Sound is Distorted

hypwoman wrote on 11/13/2007, 10:45 PM
My issue is dealing with the compression of the audio. I don't really know where the problem lies exactly. I have tried practically everything I can think of already.

I have perfectly good quality when burning my project to a DVD ... but then I tried uploading a sample to youtube. There are 4 tracks to my project. A vocal track, music track, video track, and text. Everything comes out fine, even the music track sounds good, but then my voice track comes out sounding awful. I have tried rendering it so that it is in mono ... at every bit rate imaginable and nothing helps. I have tried importing an audio file, and recording an audio file directly into the software .... this changes nothing.

What am I missing? I create beautifully sounding cds and mp3s all the time, but when it gets compressed to a mono mp3, it just doesn't ever work for me.

I am at a loss for what to do here. I really need to get this to work for me.

Thanks,

Victoria

Comments

Ivan Lietaert wrote on 11/14/2007, 5:39 AM
Is the voice track recorded afterwards (with a microphone to your pc?) or is it the sound of the video event?
If the first case, I would suggest turning down hardware accelleration in the Windows sounds settings and give it a try. (again...) As I'm using XP Dutch version, it is a bit difficult to guide you there, but you should find 'sounds' in the control panel, and under the 'volume' tab, go for the 'advanced' button (bottom right), then turn down/off hardwareacceleration and see what the result is.
If that doesn't do the job. Look for sound settings in Vegas. Volume may be very important, even more so than bitrate.
If in doubt, google for and install Audacity (open source and free) to record audio track, and then import the file into Vegas.
Tim L wrote on 11/14/2007, 9:53 AM
Are you saying the vocal track sounds good on your PC and on a DVD, but not when uploaded to YouTube?

How is the vocal track recorded? Through camcorder built-in mics? Through an external mic or mics plugged into a camcorder? or into a computer?

One reason I ask is that as I believe YouTube is mono audio, and if you have out-of-phase stereo tracks in your project, they might sound fine on stereo speakers (i.e. a pair of speakers), but the track will be horrible when converted to a mono format or when played back on mono equipment.

For example, think of two sine waves of opposite polarities: if you add them together, you get essentially 0 output. Playing the two sine waves separately on separate speakers would give normal sound out of each speaker, but combining the two and sending the signal out through a single speaker would result in almost no sound at all.

Since YouTube will be mono audio even if your original source is stereo, try selecting just one channel or the other on your vocal track (in VMS) and rendering and uploading again. I *think* you can right-click on the vocal (audio) track and select "Left Channel", for example. This tells VMS to use the left audio channel source input only, and to put it out on both the left and right output channels.

Tim L
hypwoman wrote on 11/14/2007, 6:29 PM
Ooooooo ... Now THAT is the best advise I have had in two days of searching. That makes complete sense to me. I'm going to try that. Thank you! I'll let you know how it goes! Victoria
hypwoman wrote on 11/14/2007, 7:07 PM
OMG!!!! Tim! You are the BEST! Thank you sooo much. You are the only person who knew what I was trying to accomplish and your advise worked absolutely WONDERFUL!

You can see my end results here:



Thanks,

Victoria Wizell
www.hyptalk.com
Tim L wrote on 11/14/2007, 8:02 PM
Well, glad I could help, ummm..., further your cause, I guess.

Although you have a good, easy workaround, it would still be interesting to figure out what the root cause is.

I'd heard a similar complaint and made a similar suggestion in a different forum about a month ago. In that case, the guy was using a (mono) shotgun XLR mic with an XLR-to-mini-stereo converter cable to connect it to his camcorder's 1/8" mic jack. I think the converter was probably sending the mic + and - leads to the Left and Right inputs, with the shield as ground reference, so he ended up with his mono mic input being sent with opposite polarities to his camcorder left and right audio inputs. The symptoms were that it sounded fine on the computer (because left and right outputs were going to separate speakers) but had almost no volume at all when rendered and posted to YouTube (which carries a mono audio output). I think his converter would probably work correctly if his mic was a stereo XLR mic rather than mono.

I've noticed a similar problem on one of my TV's at home. In the kitchen we have a 13" TV with a mono speaker, while in the living room we have a stereo TV. Sometimes, when both are on the same channel, the TV in the kitchen will be very, very quiet during a commercial, while we can hear the other just fine. I would bet money that the commercial itself has out-of-phase left and right audio, but who would ever notice (at the TV station, etc.) because how many people have mono TV sets anymore?

Tim L