KVR Audio

Katelyn · Post by **Katelyn** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 2:32 pm

@Compyfox

I was uploading to soundcloud, uploading as .wav did the trick I just had to wait 25 minutes lol (it was bit at like 83 megabytes or so).

The issue was just on some tail ends of delay in lower frequencies on a synth and to a degree the bass. However after uploading in in .wav to soundcloud it sounded fine.

Also not sure on some of those technical details. I probably just didn't pay attention to the bit rate when I was converting it from .wav to mp3 after the fact and it didn't occur to me until later.

According to the DAW I exported the bit rate at 160kb/s (woops >.>) and the sample rate at 44100 Hz... but looking at the properties of the exported file it tells me a bit rate of 1411 kb/s?!

The genre is closest to fullon psytrance I guess

In the other topic I have a pic of the waveform in audacity, I think it denotes the loudness but I'm not entirely sure how to decode what it means in absolute terms, this is the pic: http://i.imgur.com/vx5beDQ.png

However if you want, the song and a pic of it's wave form is in this topic: http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 2&t=434661

But to be honest I was mostly just hatin' on mp3 format and wondering what other people thought of it >.>

Compyfox · Post by **Compyfox** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 4:50 pm

Katelyn wrote:I was uploading to soundcloud, uploading as .wav did the trick I just had to wait 25 minutes lol (it was bit at like 83 megabytes or so).

SoundCloud can create MP3s if you want. At least this is what I understood from various challenges here on KVR.

Katelyn wrote:The issue was just on some tail ends of delay in lower frequencies on a synth and to a degree the bass. However after uploading in in .wav to soundcloud it sounded fine.

Sounds like a usual masking side effect of the MP3 CODEC, especially at lower bitrates.

Katelyn wrote:Also not sure on some of those technical details. I probably just didn't pay attention to the bit rate when I was converting it from .wav to mp3 after the fact and it didn't occur to me until later.

According to the DAW I exported the bit rate at 160kb/s (woops >.>) and the sample rate at 44100 Hz... but looking at the properties of the exported file it tells me a bit rate of 1411 kb/s?!

160kbit is the "bitrate", 1411kb/s is the "data transfer rate" on playback.
44kHz at 160kbit/s should be suitable, but there can be a lot of things that cause issues. It's hard to tell remotely.

Was the original track in 44kHz? Or was it in 48kHz and you only converted rather than properly SRC and Noise Shape (Dither) first? This can also introduce unwanted noise and distortion.

Katelyn wrote:In the other topic I have a pic of the waveform in audacity, I think it denotes the loudness but I'm not entirely sure how to decode what it means in absolute terms, this is the pic: http://i.imgur.com/vx5beDQ.png

However if you want, the song and a pic of it's wave form is in this topic: http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 2&t=434661

Sadly, I can't download from SoundCloud (no account, and you didn't activate "download" either), but from looks of the screenshot and quick listening, your track DOES have certain issues that the CODEC can't keep up with. For example, you have a clash of frequencies and especially the later part of the song is going into clipping. Not to mention that the track is also fairly loud to begin with.

I think you reached the limit of the MP3 CODEC.

Try to pull down the loudness to -8dB RMS (avg/realtime) and use a brickwall limiter at -0,5dBFS to at least reduce the clipping and sound degradation. For own MP3 tests, try to use VBR 192kbit at bar minimum.

Katelyn wrote:But to be honest I was mostly just hatin' on mp3 format and wondering what other people thought of it >.>

MP3 is still a great format, the most widespread even. There are alternatives no doubt, but they're not as "accepted" yet (again, I see a future in HD-AAC).

Katelyn · Post by **Katelyn** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 7:24 pm

That wasn't in mp3 format, I already said I uploaded it as .wav

Also who downloads to listen to a track? >.>

The only reason I even considered mp3 was to upload it faster since my internet sucks.

And ya there are some frequency crashing and loudness issues, it's why I made the other topic to ask about fixing those issues >.>

Honestly as far as formats go, yes mp3 is good if you just want some decent music to listen to on the go but I would wince if anyone were to use an mp3 format for anything other than personal listening.

bailees7irish · Post by **bailees7irish** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 7:26 pm

Agreed, mp3 sucks. 90% of the time I work with wav files.

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 7:41 pm

I listen to my own music as 320 VBR best mp3 in iTunes. iTunes normal organization, which I prefer, mean copies are created. I don't have room for .wav or .aif copies.
Once when I was preparing a master for CD printing and I was comparing 24-bit with the 16-bit I had made up my mind that I needed to do something with the 16-bit copy of that track - with a LOT of highs, and my hearing is quite good - based in my reception of the 24-bit. I'd accidently blind tested myself in this case, as IN FACT that was my 320mbps mp3 that was 'superior' in my estimation to the 16-bit.
Don't kid yourself about differences because of some information you think you've sussed.

