Help: Exported Mixdowns Sound Bad In Other Programs

[chrisk59255337]

Hello there. I'm relatively new to Audition and am trying my best to figure things out. I've done pretty well but I'm having one problem that I cannot figure out. I hope someone can point me in the right direction.

I use Audition to edit church sermons as well as to record and edit podcasts on my MacBook Pro, both of which are recorded with different microphones and systems (church is through the sound equipment there, and podcast I use Audition and a Blue Yeti). While I'm working with the files, everything sounds fantastic; all effects, tweaks, etc, have no issues. However, when I do the multitrack mixdown to both .wav and .mp3, the resulting sound quality is awful. It honestly sounds like going from listening to a CD to listening to an AM radio station in the bottom of a barrel. I have used other editing programs and iTunes for playback, but everything sounds terrible.

I've tried searching for answers on Google and other message boards but nothing really addresses my issue. I typically upload at least twice a week and so I'm needing some guidance. I just don't know what to do to make the final product sound as good as it does within Audition itself.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

Chris Keeton

[ryclark]

Can you describe roughly how the mixed down audio file is sounding bad compared to when listening while mixing the Audition Multitrack? Does it sound just as bad if you re-open the mixed down file back into Audition's Waveform view and playback? What settings are you using for saving the .wav and .mp3 files? What is the exact workflow you are using to do the mix downs, there are several ways in Audition?

[chrisk59255337]

Hi there! Thanks for replying! I've nearly come to the conclusion it has something to do with my MacBook. When I am listening in the Waveform view or the Multitrack, the audio sounds pretty crisp and clear (given the recording equipment we have at church and the effects/filters I'm using in Audition). However, when I close out of that and try to listen via iTunes or my previous editing program Sound Studio, both the .wav and .mp3 is distorted, like it's kind of maxed out or was recorded too hot. My earlier description of AM radio, minus much of the static of that format, is about the best I can do.

I just uploaded the most recent sermon and playback sounded much better from the host (it is uploaded as an .mp3 with a pre-recorded music/narration intro followed by the sermon). However, when I went back to my MacBook and listened to the exact file I uploaded, it still sounds bad. Upon opening up the session in Audition, it sounds as crisp and clear as it did when I was doing the editing.

NOTE: To hear a sample of the audio, the direct link for the most recent episode is linked here: Episode Series - The Water of Life . I know it's not the best in general, but it's decent enough for its purpose, especially when taking into consideration the microphones, sound board and recorder we use. If you go just to our main podcast page and scroll down to items titled first as "BIBLE STUDY:" you can hear the results of recording with my Blue Yeti directly into Audition on my MacBook.

As for the mixdown, once I've finished putting everything in order, I go the File menu, down to Export, then Multitrack Mixdown, Entire Session. I then set my Title, Location to save it to and the format (saving a file in .wav and another in .mp3). Everything else I've left the same as it is when the screen appears:

Sample Type: Same As Source

New Sample Type: 44100 Hz Stereo, 32-bit

Format Settings: (what I'm looking at right now) MP3 192 Kbps CBR

Mixdown Options: Entire Session, Master (stereo) Embed Edit Original link Data

Like I said, listening today to the uploaded audio, it doesn't sound too bad, it's just playback on my device outside of Audition that seems to be the problem.

I don't know if you can make heads or tails of this or can offer any guidance or suggestions, but I do appreciate your time so far.

Thanks again,

Chris Keeton

[ryclark]

We can only really help with problems from within Audition I'm afraid which seems to be operating as it should. So there must be something in how the audio playback is set up on your Macbook, or a fault, that is causing the audio to sound so bad when played back by other audio software. Does it sound like this when playing back through the computer's speakers or are you listening on headphones or external speakers plugged into the Macbook.

[Princely]

I have the same issue with a windows pc 

and nothing I do seems to help the issue 

anything I export out sounds terrible 

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

You haven't exactly given us any clues here... like what you are recording, how you are recording it, how Audition is set up, or anything really. One question though - are you recording in Multitrack using a template?

[brianf76922328]

This doesn't make any sense. The mix will sound awesome when played back in multitrack, but then yeah, mixdown sounds like it's under a carpet. The only way to resolve this that I've found is to enable the Windows "what you hear" channel, and then use a separate audio application (e.g. Audacity), setting its input to "what you hear" and then record. It comes out 95% of what the multitrack sounds like on regular playback. It's not optimal, seem like Adobe should be able to test this scenario and address the question of why is the result different between these two approaches?

[brianf76922328]

I'm responding to my own post because the edit option is obscured in Firefox, I can't edit my original post. ... sigh. I should clarify that the "what you hear" channel could simply be the same output that you're using in audacity to monitor your mix. So if you say had an external soundcard with an input and an output, you would set the other audio application's input to the Audacity output channel.

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

Actually, none of this makes any sense at all. Please can you show us a screengrab of both your Audio Channel Mapping, and Audio Hardware settings, in Preferences?