Confused about return -- distortion?

[natallica]

Heya everyone -I was wondering if anyone could tell me if they hear what the reviewer heard in the first track on my page 'Broken Days?' It's here: http://www.taximusic.com/hosting/home.p ... 9446"Still, I feel your work would be more effectively conveyed to a listening audience by upgrading your production quality and methods. There are moments of distortion so watch and listen carefully for any overloads on your metering. Make use of limiting and compression to keep levels consistent and manageable. Treat the stereo soundfield as a panorama that can have sounds spread evenly and balanced on both sides. Record at 24bit at at least 44.1KHz and encode using the LAME encoder framework that is free online. Best of luck."I record all of my levels to not hit above -6dB and then limit the whole mix to -3dB. I'm looking at the waveform of the MP3 in a sound editor and there's not a bit of clipping to be found.Help!-- N

[hazineju]

Hi Natalia, engineering is definitely not my strength but i just gave it a listen and really didn't notice any distortion. it sounded a bit muddy when the organ came in and all the improvs were going on at the same time from 3:10-3:50ish, and even when the drum dropped out at 3:55ish it sounded "sonically busy," however, like i said i didn't hear any distortion. i can see what the reviewer meant about spreading the sounds out and getting them more evenly balanced, i think that is one of the reasons it sounded busy to me. i did enjoy the listen and think it's a cool track, hopefully some of the sonically savvy here will provide more informative feedback, that was my meager 2 cents!

[aimusic]

Hey Natz,I really dig the song, awesome vibe, like your style... I however do hear a bit of a sub distortion, if that makes sense, almost like a tiny tiny amount of popping sound when the bass is being played at certain points... Now bare in mind that it won't show as clipping on a wav form, happens sometimes, but the popping sound is very minute, so much so that I bet if it were played on a t.v. NO ONE would notice.Take CareB

[natallica]

Sept 10, 2008, 5:28am, aimusic wrote:Hey Natz,I really dig the song, awesome vibe, like your style... I however do hear a bit of a sub distortion, if that makes sense, almost like a tiny tiny amount of popping sound when the bass is being played at certain points... Now bare in mind that it won't show as clipping on a wav form, happens sometimes, but the popping sound is very minute, so much so that I bet if it were played on a t.v. NO ONE would notice.Take CareBThanks to everyone for the comments. Can you tell me what speakers you hear this on?I'm using Events to monitor and can't hear anything, but I don't have a dedicated sub. I'm EQ'ing out everything below 35Hz, so I'm curious at what frequency the offending sound is! I don't want to filter out all of the low end either.Thanks again...-- N

[aimusic]

Hey N,Yeah I'm using Event's too...I don't think I'm explaining this well - God knows I suck at explaining things... Sometimes it even happens to me when recording say a rock track, the levels are perfect - no peaking, but suddenly when I add a distorted guitar (levels still in the clear), certain parts of the track start popping, but all levels are under red - I didn't mean Sub as in low frequencies, I meant something deeper in the mix - once again I SUCK AT EXPLAINING THINGS

[natallica]

Sept 10, 2008, 8:45am, aimusic wrote:Hey N,Yeah I'm using Event's too...I don't think I'm explaining this well - God knows I suck at explaining things... Sometimes it even happens to me when recording say a rock track, the levels are perfect - no peaking, but suddenly when I add a distorted guitar (levels still in the clear), certain parts of the track start popping, but all levels are under red - I didn't mean Sub as in low frequencies, I meant something deeper in the mix - once again I SUCK AT EXPLAINING THINGS Gotcha. Maybe it's the fact that guitars clobber so much of the frequency spectrum? I try to map out a "spot" for instruments to sit in and make cuts in the other instruments to make sure everything can sit in its own space. Maybe I didn't accomplish this correctly?I'm just trying to get as much feedback as possible as to what I did wrong. I'm working on more tracks to have ready for the Rally and I don't want to keep wasting money on submission fees if my tracks really sound as horrible as the reviewer made it seem! -- N

[wodinlord]

Remember, the reviewers are listening to your hours and hours of work on well-worn $20 headphones. There is a greater than zero chance that the distortion was happening in the headphones themselves. I listened to your track on Genelecs w/ a sub and heard none of what the listener did. It could have used a little de-muddying in mastering, but overall was prwetty good. I am betting on the headphones.Wodinlord

[natallica]

Sept 10, 2008, 5:36pm, wodinlord wrote:Remember, the reviewers are listening to your hours and hours of work on well-worn $20 headphones. There is a greater than zero chance that the distortion was happening in the headphones themselves. I listened to your track on Genelecs w/ a sub and heard none of what the listener did. It could have used a little de-muddying in mastering, but overall was prwetty good. I am betting on the headphones.WodinlordThanks again to everyone for their feedback. Is this just a listing I forget about and move on? I'm assuming there's nothing that I or TAXI can do?!?I appreciate everyone chiming in. I know I have plenty to learn, but I'm a bit disappointed because the reviewer said that the track was on target for the listing. Hope to meet at least some of you at the Rally...-- N

[hummingbird]

Sept 10, 2008, 8:57pm, natallica wrote:Thanks again to everyone for their feedback. Is this just a listing I forget about and move on? I'm assuming there's nothing that I or TAXI can do?!?I'd call Taxi customer service & ask for clarification. I'm sure Robin would listen to the piece and give you a screener's perspective.

[weslong]

Sept 10, 2008, 5:36pm, wodinlord wrote:Remember, the reviewers are listening to your hours and hours of work on well-worn $20 headphones. Wodinlord I would be very surprised if the headphones are A) very worn and B) cost around $20. I would imagine the listeners may even purchase their own pro-level headphones for their work. It be would tax-deductible, I'm sure.The business about the sound. I'm sure they take it pretty seriously over at TAXI. If they're running Windows, I wouldn't rule out the possibility of some problems with their audio software, however.Just my two-bits, for what it's worth.