Rendering in Reaper is killing my sound quality, please help!

[deesko]

i've never had any problem exporting... could it be you're using a wrong lame version inside reaper?

i know it recommends a specific version, so i don't know.

i usually just export to wav or flac, and i've never had problems, but the few times i exported as mp3, it sounded ok...

export to wav and play it back with the same program you're playing the mp3, using the same playback settings (no eq, nor stereo enhancements, etc. - just plain playback).

[valis]

If you're using foobar to convert from FLAC to mp3 then you'd need a special build of LAME intended to handle FLAC & ogg etc (you can find it on the rarewares LAME download page).

However you're going the long way around there imo, render to 24bit WAV and just use a frontend like All2Lame (or Razorlame etc) with -V0 or -V2 as your custom switch (toggles the corresponding lame preset setting), and a current version of LAME off rarewares with lame.exe and lame_enc.dll placed into the same directory as the all2lame frontend (or whichever you choose). Place the whole all2lame directory structure somewhere that you can have full permissions without having to run with admin privs, like under your Documents folder (or I just have it on another drive in with some other common utilities I use).

[ysf]

I've used Reaper for a number of years and have never had an issue. Ill assume you know that you can change the quality of the exported mp3s?
And btw I still burn all my CDs using magix Music Studio 11 on a 64 bit PC system. (Just like the way it allows you to burn to disc)

Sent from my SCH-R730 using Gearslutz.com

[Maverick87]

I use 64 bit reaper n I use the lame_enc64 or whatever it is so Idk if its the wrong version. I had a suspicion that the LAME encoder is responsible for the weakened audio quality but Idk. This is a new problem for me.

I'm at work now but ill definitely give that a try valis and ill let u guys know tomorrow if theres any success.

[Maverick87]

ysf, I tried installing Magix Music Studio 12 Deluxe and it wouldnt even let me, says its incompatible with either Windows 7 or 64 bit(cant remember which?) I wish it worked because I got so used to that program, eventually Im gonna save up and get my hands on Samplitude. Not gonna give up on Reaper though, I like it a lot so far and refuse to give up on it because of a rendering issue.

[filipv]

What audio editors do you own/use?

[Maverick87]

When you say audio editor I assume your talking about DAWs? If so I own and use Reaper and that's it. About to go experiment and solve this issue right now.. lol.

I have Magix Music Studio 12 Deluxe, but it doesn't work with my computer. And I have Magix Music Maker MX Premium, which I use strictly for MIDI, so the songs I'm referring to are all done 100% in Reaper.

[shaddai]

I use Reaper all the time on a 64 bit Windows laptop & haven't had any issue like what you're describing. Also use Sonar X1, and there's no difference I've found in the render/export quality between them..

....FLACs and convert them to mp3 though foobar, but Im having issues with the LAME encoder there, it keeps telling me that theres an error....

Could that be a hint that something's goofy with the lame encoder?
edit- I see you're thinking that already..sorry.

it seems that a lot of people have this same problem, mixes coming out sounding different, certain instruments sounding strange, phasy.

mp3 will do that by itself. It's rare to find an mp3 that sounds the same as the CD, or the mix. The best you can do is crank the bitrate up.

Just a thought
todd

[The Buddha Rats]

No offense to anyone on this thread (I'm sure you are all knowledgeable), but if you have a Reaper specific issue, why not just post it here?:

REAPER Forums - Cockos Confederated Forums

[theblue1]

Like others, I'm thinking this is likely to be a setting problem and that your process is a bit roundabout. (An alternate theory is that gainstaging in Reaper is different than you are used to and you're compromising your sonics somehow there, but kind of doubt this as floating point DAWs tend to be fairly forgiving as long as the signal reaching DAC -- or the reconstruction filters used for creating the mixdown data stream sent to file -- isn't too high or too low.)

The LAME encoder is generally thought to be the best mp3 encoder (although the Fraunhofer encoder is faster, but when set to similar quality/processing settings, I suspect they're about the same in quality [for the record, I licensed the Fraunhofer encoder in the 90s but stopped using it when I moved to the open source LAME codec). The thing about lossy encoders like LAME and Fraunhofer's mp3 encoder is that they tend to have a jillion potential settings -- and those settings can make a real difference in terms of sonics.

LAME comes as a command line program (you run it from a command line with different parameter switches for different formats) -- but, as noted, you can find various 'wrapper' programs that put a GUI around the basic program. Unfortnately, since there are many score encoding options in the basic program, the wrapper developers tend to greatly simplify the number of options and formats that the wrapper GUI presents to the user for selection.

[T'Mershi Duween]

Why on earth are you mixing down to mp3? That's ridiculous.

All mp3's sound weird and phase-y to me...

