actually, i need to backtrack on the previous statement. i'm able to get the correct tone and dynamics out of every single one of these tracks through the soundcard in the laptop, indicating that i really haven't created any kind of consistency and am really no closer to figuring out what the hell is going on. i'm also able to get the right tone and dynamics from the playback card in the pc, indicating that the files do in fact sound the way i mixed them - i just can't get the mixer i mixed them on to play them back with the dynamic and tone i mixed them with, on that mixer. bizarre.
it's time to sleep a little. but, the only other aspect of this i can pin anything on is foobar. so, i'm going to want to bypass foobar when i wake up and see what it sounds like streaming through the mixer from cool edit. if i can establish consistency through that process, i'll have to conclude it's a problem with foobar.
that doesn't make sense to me, though. it's random. the issue is i can't get consistency - the same song sounds different when i listen to it twice in a row. how could the software not provide consistency? but, i've been through this before - i know foobar is not exact reproduction. and, if i can get exact reproduction from cool edit through the same hardware chain then i'm left with no other conclusion.
cool edit is entirely self-contained. it doesn't rely on windows like foobar does. if i end up blaming foobar, i'm still blaming windows. and it reduces to something i'll probably require a full reinstall to actually fix.
for right now, knowing that i can mix it through asio and have it sound right through cool edit is good enough.
summary:
1) they sound good through the mixer, from cubase.
2) they sound good through the other card in that same pc.
3) they sound good through the laptop (with headphones).
4) but, they sound bad through the mixer, from foobar.
5) tbd: do they sound good through the mixer, from cool edit? if so, it must be foobar.
but.
i'm using foobar for the m-audio playback, too. so, it wouldn't be merely foobar, but foobar's ability to stream wdm. and there might be a setting.
but i have to verify the claim, first.
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
so, i'm now pretty much convinced that i've fixed the problem and established consistency in what the device is producing. but, the results of that aren't always positive. in some cases, it's pretty bad. i knew the gear wasn't really behaving, but i can only deal with what i can actually hear. the first three tracks are spot-on perfect. after that, it gets pretty messy.
the general problem is that the mixes are treble-heavy and sort of tinny. this is actually backwards; they're meant to be very bass-heavy. i guess the device was sort of exaggerating the bass, so i cranked the treble in response. then, when i was playing it back, it seemed like the bass was cutting in and out. but i can tell now that what was happening was that it was distorting and coming back, and i was mixing it in the distorted position, then getting pissed off when it righted itself.
so, i need to apologize for the bulk of the mixes i've uploaded over the last few weeks. they are not good. but, the gear was fucked.
that means i have more work to do than i thought. but i get the impression that these are fixes i can do at the master eq level; it's going to be mostly be an across the board cut around 10,000 Hz - and in most cases, it's going to be undoing what was actually a boost at that frequency.
moral of the story: don't mix on a broken mixer.
10 kHz was the frequency of the treble knob on the tascam that i mixed it on originally. i boosted at that frequency in an attempt to emulate what i know i did all those years ago. it seems high, but it's not arbitrary.
the general problem is that the mixes are treble-heavy and sort of tinny. this is actually backwards; they're meant to be very bass-heavy. i guess the device was sort of exaggerating the bass, so i cranked the treble in response. then, when i was playing it back, it seemed like the bass was cutting in and out. but i can tell now that what was happening was that it was distorting and coming back, and i was mixing it in the distorted position, then getting pissed off when it righted itself.
so, i need to apologize for the bulk of the mixes i've uploaded over the last few weeks. they are not good. but, the gear was fucked.
that means i have more work to do than i thought. but i get the impression that these are fixes i can do at the master eq level; it's going to be mostly be an across the board cut around 10,000 Hz - and in most cases, it's going to be undoing what was actually a boost at that frequency.
moral of the story: don't mix on a broken mixer.
10 kHz was the frequency of the treble knob on the tascam that i mixed it on originally. i boosted at that frequency in an attempt to emulate what i know i did all those years ago. it seems high, but it's not arbitrary.
right now, i think i had the right idea but it could be a few different causes.
i uninstalled the drivers, uninstalled cubase, reinstalled both and then ran my fancy registry wipe that just decimates everything in windows. media player. explorer. almost all the services. it's just ripped down to the kernel. in the process, i realized that the user mode driver framework got reinstalled somewhere along the way, and i don't really know how or where that got involved. it's actually something that i wipe out in the registry sweep. it's gone now. it might have been something that was interfering with the drivers, too.
but on top of all the windows media garbage that got installed was some real audio drivers. i don't know how that got on there. nobody has used real audio for anything in, like, *decades*.
whatever it was, i'm back to the sweet spot i was looking for. i think that it should hold. that means i might have to redo a few of the later mixes. but, that's just fine with me - what i needed was a clean sound to get the mixes down in the first place, and i think it's finally there.
the registry sweep also perked the pc up a little. i guess it had picked up some crap over the last two years. i actually don't think i've ever gone this long between reinstalls, but it's a function of the fact that it's set up to be stable....
regarding this fucker at the mixing desk theory, it's obviously rather ridiculous to think somebody is remixing my material from a distance. but something that's maybe a little less ridiculous is the idea that i'm under audio surveillance due to my political rants. realaudio is low quality for music, but it would be useful for sending small file sizes out. and, if they're under contract, they're going to keep using it. if they're picking up a signal in here from somewhere and routing it through the out on the pc, the ambience is going to affect the sound quality. and, while i wouldn't expect the driver reinstall to address that, i *would* expect the registry wipe to. it's pretty dramatic.
