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I have recently started noticing, my tunes, compressed with LAME(320kbps) have some high pitched harmonic on the sub-bass, not present in the DAW or a wav render, which brings me to a question, is there any better codecs, that don't do that. A good example is the tune in my sig, hear that high pitched whistle on top of the sub?

Going to do some tests tomorrow, with rendering pure sine and give more specifics.

mine does that too, subscribed for replies

i don't think it is the encoder that does it tho. i figure it's cos my mixing is crap. it just shows up when you encode to mp3.

dubfordessert wrote:mine does that too, subscribed for replies

i don't think it is the encoder that does it tho. i figure it's cos my mixing is crap. it just shows up when you encode to mp3.

throw on a low pass at 100 hz and see if its still there when you export

I've noticed this in audacity, but not after exporting. Using the same LAME codec at 320kbps also. huh.

must be the automatic 808 preset. . but really, if you're using an 808 preset, it's got a harmonic built in. if not then hell if I know why that would come out after encoding to mp3. it doesn't have anything to do with your mixdown or whatever if you're just using a plain sine wave without FX

Just a thought but since SC transcodes all uploads to 128kbps, could it not be to do with their coding not yours?

Sub bass should be easy to encode, its the slowest waveform and requires less bitrate to describe it. I'd say the problem is with your mix. Check on a spectrum analyzer and see if there is anything peaking high in the frequency spectrum, it might be causing problems in the conversion.

Soundcloud can make tunes sound like crap, i hate their encoding. Don't really know if there is an optimal way to upload files, i just do them as 320 constant bit rate, with all the settings on high quality.

VirtualMark wrote:Soundcloud can make tunes sound like crap, i hate their encoding. Don't really know if there is an optimal way to upload files, i just do them as 320 constant bit rate, with all the settings on high quality.

I've read a few posts where people have said uploading WAVs is supposedly better, I've never tried it myself though.

try different software to do the render.....
i had a remix i did years ago, every time i rendered with cool edit pro 2.0 it would add digital dirt on a particular high pass sweep.. i tried rendering with sound forge with the same settings and it went away.

http://www.sonnoxplugins.com/pub/plugin ... -codec.htm

There is that, if you were, like, releasing grammy tracks or something.

I upload 16 bit wavs to sc. Personally, I think it sounds better. That means that I've noticed that wav's sound better than 320's, but haven't scientifically tested whether this is true, just something I've noticed.

A sub should not be molested by mp3 encoding as I understand it, as mp3 encoding removes high freqs. But if you have hi freq content, that might already be getting squashed under a comp, eq, and limiter, yeah, I could see some nastiness happening there. How are you "mastering" these tracks? What softs?

Ok, thanks for replies, also going to check this sonnox thing out. Maybe I should use FLAC?

To clarify:

+It is not a sample, but a pure sine wave.
+It does is, when I render the mix, and the sub channel doesn't have any inserts.
+It is audible only in an mp3, but not present at a wav render or in the DAW.

The Pro-Codec is more for A/B comparison of codecs in realtime from what I recall. It does support stuff liike surround MP3 encoding, but not much else has support for decoding that.

LAME is considered the best encoder. Just make sure it's the most current one, and try a different GUI frontend. I like Razorlame myself.

For soundcloud, raw PCM files would be best since it will skip the decoding process, but 320 should be fine too. There's been some analysis of files uploaded by gearslutz users, and there is a slight difference detected in 320 mp3 because of the reencoding, but it was considered almost negligible and a OK compromise for the service provided considering a 320 is 5+ times smaller than PCM. If time/bandwidth isn't an issue, upload 44.1 24bit wavs if you want the best.

See what I read about S.C. uploads is that S.C. will convert to 128 kps no matter what you render out as, so it's best to just make the best damn 128kps Mp3 you can so S.C. won't screw with it. I'm no expert, just what I read somewhere.

DrastikMeazures wrote:See what I read about S.C. uploads is that S.C. will convert to 128 kps no matter what you render out as, so it's best to just make the best damn 128kps Mp3 you can so S.C. won't screw with it. I'm no expert, just what I read somewhere.

Thing is if your sending tracks to labels they will want atleast a 320 and soundcloud is the best place to send tracks over.
When you download the track you get the origional quality file, personally id rather have my 320 sounding a little bit off, labels do know that SC fucks things up a little bit so for the most part they wont have a go at you for the mix until they have heard the actual 320. I hope at some point they sort out this problem though

The thing is, the harmonic is already present in the rendered 320kbps mp3 file, so its not soundcloud.

Brisance wrote:The thing is, the harmonic is already present in the rendered 320kbps mp3 file, so its not soundcloud.

i was just on about soundcloud mostly, if your getting that at 320 then the sub might be too loud in the mix and limiters/compressors bringing it down and distorting it but thats just a guess.

DrastikMeazures wrote:See what I read about S.C. uploads is that S.C. will convert to 128 kps no matter what you render out as, so it's best to just make the best damn 128kps Mp3 you can so S.C. won't screw with it. I'm no expert, just what I read somewhere.

I wondered this. I've since found this post from dsf a few months back, where someone posted this from the soundcloud staff:

hey guys, just to let you know that we (the soundcloud team) are monitoring this thread and are eager to hear more of your feedback. Our goal is to have the best-sounding site on the internet, but that is pretty tricky to achieve given how many different encoding/audio formats that exists.
We currently transcode tracks down to 128 kbs CBR mp3 for the streams, so yes, stream quality is obviously worse than for uncompressed files. We are looking for alternatives (aac and ogg) for this in the future. we are also considering higher bitrates.
In the meantime, if you want optimal sound quality, you should upload uncompressed files, anything that is WAV, AIF, FLAC in 16bit or more, and 44.1khz or more, will yield the best stream quality. If you are uploading, say a 256kbs mp3 file, we will take that file and transcode it to 128kbs, which means you'll get the artifacts from the 256 encoding + the ones from the 128 encoding, which will sound worse than if you went from lossless->128. So that's my recommendation if you really care about audio quality!

One thing i would point out, is that its probably best to always render to 44.1khz. At least then we avoid a sample rate conversion. I usually work in 44.1khz anyhow.

What daw are you using, and what are you using to make the sub, and what is your mastering situation?

JTMMusicuk wrote:

Brisance wrote:The thing is, the harmonic is already present in the rendered 320kbps mp3 file, so its not soundcloud.

i was just on about soundcloud mostly, if your getting that at 320 then the sub might be too loud in the mix and limiters/compressors bringing it down and distorting it but thats just a guess.

Read the thread. There is nothing clipping. There is no inserts. It is not present on wav renders.

fuck it. Imma prove it.

Brisance wrote:The thing is, the harmonic is already present in the rendered 320kbps mp3 file, so its not soundcloud.

Render to wav, then convert to mp3 using another program. I use dbpoweramp, it integrates nicely with windows. Right click on any music file and i can convert to any format, sample rate, bitrate, vbr, cbr, mp3, mp4, flac etc.

When converting wave to mp3, i always choose the highest quality settings, i use the lame codec and its always 320cbr.

What settings are you using? Which daw and what codec? Is the sample rate getting changed? I really can't see a reason why it would add in a harmonic.