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by shaddai

I use Reaper all the time on a 64 bit Windows laptop & haven't had any issue like what you're describing. Also use Sonar X1, and there's no difference I've found in the render/export quality between them..



Could that be a hint that something's goofy with the lame encoder?
edit- I see you're thinking that already..sorry.



mp3 will do that by itself. It's rare to find an mp3 that sounds the same as the CD, or the mix. The best you can do is crank the bitrate up.

Just a thought
todd

Right.

"Transparency" is, of course, subjective, with less experienced listeners perhaps unable to tell the difference between full CD quality and a bitrate as low as 160 kbps in a blind test. But as the listener's experience level or analytical skills rise, so does the bitrate required for transparency for that listener.

There are a handful of 'mp3-killer' source files which have sonic characteristics that (typically due to processing/FX issues) can 'break' even high encoding rates, resulting in noticeable artifacts, but MOSTLY, even 'educated ears' often have considerable difficulty differentiating between 256 kbps and up and the 'real thing.'

(That said, I've been able, with specific files, by listening to very specfic 'tells,' to differentiate in at least one set of ABX tests between a 256 kbps version and a 320 kbps version. But I was unable to differentiate between the 320 and the full CD audio version. YMMV. But I'll say this, without a true blind testing methodology, it's virtually impossible to be certain that you are actually hearing the difference when comparing very close sources. I use the ABX Comparator plugin for the [Win] Foobar player so I don't have to drive myself nuts trying to conduct blind testing on myself. It works great and does all the statistics keeping and calculations for you. On more than a couple of occasions I went into such ABX testing thinking, Oh, this is almost obvious... should be no problem, but then having that certainty evaporate into near-random levels of distinction.)

[Maverick87]

I tried rendering to 24 bit WAV and it sounded better. Also I converted the WAV and Flac to mp3 via Format Factory and it wasn't as bad as before. I thought Cd's and everything was mp3's, but now I've learned better, which is why I love these forums. Didn't realize mp3 was so destructive to audio quality. I plan on having the cd I'll release on my mp3 player, and just want to make sure that if it does get converted into mp3 that it won't sound like ass.. lol. I don't want to AVOID mp3. The way I see it, commercial artists music doesn't sound terrible as mp3, and I don't want mind to sound terrible either.

Everyone's advice was helpful so thanks for everyone's input.

[filipv]

Originally Posted by Maverick87

When you say audio editor I assume your talking about DAWs?

No. I'm talking about wavelab, audition, soundforge etc... They all provide good wav to mp3 conversions, so my suggestion is: in Reaper render to 44/24 WAV and later convert the wav to mp3.

Rendering directly to mp3 from Reaper obviously is not good enough.

[John The Cut]

in summary -

24bit WAV sounds better than Mp3.

Hallelujah!

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by John The Cut

in summary -

24bit WAV sounds better than Mp3.

Hallelujah!

Yes, indeedy.

Originally Posted by Maverick87

I tried rendering to 24 bit WAV and it sounded better. Also I converted the WAV and Flac to mp3 via Format Factory and it wasn't as bad as before. I thought Cd's and everything was mp3's, but now I've learned better, which is why I love these forums. Didn't realize mp3 was so destructive to audio quality. I plan on having the cd I'll release on my mp3 player, and just want to make sure that if it does get converted into mp3 that it won't sound like ass.. lol. I don't want to AVOID mp3. The way I see it, commercial artists music doesn't sound terrible as mp3, and I don't want mind to sound terrible either.

Everyone's advice was helpful so thanks for everyone's input.

[bold added]

It's not that the mp3 format is necessarily bad sounding -- it depends on how much information you allow the encoder to remove and how you do it -- which is why the bitrate and other settings of the encoder are so important. (Many folks think that the bitrate is the only setting that matters -- and many encoder/wrapper apps only allow limited control -- sometimes woefully limited -- of the encoding parameters. Most tend to trade off quality of encoding [at a given bitrate] for speed of encoding, because that impresses the rubes.)

Consider that 16 bit / 44.1 kHz CD quality stereo audio data has a bitrate of 1411 Kbps -- but the original AACs (a newer lossy format that gives better quality than mp3 at higher bitrates) that the iTunes store sold were 128 Kbps -- an 11 to 1 data reduction! Most folks with a little listening experience can tell a 128 from full CD quality (and if they can't but have normal hearing you can usually 'teach' them how to differentiate pretty quickly).

But as the bitrate of a given format goes up, so does the relative transparency. At 256 Kbps, most average listeners can't tell. And at 320 Kbps, even most trained listeners can't tell on most tracks in true double blind listening tests. But it's still a large data reduction, about 4.4 to 1.