Extremely distorted sound when burning Wav files.

[Freak Of Metal]

Hey guys. I was hoping someone could quickly help me solve a problem. I have been mixing my demo for sometime and saved the songs as .wav files to be burned. On my PC the .wav files sound fine, but as soon as i burn them onto a disc, they get totally distorted and peak off the charts! When i look at a cross-section of my .wav files, you can see that they peak, but why cant i hear it on the pc? Of course i could turn the volume down and then they wont peak, but if i do, the vol will be way too low. How can i retain high amounts of volume without peaking/clipping? I've tried normalizing it but then the dynamics get lost and changes the sound quite a bit. Any suggestions and possible programs i could use? Cheers.

 

[lilhermiejobo]

Sounds to me like it could be a default setting (or possibly an accidental change) in the burning software you're using that adds normalizing or limiting before burning to disc.
What program are you using, anyway? Check out CD-EX by Soundforge. Its free, comes with LAME mp3 conversion and I'm pretty sure has burning (and extracting) capabilities.

 

[Freak Of Metal]

Im using Nero. But it seems to do the same with iTunes. Maybe its my DVD drive? I'll try CD-Ex.

 

[Trevoire520]

I've tried normalizing it but then the dynamics get lost and changes the sound quite a bit

This sounds pretty odd to me, normalizing just adjusts the volume of the track so that the loudest peak is at 0dB (or wherever you set it)
It shouldn't mess with dynamics or change the sound.

I've heard some CD players can give you inter-sample clips when a mix is sitting up at 0dB all the time, and that bringing the level down to -0.3dB or so will help to prevent this, but it's not something I've ever noticed upon playback myself.

Check the settings on your cd burner or try a different program.

 

[tarnationsauce2]

Maybe you are burning 24-bit or 32-bit files to an audio CD? Audio CDs can only be 16-bit 44.1KHz.

 

[ScootBaloo]

Maybe you are burning 24-bit or 32-bit files to an audio CD? Audio CDs can only be 16-bit 44.1KHz.

+1 , that will be the problem.

 

[abt]

normalizing it but then the dynamics get lost and changes the sound quite a bit.

Normalizing shouldn't cause this because the entire track will be lowered in volume. This way dynamics will still be proportionately the same, so a section that is twice as loud as another part is still twice as loud but they're now both lower in volume.

Loss of dynamics is more of problem of being over compressed.

Years ago I had the same problem. It drove me crazy because I'd send disks out to people, some would work some wouldn't. It turned out that not all CD players decode the data in the same way so on some players it worked fine and others it was distorted. The solution was to normalize to a percentage and not a db level. I tested maybe twenty or so CD players and found if I normized to -3db some would work and others would go over peak but if I normaized to 97% it worked on all of them. Oddly all of the cheaper players worked.

Also make sure you cd burning software is not performing any normalizing.

 

[ahjteam]

well if you accidentally try to burn a 24bit wav to CD, you suddenly have lost one third of the dynamic range (144dB to 90dB), which will most likely case massive artifacts if the program doesn't do any correct conversion and/or dithering.

 

[ScootBaloo]

well if you accidentally try to burn a 24bit wav to CD, you suddenly have lost one third of the dynamic range (144dB to 90dB), which will most likely case massive artifacts if the program doesn't do any correct conversion and/or dithering.

Exactly correct, if the burning software uses the least significant
16 bits and chucks away the topmost 8 bits then this will cause
a sine wave to become a square wave and that is exactly what
he is describing.

 

[racy]

Exactly correct, if the burning software uses the least significant
16 bits and chucks away the topmost 8 bits then this will cause
a sine wave to become a square wave and that is exactly what
he is describing.

errr surely it will only be truncating the lsb's?

why would it truncate the msb's?

 

[ScootBaloo]

errr surely it will only be truncating the lsb's?

why would it truncate the msb's?

I dont know why it would do this, I am assuming brain dead software
but this theory seems to exactly match his symptoms because he
describes his problem as "extremenly distorted" instead of just
"somewhat clipping".

 

[Metaltastic]

Yeah Mike Watts D), always render down to 16 bit PCM if it's gonna end up on a CD! But if you recorded in 24-bit, be sure to dither, either by clicking that little "dither" box or using a plugin (Voxengo Elephant has a built-in dither function, so I use that instead)