mastering for the web

Mo · Post by Mo » Thu May 17, 2001 4:20 am

hoia.

i want to put my music onto our web page, but compressing it with windows media audio at high compression makes the stuff so horrible... only at 128kbit per second it´s just 'ok'. but i need it at 56kbit.

the highs of the intro are destroyed by nonrhythmical artefacts, and the guitars and hihats sound real stupid...
what do i have to look on when mixing/mastering my stuff?

i don´t think a lowpass in the sum can be a solution, but... really i have no idea.

can anyone help? any experiences with wma or compression at all?

much thanks.

Mo

whiteseal · Post by **whiteseal** » Thu May 17, 2001 8:15 am

Haven't had any experience with wma but I know with mp3 the choice compression software made a HUGE difference- some algorithms are terrible.
Lossy compression works on removing what you can't hear due to psychoacoustic masking effects in the ear. The problem is the lower the data rate the more audible data is removed. This should mean a less harmonically rich mix should compress better, so yes filtering may work or dropping sounds from the mix may work. But the only useful suggestion I have is to try out a load of compressors to make sure you're using the best.

subhuman · Post by **subhuman** » Thu May 17, 2001 9:52 am

I've read in a few places that LAME at 256 VBR provides the "best" compressed MP3 sound quality. <a href=http://arstechnica.com/wankerdesk/1q00/ ... echnica</a> has some interesting words on this, as does <a href=http://www.r3mix.net/>R3mix</a>...

Mo · Post by Mo » Thu May 17, 2001 4:03 pm

thank you two for your replies, i´ll try all codecs i can find

<quote>This should mean a less harmonically rich mix should compress better, so yes filtering may work or dropping sounds from the mix</quote>

another suggestion i recieved was to get the mix as fat as possible before compressing... that´s quite paradox... but i think i´ll hear what´s best

thanks

Mo

p.s.

<blink>please have fun! (i love these html-tags...)</blink>

[ This Message was edited by: Mo on 2001-05-17 17:07 ]

xscape321 · Post by **xscape321** » Sat May 19, 2001 4:43 am

subhuman is right i may be a newbie hear but i've been messing with computer based audio for years and the lame encoder is the best

subhuman · Post by **subhuman** » Sat May 19, 2001 9:21 pm

Of course I recommend the Sonic Timeworks Mastering Compressor to get those last few dB of gain as one of the last steps of your mastering process... Or something similiar.

Mo · Post by Mo » Sun May 20, 2001 3:27 am

for mastering (if i do that by myself) i use my old native stuff, was expensive enough

and i quite like it.

however, i did not work hard enough last month to be able to afford the sonic t. package...

yesterday i treated the old mix-version with L1, and it was 'ok' in 64kbit. but i still want it sounding 'cool' at 56kbit...

...still a long way to go...

thank you, beloved folk!

i´ll report everything about this after the weekend.

Mo

p.s. if someone wanna know where i´m setting up my music in the web, visit http://www.peppisworld.de it´s german, but i think 'musik' and 'video' is understandable for everyone...

whiteseal · Post by **whiteseal** » Mon May 28, 2001 5:46 am

I'm interested: have you worked out any good settings / codecs / mastering tricks????

Mo · Post by Mo » Mon May 28, 2001 6:12 am

apart from the insight that audio compression is bullshit for my beautiful music...? no...

but i had not much time to try out more, because at the moment i have serious trouble with my audio software (cakewalk sonar), i fear i have to reinstall everything (oh my god, no! no! ...)

has anybody an idea, why it´s saying my audio disk is full? because it isn´t... still 4gb free... i can´t work it out...
also tried zone´s logic, but (i don´t believe it´s that bad because it´s cracked) it has an asio system overload every ten minutes... with all buffers at their highest value...

well... i´ll try again... have no choice otherwise

)

mfg,
Mo

PabloFasan · Post by **PabloFasan** » Mon May 28, 2001 7:18 pm

Hi Mo:

It could sound stupit, but are you sure that your audio files are being stored in the correct partition of your HD.

I usual with Cake, to lose the preferences of the destination folders when you upgrade the program or with Windows crashs.

This error appears in general when the recording disk "don't exist" for the program or you'r recording into a very little partition.

Check the registry using the "regedit.exe" and look if the folders that use your present installation match with what appear in the registry.

If you don't know very well how to edit the registry, is better to reinstall windows over itself, this probably will correct the problem.

-----------------------------------------

About your 56K files is theoretically impossible to get a decent audio quality with this amount of compression.

I supose that you pretend to avoid that people download the files and instead of this to have a realtime audio stream.

In this case forget the sound quality.

Personally I prefer to encode my files with less compression using Liquid Audio and , that in my opinion is one of the best encoders (if not the best) and provides "water mark" copywright protection.

Is not 100% secure but it's enough difficult to crack for to keep pirats far.

Mo · Post by Mo » Tue May 29, 2001 3:27 am

thank you thank you, pablo

this sounds really possible because i changed the directory after installing once to the new partition (6gb), then loadad an old wrk, that was oben already before, realized that i had no audio data in it,

thank you, i´ll have a look into the registry.

about compression: i´ll just make the mix as fat as i can get it (because there were indeed differences in the compressed versions, depending on how much 'substance' the track had) and then leave it to phil to compress it

at http://www.peppisworld.de it´s to download/-stream then... if i can work again this week.

i´ll report.
thanks,
Mo

Mo · Post by Mo » Tue May 29, 2001 4:38 am

ähm, well, good, but... where...? "the registry - the unknown being" ...it´s big. i found a few lines about sonar at different places there, all showing parts of the installation (like "c:\programs\sonar\.."), but i couldn´t find anything like a wave-directory, or the path i did set for audio ("e:\").

noooo...!

just to ensure that i except not to much release from this possible solution

) and win98se with cakewalk 9.03

i never did really solve these two problems, i just got rid of them.
then i heard of sonar, and did upgrade, because it seemed to have a lot that people on other seq.softs like logic. worked fine a few days... and then: there were my two little hatred problems again... just the first one, creeping...

forcing me to reinstall and try to check as many checkboxes as possible to get sonar stopping that stuttering... now that one is gone home, but has left his little nasty sister with me... "can´t save your recording, whatever it was - your audio disk is full, you know

"

ok ok, at the moment i feel quite fine to be maybe advised how to kill at least the second prob... and to write associative nonsense on the good ol´ k6 which is good enough to write emails and run browsers (actually i did run the pulsar1 in it the first time...). ok. i think i will go work (real work... payed this thursday again

) a few hours now... sitting again a few hours in front of the screen... and then try again

have fun, i´ll do too...
Mo

[ This Message was edited by: Mo on 2001-05-29 05:41 ]