Thanks again susan. It was great working with your amazing voice. This was the third time something great started with you, you have a way of emerging something in me

Thanks and please do!

Cool thanks! I will at that to my oh so long list, futuring a staggering 1 songs ;)

Just did a quick look in to your zip file and the low quality vbr files are unusable. I don’t think you used them in your mix, otherwise that would be what was missing (digital data)
I don’t know why you use vbr for your uploads but I’d recommend you use 320kb or even flac/wav for your stems. When you listen to the stems solo you might not notice the fact that there are frequencies missing but when it goes through a number of compressors you will notice that the sound misses power.
Just a thought

I’m not quite an expert, but I do know a thing or two about MP3 compression and encoding. I don’t think that VBR is inherently worse than CBR. In fact, if you encode at an avg VBR bitrate of 160kbps, in theory, that should always result in a subjectively better quality encoding and also a smaller file than a 160kbps CBR file. The main downside of VBR is simply the extra time it takes to encode the file because it’s a more complex process than CBR.

Whenever I finish a mix I export first as WAV and then convert that to a VBR MP3 with a max bitrate of 160kbps. Every time I do that I listen to both, just to make sure, and I’ve never been able to tell the difference.

Check out this article:
http://www.maximumpc.com/ar...

Several people (including at least one real audiophile) were asked to bring a song they knew intimately and then that song was encoded at 320kbps VBR, 160kbps VBR, and uncompressed. They were then asked to identify which was which. In most cases, people couldn’t do it.

I do realize, of course, that real digital loss is taking place, but ultimately, isn’t perception what matters the most? I’ll choose compact files over imperceptible frequencies any day.

Now, with all that said, I will concede that maybe using 160kbps VBR for stems that will then be sent through FX processing may result in perceptible quality loss after processing. But I don’t know. I’ve never tested that to hear the difference and I’d want to test it before I believed it.

So, I don’t think I would say that my stems were “unusable”, but I’m also not going to force you to use them especially if you’re doing me a favor. So, if you really decide to give remastering that song a shot I’d be happy to upload a new set of FLAC stems. And I could export them dry or wet (the existing stems are wet), however you prefer.

That’s a cool test I’m gonna do that with a friend see who can identify the right one.

Maybe the words I choose where a bit wrong, I didn’t intend to upset you in any way. And to say that your files are unusable was a bit harsh, but for mastering they really are.

I’m with you about whole perception thing. Generally we don’t listen to songs in the perfect listening environment. Most of the stuff I listen to is 160 or 192.
But with mastering it’s a diffrent story. For example the main bass part in this song went trough 6 compressors/limiters: 2 on the stem, then 1 on the bus with another bass stem, then 1 on masterchannel for alex’s song. When mixed with the vocals and the maximizer at the end. Now any small distortion or noise that’s in there will be compressed and boosted as well and in the end be very recognizable.


I still like to take the challenge to do a remaster with flacs

No, I wasn’t upset and I didn’t take any offense to what you said. I was just trying to clarify a little bit and give my opinion on the VBR/CBR/FLAC debate. :)

Anyway, sure, I’ll export FLAC stems for my song if you want to take the challenge. Do you want the stems totally dry w/ no FX? Or do you want FX on them like the existing stems?

I settle for the wet channels if I need the dry I’ll ask for them

Actually, it’s good that you said that because I checked and for several of the tracks (vocals and guitars) I can’t take the FX off anyway. The vocal source already had the reverb and stuff applied and my guitar was recorded going through a hardware FX processor.

Anyway, I uploaded the FLAC stems just now so go for it! I did turn off the FX on the mastering bus (master limiter, etc.) since it didn’t make sense to leave that on while exporting individual tracks.

Can’t wait to see what you come up with!

Ok they are in my to do list :)

thanks

Thank you! In many ways this community has been a blessing.