Hi.
I have noticed when I put my recorded techno music on soundcloud (free account), the music sounds much worse than when I monitor the output directly from rytm or my mackie 1402 vlz4 mixer.
The sound goes from rytm’s main outputs (L/R) to mackie and from mackie in to my recording device which is a Tascam DR-40X. When I listen to the the music from either rytm or mackie with my beyer dynamic dt770 pro 250ohm, it all sounds good. But when the recorded file from tascam is put on soundcloud, it seems like the kick is dominating and is very “dry” and the cymbals/hi hats are low in volume.
Again, music straight from rytm or via mackie in to headphones sounds good.
Does anyone experienced the same or have some advice?
I think Soundcloud converts your audio to 128kb/s, which should already make it sound quite worse than coming directly from your machine. For other factors, I’ll leave it to the experts here.
One reason may be the AD conversion. What sample rate and bit depth are you recording at?
Another may be impedance mis-match. Are you sending a line level signal and setting up the recorder to recieve line level?
Thirdly, perhaps you are not gain staging well. Keep your levels below -12 on the digital meter on your recorder. Also, the Rytm sends line level, don’t boost at the preamp on your board.
Lastly, the data compression for the upload: try to compress to the highest bit rate possible.
Side note: analog sounds better to me almost always. Especially when dealing with compressed formats and lower sample and bit rates rates. You are monitoring a pure analog chain, then hearing back on a compressed digital file. Very different.
This is where post processing and mixing can really help.
Hope this gives you some direction to run in!
Cheers!
The main problem with Soundcloud, as with seemingly all other streaming sites, is their own attempt at “mastering”. White Sea Studio did a series of videos on that, going into quite a bit of detail:
And yes, if I recall correctly, that face pretty much sums it up.
There is a quite extensive FAQ section on Soundcloud itself:
https://help.soundcloud.com/hc/en-us/articles/360051777973-Getting-started-with-mastering
https://help.soundcloud.com/hc/en-us/articles/360050813573-Mastering-FAQs
How does your recording sound from the DR-40X? Most handheld recorders have some filtering options that can affect your sound.
I used to use a similar setup with a Mackie and an Olympus LS-10, and occasionally I’d forget to turn off the filter which ruined some of my recordings.
It could also be SoundCloud.
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