Wavs muffled after importing

[spla5hmummy]

Hey guys

I've been recording using an M-Audio Microtrack 2.

When I play the tracks back on the Microtrack itself they sound great.

When I copy the WAVs to my computer and play them using I-Tunes they sound great.

When I import the WAVs into Sonar LE or Home Studio 2002 they sound horrendous. They are muffled and fuzzy.

I've tried the wave profiler and I seem to be directing the output to the correct sound device. Am I missing something here?

Thanks in advance for any help offered.

[brandondrury]

When I copy the WAVs to my computer and play them using I-Tunes they sound great.

When I import the WAVs into Sonar LE or Home Studio 2002 they sound horrendous. They are muffled and fuzzy.

Wow! Something VERY screwy is going on. I've never heard of this happening before.

Have you checked all the obvous stuff? Is there an EQ on your 2bus you forget about somehow? That sort of thing?

Brandon

[bitflipper]

What's the file format coming out of the Microtrack? You're not recording MP3s, are you?

[spla5hmummy]

Hi, thanks for the replies.

I've checked EQs. No dodgy stuff. The file type is definitely WAV from the recorder to the PC to the software.

I've now tried loading the tracks into Audacity to see if it's a general Cakewalk problem but the effect is the same.

I wonder if it's something to do with my sound card. Perhaps while it is capable of playing the WAVs back in ITunes something about putting them in editing software overloads it in some way.

[bitflipper]

I wouldn't think it would have anything to do with your sound card, although if it's an extreme low-end card anything's possible. What's the audio interface?

Is the driver MME by any chance? Or perhaps MME for iTunes and WDM/KS or ASIO for SONAR? Maybe the muffled version is what it really sounds like and the version you hear via iTunes is EQ'd. Nah, that can't be it because it also sounds OK when you play it back on the recorder, right?

What's the sample rate and bit depth of the wave files? Mono or stereo? Could there be any sample rate or bit depth conversion going on? Normally, this would not have an appreciable impact on sound quality, though.

Try this: import the file into SONAR (or Audacity), then export it and play it back through iTunes and/or Windows Media Player. If the muffled sound is now heard, that would confirm that something's being modified in the file. But if it still sounds OK, that would suggest that the problem is occurring during playback from within SONAR rather than in the file itself.

Here's a dumb question: do you only have this issue when importing files? What about clips recorded directly into SONAR? Or do you never do it that way?

[spla5hmummy]

I haven't been recording directly into Sonar but I tried it tonight using a UA-4fx. The sound quality still isn't great. I think it might have something to do with balances though. I realised I was having to turn my speakers up loud in ITunes to hear the WAVs properly. I loaded the WAVs into TRacks and boosted the output volume somewhat. They played a little better through Cakewalk after that but still not good enough.

While I was recording on the Microtrack the meters on it were nearly peaking. It seems odd that the resulting WAVs would have low volume levels.

I think I'm going to experiment with the UA-4FX tomorrow. I was stilll having issues there, but the results were closer to a good sound than what I was getting on the Microtrack.

[spaceatl]

Uh...hmmmm.....Have you looked in the global options...Not sure if this is close to what is in Sonar P but I have gotten waves to "render" pretty horribly when that is knocked down to 16 bit and the waves are 24 or 32...Generally you do that when a project starts taxing out the PC...You have to switch back to get a proper export, but it could be you have Dithering on...

That's the thing that really gets me miffed about Sonar...You have to go to Global to knock back the rendering, then to Audio to set the dither...When you render bit depth is less than the source, dithering usually fixes it up...If you render at the same or higher bitrate, it is best to turn that off...just a thought.

[spla5hmummy]

I've done everything at 16bit all the way. I'll see if dithering is an option.

EDIT: It was an option but switching it off didn't make a difference.

I've tried recording using the UA-4FX again this morning and no matter how I adjust the latency I cannot get the recorded audio to have the same time signature as the midi. I'm giving this up as a bad job as it's driving me nuts. I'm going to wait until next month when I can get into a recording studio to record my music. Thanks for all the help though.

[brandondrury]

A anonymous 3rd party sent me this. Maybe it'll help.

The poster's name is spla5hmummy- so if you could message him and let him know that the resolution to my (and VERY likely his) problem was to go to Options- Audio...- Advanced and under Playback and Recording- change the Driver Mode to "MME 32-bit".

[spla5hmummy]

Thanks very much for that. I'll give it a go.