Mastering and WMA conversion - Howto? -ACID Product Family

Subject:Mastering and WMA conversion - Howto? Posted by: ctbarker32 Date:11/8/2001 5:57:05 PM I've been busy lately creating compositions for AcidPlanet. I have been trying to create good sounding streaming WMA audio files but I have yet to be satisfied with the results. I came across an interesting posting on optimizing WMA on the AP forum. Basically, the gist was to choose target stream rate (40-42kps) and sample rate (32K. Then, apply EQ (16k low pass). Compress to 6db dynamic range. Normalize. Then save to target WMA settings. I've done all this and more (cut bass freq, etc) and stil can't hit the magic settings. Many of my songs are ambient in nature and have fairly wide dynamics, etc. My biggest issue is the excessive amount of "aliasing" I hear with various intruments. If could eliminate this, I would be much happier. For example, one song I have has rain sounds that just get butchered in the conversion to WMA. Is it at all possible to get rain sounds through the WMA process? I would be most grateful to any pros at doing this giving me any tips on improving things. My current toolbox is AcidPro 3 with SF 5 XP. I also have DC-Art Millennium which has a number of useful tools as well. As a test, I took a couple of commercial CD tracks and ran a default WMA encode (42kps, 32k) and the results were ok - better than what my own songs sound like. I used one "loud" track - Afro Celt SS and another wide dynamic track - Blue Nile. Both were pretty good without any processing. So it seems I need some help in better mastering my songs? Thanks. -CB
Subject:RE: Mastering and WMA conversion - Howto? Reply by: ctbarker32 Date:11/10/2001 5:31:16 PM Ok, I solved 90% of the aliasing problem in my WMA conversions. Since I am targeting a 16k low pass I need to resample to 32k. I had been letting the WMA save dialog do the resampling. This was a mistake. So now I manually resample to 32k before I do the WMA encode. Much Much better. I also have been playing with the Dynamics function and using the Max Volume preset but back it down to -2.5 db instead of the default -18 db. This helps max the volume which I understand will help when it comes time to encode. Rain sounds still a no go at the rate I currently using. Oh well. Still interested in mastering and encoding tips? -CB

I've been busy lately creating compositions for AcidPlanet. I have been trying to create good sounding streaming WMA audio files but I have yet to be satisfied with the results. I came across an interesting posting on optimizing WMA on the AP forum. Basically, the gist was to choose target stream rate (40-42kps) and sample rate (32K. Then, apply EQ (16k low pass). Compress to 6db dynamic range. Normalize. Then save to target WMA settings. I've done all this and more (cut bass freq, etc) and stil can't hit the magic settings.

Many of my songs are ambient in nature and have fairly wide dynamics, etc. My biggest issue is the excessive amount of "aliasing" I hear with various intruments. If could eliminate this, I would be much happier. For example, one song I have has rain sounds that just get butchered in the conversion to WMA. Is it at all possible to get rain sounds through the WMA process?

I would be most grateful to any pros at doing this giving me any tips on improving things.

My current toolbox is AcidPro 3 with SF 5 XP. I also have DC-Art Millennium which has a number of useful tools as well.

As a test, I took a couple of commercial CD tracks and ran a default WMA encode (42kps, 32k) and the results were ok - better than what my own songs sound like. I used one "loud" track - Afro Celt SS and another wide dynamic track - Blue Nile. Both were pretty good without any processing. So it seems I need some help in better mastering my songs?

Thanks.

-CB