at the end of the day, i don't really care if the cops have a mic in here. i mean, i'd rather they didn't, for obvious privacy reasons. but, they're going to do what they're going to do, and it's not really that big a deal to me. i fantasize about myself as a historical figure; that's raw data of some historical interest, as i often talk to myself. but, where it gets bothersome is when it's invasive. it's the same deal as with these annoying characters that show up on my facebook that seem to be some kind of executable. read and log my facebook. whatever. don't inject executables into the text, it's fucking annoying.
and, so i need to put the request out: if you're going to have me under audio surveillance, and i can't prevent, at least please have the courtesy to not do it in such a way that affects my ability to create. i have three computers in here that you can route the signal through, if you have to. the laptop i'm typing this on is a vanilla 7 with a webcam and will provide you with far greater abilities to get data. just leave my recording pc alone, please.
i uninstalled the drivers, uninstalled cubase, reinstalled both and then ran my fancy registry wipe that just decimates everything in windows. media player. explorer. almost all the services. it's just ripped down to the kernel. in the process, i realized that the user mode driver framework got reinstalled somewhere along the way, and i don't really know how or where that got involved. it's actually something that i wipe out in the registry sweep. it's gone now. it might have been something that was interfering with the drivers, too.
but on top of all the windows media garbage that got installed was some real audio drivers. i don't know how that got on there. nobody has used real audio for anything in, like, *decades*.
whatever it was, i'm back to the sweet spot i was looking for. i think that it should hold. that means i might have to redo a few of the later mixes. but, that's just fine with me - what i needed was a clean sound to get the mixes down in the first place, and i think it's finally there.
the registry sweep also perked the pc up a little. i guess it had picked up some crap over the last two years. i actually don't think i've ever gone this long between reinstalls, but it's a function of the fact that it's set up to be stable....
regarding this fucker at the mixing desk theory, it's obviously rather ridiculous to think somebody is remixing my material from a distance. but something that's maybe a little less ridiculous is the idea that i'm under audio surveillance due to my political rants. realaudio is low quality for music, but it would be useful for sending small file sizes out. and, if they're under contract, they're going to keep using it. if they're picking up a signal in here from somewhere and routing it through the out on the pc, the ambience is going to affect the sound quality. and, while i wouldn't expect the driver reinstall to address that, i *would* expect the registry wipe to. it's pretty dramatic.
at the end of the day, i don't really care if the cops have a mic in here. i mean, i'd rather they didn't, for obvious privacy reasons. but, they're going to do what they're going to do, and it's not really that big a deal to me. i fantasize about myself as a historical figure; that's raw data of some historical interest, as i often talk to myself. but, where it gets bothersome is when it's invasive. it's the same deal as with these annoying characters that show up on my facebook that seem to be some kind of executable. read and log my facebook. whatever. don't inject executables into the text, it's fucking annoying.
and, so i need to put the request out: if you're going to have me under audio surveillance, and i can't prevent, at least please have the courtesy to not do it in such a way that affects my ability to create. i have three computers in here that you can route the signal through, if you have to. the laptop i'm typing this on is a vanilla 7 with a webcam and will provide you with far greater abilities to get data. just leave my recording pc alone, please.
i think i've got all the files out. the next step is seeing what's left in the registry to wipe out. then, i'll have to reinstall the drivers. this shouldn't be an epic process; i should be able to tell if it's making a difference in about an hour.
but, i'm thinking that the issue is that the windows media network shit was interfering with the alesis drivers. it's all consistent and makes sense. hopefully i'm right.
but, i'm thinking that the issue is that the windows media network shit was interfering with the alesis drivers. it's all consistent and makes sense. hopefully i'm right.
i think i've isolated the problem.
what i'm noticing is that if i cycle the mixer, it sounds good for about a second before it clicks into some weird tone. and i've noticed that disconnecting from the internet seems to make a difference. the mixer connects via firewire, so it's possibly a bandwidth thing.
a few weeks ago, when i was trying to get html5 to read flac natively through an ogg container [i was a little confused about how that works], i installed some codecs. i then uninstalled the codecs. but, they left some windows media files sitting on my hard drive - including some drm files and some network files.
i set this pc up to completely wipe out windows media. in hindsight, that codec install was actually somewhat foolish, as it undid something i spent months doing back in 2007. i could always reinstall - the wipe process is worked into the install - but i'm hoping i can do this manually.
what i'm noticing is that if i cycle the mixer, it sounds good for about a second before it clicks into some weird tone. and i've noticed that disconnecting from the internet seems to make a difference. the mixer connects via firewire, so it's possibly a bandwidth thing.
a few weeks ago, when i was trying to get html5 to read flac natively through an ogg container [i was a little confused about how that works], i installed some codecs. i then uninstalled the codecs. but, they left some windows media files sitting on my hard drive - including some drm files and some network files.
i set this pc up to completely wipe out windows media. in hindsight, that codec install was actually somewhat foolish, as it undid something i spent months doing back in 2007. i could always reinstall - the wipe process is worked into the install - but i'm hoping i can do this manually.
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