I can hear a little difference in the official.fm copies streaming, which is probably 160 [less than 192 which seems to be hard to notice, and higher than 128, 128 is not good]. But 'mp3 sucks' per se, you want to have a second 'look'.

murnau · Post by **murnau** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 7:43 pm

bailees7irish wrote:Agreed, mp3 sucks. 90% of the time I work with wav files.

That makes sense.

Numanoid · Post by **Numanoid** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 7:51 pm

Katelyn wrote:I mean I guess you can't really make it out on most headsets on the go, but really? Do people just not care or don't notice?

A lot of people like 8bit music and bit crushed effects, so what's that to you?

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 8:44 pm

Katelyn wrote: an mp3 format for anything other than personal listening.

Well, no, no one serious edits audio as a lossy file or makes a sample library from it.

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 8:47 pm

Katelyn wrote:@ However after uploading in in .wav to soundcloud it sounded fine.

You do want to give SC more room to ruin your track. However if you're hearing it stream on SC you're hearing more than a merely lossy mp3, the loss is quite evident at 128kbps; and if this result 'sounded fine' to you, 'mp3 sucks' is no longer as true as it was, is it.

bailees7irish · Post by **bailees7irish** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 9:05 pm

murnau wrote:
bailees7irish wrote:Agreed, mp3 sucks. 90% of the time I work with wav files.
That makes sense.

ksandvik · Post by **ksandvik** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 9:08 pm

Whether we like or not, we need to mix and master so things sound decent with MP3, especially low bit rate streaming which is typical for streaming sites (such as Soundcloud, Spotify et rest.) Means the original has to be as pristine as possible to avoid nastiness when encoders try to handle audio streams with little headroom and max clipping all the time and so on.

cron · Post by **cron** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 9:21 pm

Soundcloud will always transcode your material to 128 kbps mp3 regardless of the format you give it. If you're giving it MP3 to start with, you'll end up with a second generation copy at 128kbps. Youtube uses AAC at a much higher bitrate, approaching the kind of encoding quality you pay money to download on services like iTunes. Ironic that that site dedicated to audio streaming lags behind Youtube in this regard.

It's kind of erroneous to talk about 'quality' with lossy compressed audio though, because the goal is usually something that sounds 100% transparent to the original from the individual listener's perspective. Lossy compression should barely ever be a case of 'good/better/best' where music is concerned. I think it makes more sense to see the jump from Soundcloud to Youtube to iTunes as jumps that reduce the likelihood of the listener hearing 'a' difference, because transparency is the only sensible goal to aim for.

You'd think that Soundcloud are a bit mad for streaming at 128kbps, but with the quality of the mp3 codec today, this is round about where the average listener starts having trouble consistently picking the mp3 out (so much as you can call people who follow audio compression and take part in listening tests the 'average listener'). People tend to wildly overestimate their ability to hear lossy compression. It's really easy to properly ABX using the free Foobar player and its ABX comparator component if you're a Windows user. http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_abx

fedexnman · Post by **fedexnman** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 9:25 pm

YouTube also has adds . Maybe that's why there audio streaming quality is better . $$ chaching ..$$$$

Compyfox · Post by **Compyfox** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 9:25 pm

Katelyn wrote:That wasn't in mp3 format, I already said I uploaded it as .wav

It will still be encoded and played back at "lower bitrate" from the stream.

Katelyn wrote:Also who downloads to listen to a track? >.>

I do - especially for analysis purposes.

Katelyn wrote:Honestly as far as formats go, yes mp3 is good if you just want some decent music to listen to on the go but I would wince if anyone were to use an mp3 format for anything other than personal listening.

bailees7irish wrote:Agreed, mp3 sucks. 90% of the time I work with wav files.

MP3 is not made for anything other than plain "listening" to a finished product. It's not made for re-editing content or having a "smaller file size" on collaborations. This is what FLAC is for, or 7ZIP with LZMA compression.

Or are we talking against each other currently?

ksandvik wrote:Whether we like or not, we need to mix and master so things sound decent with MP3, especially low bit rate streaming which is typical for streaming sites (such as Soundcloud, Spotify et rest.) Means the original has to be as pristine as possible to avoid nastiness when encoders try to handle audio streams with little headroom and max clipping all the time and so on.

There is no extra work needed to "master" for specific formats, if we'd finally drop the stupid "Loudness War". If we then upload WAV files, then there is no thinking if the CODEC will reach it's limits and the end product will sound crap or not.

bailees7irish · Post by **bailees7irish** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 9:32 pm

Compyfox wrote:
MP3 is not made for anything other than plain "listening" to a finished product. It's not made for re-editing content or having a "smaller file size" on collaborations. This is what FLAC is for, or 7ZIP with LZMA compression.

Or are we talking against each other currently?

I should have worded that differently as I was only talking about listening, not my own productions.