Help with guitar when played back on CD?

[Desp6]

Hey guys!

I am new here, a friend of mine turned me on to this site and said you guys might be able to lead me in the right direction in regards to a problem I've been having. If you can that'd be great!


Here's the situation. I am having a problem with recorded guitar tracks when played back on CD. I am using Pro Tools LE and when I listen to the guitar within the session the guitars sound fine. The problem is when I bounce them to disk and listen to them in my CD player they sound like they just got taken out of the deep fat fryer at a cheap hamburger joint! uke:

They sound way fuzzy and if it makes sense, they sound like they are on fire, all distorted and very harsh. I have tried putting a high pass filter on it, and I know its not the bass overloading because it really didn't do much. Maybe it's too much treble? Would that cause guitar tracks that sound otherwise fine in the session when being monitored to sound like crap on CD? I am pretty new to this so maybe I am missing something??? I figure no amount of change from a Pro Tools session to CD could be this damaging or dramatic to the song.

Any help would be much appreciated!!

 

[Nebulous]

Do you mean, they sound shit on CD using the same speakers, or are you gongi from your DAW to a "home stereo"?

 

[Desp6]

Do you mean, they sound shit on CD using the same speakers, or are you gongi from your DAW to a "home stereo"?

Well I am actually using headphones and it's the same pair.

I am using headphones in the heaphone input on the Digi 002r to listen to the session and then I am using the same headphones plugged into a CD player when playing back the CD I burned of that session. I have listened to reference CD's in my player, with the same headphones and it doesn't do this to the guitar on them.

It's like something is wrong with the guitar tracks specifically because there is no problem with drums, bass, or vocals.

The guitars sound fine when I am listening to the song in the Pro Tools session, but when I listen to the same song burned to a CD the guitars are f*cked.

 

[Desp6]

Guess nobody knows what I am experiencing. I tried a few things including putting a high shelf on the guitars(panned hard left and right) at around 6khz and I dropped it a whopping -12db! It did indeed help some of the fuzz but a little bit still remains. Could it possibly be the high range frequencies alone doing this to the guitars?

Has anybody ever heard of a song sounding fine while mixing in Pro Tools and then having the guitars distort on some CD players when burned to CD?

 

[Mutant]

Guess nobody knows what I am experiencing.

One clip is worth much more than a thousand words.

 

[Nebulous]

Does it sound different when you bounce it down and play it on your computer?

 

[joeymusicguy]

Guess nobody knows what I am experiencing. I tried a few things including putting a high shelf on the guitars(panned hard left and right) at around 6khz and I dropped it a whopping -12db! It did indeed help some of the fuzz but a little bit still remains. Could it possibly be the high range frequencies alone doing this to the guitars?

Has anybody ever heard of a song sounding fine while mixing in Pro Tools and then having the guitars distort on some CD players when burned to CD?

i think you need to upload a clip because no one can truely realize what you're hearing without hearing it themselves.

it would definately get your problem solved a lot faster if people had an example to listen to. your problem could be the result of clipping on mixdown, which would be immediately audible by a lot of people who post here.

 

[Desp6]

Does it sound different when you bounce it down and play it on your computer?

Yeah slightly. The distortion isn't as pronounced.




Oh, and sorry about not adding them sooner here are the clips! I don't know if you can notice it like this but lets give it a go.

track1 is the way it sounds from the computer:

Track 1

Track 2 I recorded by plugging the CD player into pro tools and recording the audio from the player itself:

Track 2

 

[s34nsm411]

get a better daw

 

[TheStoryteller]

Yeah slightly. The distortion isn't as pronounced.




Oh, and sorry about not adding them sooner here are the clips! I don't know if you can notice it like this but lets give it a go.

track1 is the way it sounds from the computer:

Track 1

Track 2 I recorded by plugging the CD player into pro tools and recording the audio from the player itself:

Track 2

Are you sure you'd be able to tell the difference if the volume would be matched?

Let's make a little test.

http://fredrikgroth.com/track-x.mp3

http://fredrikgroth.com/track-y.mp3

These are the same tracks you posted; but both are normalized. So tell me, which one is which?

 

[Nebulous]

My initial guess was the volume too. I just got lazy and couldnt be stuffed replying *sorry*

 

[Mutant]

OK i normalized both waves to 100% (and switched back LR on the cdplayer one - check your cable) and here is what they look like on Adobe Audition's spectrum analyzer:
(green=rendered red=recorded from cdplayer)

Because you recorded from cd at a low volume you could not capture 100% of your cd player signal to noise ratio - the difference in details from 10khz up is caused by those details being drowned in cd player's da and your daw's ad converters noise floor.
Looks like the rest of the wave was played back like it should.

 

[NickL]

I dunno man that sounds a hell of a lot like quantization error to me. Are you recording at 24 bit then switching to 16 bit without dithering or something? Usually that doesn't do it like this but you never know

 

[NickL]

Are you sure you'd be able to tell the difference if the volume would be matched?

Let's make a little test.

http://fredrikgroth.com/track-x.mp3

http://fredrikgroth.com/track-y.mp3

These are the same tracks you posted; but both are normalized. So tell me, which one is which?

the first one is the distorted one

 

[Pman]

the first one is the distorted one

shuush the other guy is supposed to guess

 

[NickL]

shuush the other guy is supposed to guess

If he can't tell he's got bigger problems than fizz

 

[Desp6]

shuush the other guy is supposed to guess

Sorry but if this isn't a trick question, a retarded baboon could have figured it out!

 

[Desp6]

I dunno man that sounds a hell of a lot like quantization error to me. Are you recording at 24 bit then switching to 16 bit without dithering or something? Usually that doesn't do it like this but you never know

No I am using dither on the master fader.

Does anybody think it could perhaps be the high range frequency? That's the only thing I can think of! Maybe the high range is a little too exagerrated on the original track and the CD player has a hard time with it?

 

[Desp6]

Are you sure you'd be able to tell the difference if the volume would be matched?

Let's make a little test.

http://fredrikgroth.com/track-x.mp3

http://fredrikgroth.com/track-y.mp3

These are the same tracks you posted; but both are normalized. So tell me, which one is which?

Why does it even matter? I know the CD player recorded at a lower volume but it isn't the volume on the CD player during playback screwing the guitars up. I can turn the CD player volume to 1 and you can hear the added distortion.

 

[TheStoryteller]

OK, I agree there seems to be something wrong with your second file. HOWEVER, I don't believe the audible difference has to do with anything that happens between 10-16KHz.

Technically speaking, Mutant nailed it. What you're seeing on the picture is the combined noisefloor of your DA-AD conversion (DA in the cd, AD in the soundcard), and your cd player's low pass filter at 16KHz. Have you tried the same thing with another cd player?