

[Geoff]

Ludwig77 wrote:
> I know that I've ready that MP3 quality is lower than 16 bit .wav, but
> I've honestly never heard the degradation that everyone talks about
> with professional recordings.

What degradation ion professional recordings ? Professional recordings
don't use MP3 !
>
> However, I AM noticing the following degradation on mixes that I have
> recorded on my DAW system.
>
> It seems that all recordings that I export to MP3 (192k) sound like
> the vocal needs a de-

Artifacts of the MP3 process, maybe unique to your encoder, maybe not.


>
> I've confirmed that I DON'T hear this problem when I export the same
> mix to .wav

As above.

>
> I just don't understand why I don't hear this problem professionally
> recorded audio.

Maybe your recordings have a wonky frequency content that you are not aware
of until exacerbated by encoding.

geoff

[Geoff]

philicorda wrote:
> On Tue, 06 Feb 2007 12:02:23 -0800, Ludwig77 wrote:
>
>> On Feb 5, 6:53 pm, philicorda > wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Perhaps it's because there are real transients in your mixes.
>>> Most CDs nowadays don't have any as they have been mastered so hard.
>>
>> What do you mean by transients?
>
> Any sharp sudden sound, with a fast rise time. A snare drum hit, ride
> cymbal bell, triangle, stick click, finger snap, that sort of thing.
>
> The heavy limiting commonly used on CD masters lops off these peaks.

"Used on masters" that should be. Don't blame the CD !

geoff

[NRen2k5]

Geoff wrote:
> philicorda wrote:
>> On Tue, 06 Feb 2007 12:02:23 -0800, Ludwig77 wrote:
>>
>>> On Feb 5, 6:53 pm, philicorda > wrote:
>>>
>>>> Perhaps it's because there are real transients in your mixes.
>>>> Most CDs nowadays don't have any as they have been mastered so
>>>> hard.
>>> What do you mean by transients?
>> Any sharp sudden sound, with a fast rise time. A snare drum hit,
>> ride cymbal bell, triangle, stick click, finger snap, that sort of
>> thing.
>>
>> The heavy limiting commonly used on CD masters lops off these
>> peaks.
>
> "Used on masters" that should be. Don't blame the CD !

Yeah, seriously.

You know what makes SACD and DVDA recordings sound better than their CD
counterparts?

By and large it has nothing to do with their superior tech stats. It's
because they're mastered better.