Need Help Fast DAW!

[ESPJL5150]

Hello all, I was just wondering i use reaper most of the time and love it but when i mix all my tracks to one track it doesn't sound that great! I was wondering if upgrading to Sonar or Cubase would help with the mixdown and make the combining of all tracks to one sound better or is it all in my head?When you all are done mixing in your daw and your ready to mixdown to a single file how do you get the best optimum sound?

Thanks,

 

[Zack Uidl]

How are you you exporting in Reaper to one file? Are you using the best settings?

Cubase, Sonar, Reaper, Pro Tools, whatever, you can get great results. It is not the software, but what you are doing. Explain how you are rendering the reaper session

 

[ESPJL5150]

i go to render and then go to the highest pct i think in caption it says very slow

 

[Zack Uidl]

If you are making sure it is stereo, have only clicked render master mix on right side, are exporting as a .wav, and .wav bit depth of 24, I am not sure what else would change it

So, you are saying that it actually sounds different than your master mix when listening in REAPER? That is strange...

Are you playing the single stereo .wav file in REAPER or something else? If you are doing in something like iTunes for example, it will change the way the song sounds anyway because iTunes does that

 

[ESPJL5150]

I don't record in 24 i use 16bit because in the end it's going to be 16 to burn on a cd anyway. so when i send it in for mastering or master myself do i use the rendered wav file i rendered? now i know why it sounds different thanks for that info! so when i send it in for mastering or master myself do i use the rendered wav file i rendered?

 

[Mutant]

I don't record in 24 i use 16bit because in the end it's going to be 16 to burn on a cd anyway

I always keep my sound files 24 or more bit when i know that i am going to use some operations (mixing and/or vst effects) on them.

I only make them 16 bit when i am 100% sure that they are finished and dont need any more tweaking.

I think most mastering engineers prefer to have their input material at more than 16 bit...

 

[Mutant]

And about Reaper:

It has 64bit engine so it actually has a potential to "sound better" than many other hosts.

 

[Wolfeman]

You shouldn't notice a difference between 16/24.... I do 16 and it doesn't sound any different than my actual mix in reaper when playing it....

 

[Mutant]

For example if your mastering engineer has to (he has to most of the time) adjust levels and bring up some too quiet parts and/or compress it all to make it louder he will amplify that bad sounding 16 bit threshold of signal to noise to audible levels and it WILL sound bad.

No such problems with 24 or 32 bit input source.

Dithering to 16 bit should be the absolute last step.
IMHO