Recording levels

The place for general discussion of Cakewalk Pro Audio.
Pootle

Post by Pootle » Wed Oct 01, 2003 10:14 am

Hi,

I've recorded a new piece in Sonar - classical guitar, the Grand and some strings.

All the levels sound fine on the PC through my monitors. There is no visible peaking on the audio track's display, and the meters don't go near the red.

Yet when I burn the WAV file to CD and play it on any of my hi-fis, the classical guitar is really distorted.

I have re-mixed it several times, each time bringing the levels down even more, but the same thing happens.

Anyone have any idea why this is happening? I've never had this problem before, and, like I say, the levels seem fine in Sonar.

One thing I've noticed when I burn the CD (using Nero Express) is a message flashes up saying something about adjusting volume levels, so tonight I'm going to try copying the bundle file to my old PC and burning it using my old version of Nero.

I will also try burning it as an mp3 to see if that makes a difference.

But in the meantime I am wasting alot of CDs! If anyone has had a similar problem and has ANY suggestions, I'd be very grateful....

Thanks,

Emma


andychap
Posts: 685
Joined: Wed Aug 27, 2003 7:26 pm
Location: UK

Post by andychap » Wed Oct 01, 2003 1:07 pm

Ah multiple posts on multiple forums :D that's the way to get answers.

I always use soundforge to burn my tracks one at a time, they seem to record so much better.

Pootle

Post by Pootle » Wed Oct 01, 2003 1:36 pm

How much is Soundforge, Andy?

I'm getting so cheesed off with Sonar at the mo I'm thinking of switching to Cubase... so there's another load of money wasted...

andychap
Posts: 685
Joined: Wed Aug 27, 2003 7:26 pm
Location: UK

Post by andychap » Wed Oct 01, 2003 7:21 pm

Soundforge is a wave editor not a sequencer. I'm back on version 5 but I should imagine it costs a couple of hundred quid for version 6.

I tried Cubase for about a year. I couldn't get on with it. I have stuck at Sonar 1.3 because I managed to get it to run rock steady. I do have Cubasis installed so that if I can't get a specific VST to run in Sonar, I can import the midi track into cubasis, run it though the VST and bounce it to audio, export and import back to Sonar. Fiddly but cheap, that's me these days. Have you given any thought to upgrading to Sonar 3 first to see if that works for you.

Andy

Pootle

Post by Pootle » Thu Oct 02, 2003 9:49 am

Hi Andy,

I realised it wasn't a sequencer - what I meant was that if I end up spending out on another sequencer then I don't really want to have to buy soundforge too... my credit card is very poorly this month, what with KS4As, Kompakt, samples etc.!

I might do what you do, then. I have Cubasis or something lying around somewhere, so I might dig it out and use it like you said. I much prefer Sonar so I don't really want to change, especially with v.3 on the horizon.

I sorted the levels out (in my original post) by the way... it was Nero helpfully automatically normalising my audio levels! So that's one problem sorted, anyway!

Thanks,
Emma

bigraddish

Post by bigraddish » Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:31 am

I am a Cakewalk 9 user, so I don't know if this will help. After I record my audio tracks, I then use the "convert to wave file" command before burning a cd. It is necessary to check the volume setting on your output port, and make sure it is within normal limits, before you convert your audio file to a wave file. If the volume on the output file is too high, it will produce a distorted wave file, even if the recording was made at acceptable levels. There is also a possibility that your sound card level is affecting the quality of your recording. You should set this through your sound card's software or through the control panel settings, assuming you are using Windows. Another thing that might be of use, Nero has a setting that allows you to normalize the volume of a wave file before it burns the cd. This will only help if the recording on the wave file is clean, but it can cut down on distortion if the signals are too high and it can build up the wave form if the signals are too low.

Pootle

Post by Pootle » Thu Oct 16, 2003 2:57 pm

Hi Bigraddish,

thanks for the reply.

I've sorted it now - it was a default setting in Nero that normalised the audio tracks. Switching that off has solved the problem (I convert my tracks to WAV before burning, too).

Emma

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