Why does my bounced track sound different?

[Fishy1500]

I've been working on a track for the past couple of months and have gotten pretty familiar with what it sounds like while I'm mixing and playing back in Logic (44.1/24). However, when I tried bouncing it in 16bit using no dithering, pow1 dither, pow2 dither and pow3 dither and then playing the aiff file back in iTunes, it sounds different (not good different). Differences are subtle, but somehow the stereo image that I get feels very different. Overall, it feels like my instruments are farther away, like they're more distant compared to listening to it in logic and is kind of frustrating.

What do you guys do to get past this? How would you bounce it to send to mastering without having it sound... so different?

[Pfraser]

Even though this isn't the problem, is this an anolog recording? Because if it is you probably don't need to dither/add noise.

[mikefatom]

check your itunes settings and make sure the sound enhancer is off and the eq is disabled.

[Never1]

Originally Posted by mikefatom

check your itunes settings and make sure the sound enhancer is off and the eq is disabled.

Yeah that enhancer thing defaults to the on position in itunes.... turn it off, cuz it does horrible things to the stereo imaging.

[PoorGlory]

Bounce the track, and import it into a new session file. Play that stereo mix... it will sound the same.

If you are playing Itunes through your computers half-assed soundcard, of course it will sound different.

[Fishy1500]

Ah, it was the "sound enhancer" setting! Wonder why that is even there... sounds like it adds a bit of reverb to the music and changes the stereo imaging... I'd rather let the producer of a track decide on the amount of reverb to add and how they pan things. Thanks for your help!

btw, are all those dither settings used more for acoustic tracks? This particular song is a house music track, so drums, rhodes keys, external synths, guitar, etc. I can't really hear a difference between the bounced tracks using different dithers. How would you recommend bouncing to send off to your mastering engineer?

[PoorGlory]

Bounce it with no dither in its original sample rate/bit depth. The mastering engineer will do the dither and conversion after he processes it.

[dropblacksky]

Originally Posted by Fishy1500

btw, are all those dither settings used more for acoustic tracks? This particular song is a house music track, so drums, rhodes keys, external synths, guitar, etc. I can't really hear a difference between the bounced tracks using different dithers. How would you recommend bouncing to send off to your mastering engineer?

Dither is subtle and it's true you probably won't hear a difference in a track unless it has major dynamic range. In a very critical listening environment, you can hear differences in how reverbs and instruments decay into the "noisefloor". It's just good practice to clean up the lowest bits of your song...even if you can't readily "hear" it. That said, if you're sending to a mastering engineer, you should be sending them a file at your native resolution anyway.... 24/44 in this case

[audiomichael]

I have experienced this same thing with Logic. My expensive solution was to buy ProTools, and record via 16ch across into ProTools, then sum/bounce in ProTools.

It's a drag. I used to get a mix sounding good, then bounce, and be like...WTF??? It also didn't seem consistent to me, sometimes better, sometimes worse.

[Fishy1500]

Thanks for the info everyone looks like I'll be bouncing as is with the same sample rate and bit depth when sending off for mastering :) And it sounds fine after the bounce once I've turned off iTunes's sound enhancer

[TYY]

APPLE IS THE DEVIL!!