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Author Topic: Problem with Itunes. . .weird  (Read 10895 times)

bushwick

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Problem with Itunes. . .weird
« on: January 28, 2011, 12:30:54 PM »

So, I mixed some tunes for folks that came through. Mixed at 48khz 24 bit. After the mixes, I Shift+Option+K each mix to a folder, and export them all at 44.1, 16 bit files. I then imported them into Itunes and the balances are all wonky. The soundstage seems narrower, the mix is out of proportion. Guitars that were loud, seem quiet, vocal sounds beefier and much louder. Its as if something happened to the phase too. I went back in to PT and listened to the mixes ported out straight into my tape playback, same place I had Itunes ported to and the mix sounds fine again. W?    T?     F?

I made sure that sound enhancement feature (#@@&^%#$!!!!!) in ITunes was off. Still, totally feruked.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
j
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Joshua Kessler
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jyurek

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Re: Problem with Itunes. . .weird
« Reply #1 on: January 28, 2011, 01:06:38 PM »

bushwick wrote on Fri, 28 January 2011 09:30


I made sure that sound enhancement feature (#@@&^%#$!!!!!) in ITunes was off. Still, totally feruked.



This was my first thought... always reminding people to turn it off before checking mixes out in iTunes because its so disastrous. iTunes just posted an update in the last couple days I wonder if there's another new 'feature'?

Dominick

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Re: Problem with Itunes. . .weird
« Reply #2 on: January 28, 2011, 01:14:20 PM »

Are you playing iTunes through the same hardware as ProTools or is iTunes playing through the computer's built in audio?

If you're using the computer's audio for iTunes, check system sound preferences.

What file format did you import into iTunes?
Did the import to iTunes involve a format conversion?

Is the iTunes EQ on?

What version of iTunes?
There seems to be an issue with v10.1
 http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20029560-263.html?tag=m ncol;title
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Dominick Costanzo

bushwick

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Re: Problem with Itunes. . .weird
« Reply #3 on: January 28, 2011, 02:05:03 PM »

Hey Dominick-

Yes. Porting ITunes through the apogees, to the same input on the console as the PT mix was porting to. Mhhmm, Checked info for the file and it showed it as a WAV, which is how I exported them. Initially, I thought Itunes may have screwed them up converting to AIFF, which is what my import pref is defaulted to. I had not imported into ITunes per se, I just dropped the Wavs on the ITunes window, so it didn't convert it.

I think you may have hit it with the link you sent me. I am running 10.1.1. There is a 10.2 out now. That must be it. I have done what I am doing in the past and I like to think I would've heard it then. I'll keep y'all updated on what I find.

Thanks,
josh
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Joshua Kessler
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marcel

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Re: Problem with Itunes. . .weird
« Reply #4 on: January 28, 2011, 04:17:47 PM »

Good test:

Play back your post-export files thru the same monitor path as the Itunes output without using Itunes by clicking on the little preview player that appears when you select the file in a Finder window. This will eliminate the possibility of any sort of export/hardware/conversion/pan law weirdness and tell you if your Itunes is truly f'ed.
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Best, Marcel

Peter Beckmann

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Re: Problem with Itunes. . .weird
« Reply #5 on: January 28, 2011, 05:34:52 PM »

I try to avoid using iTunes to play stuff back. Just too much going on in there.

Quicktime will play back anything that iTunes will, plus you can have the inspector window open always to confirm what the file is [format, bit rate, sample rate etc]

I have it in the dock and just drag and drop anything I want to audition on it.
It's also a lot quicker than waiting for iTunes to open. QT is pretty much instant

Peter
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Peter Beckmann
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Tidewater

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Re: Problem with Itunes. . .weird
« Reply #6 on: January 28, 2011, 06:01:01 PM »

Ditto on the Quicktime. iTunes is evil.
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archtop

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Re: Problem with Itunes. . .weird
« Reply #7 on: January 28, 2011, 06:53:26 PM »

I'm not sure why we see the all i-Tunes bashing.


It's always been fine for me.


Not sure what happened to you, just commenting.
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Richard Williams

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Re: Problem with Itunes. . .weird
« Reply #8 on: January 29, 2011, 12:54:32 AM »

The keys to iTunes:

1. Go to the Playback preferences. Turn off Sound Enhancement, turn off Crossfade Songs, and turn off Sound Check.

2. Go to the General preferences and set your Import Settings.

3. Open the EQ window and turn it off.

4. Open the View Options and set to taste. Lots of file information options. And remember iTunes lets you sort files and streams by ANY view option criteria you have set. You can instantly choose between ascending or descending order.  

The only version of iTunes that ever had any actual fidelity issues was the very first release of iTunes 9, which was apparently codec related. Apple patched it pretty quickly.

Paul

Tomas Danko

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Re: Problem with Itunes. . .weird
« Reply #9 on: January 29, 2011, 01:40:42 PM »

Every single sound you hear from iTunes comes through/from/by Quicktime. iTunes does not employ it's own audio engine, it addresses Quicktime. The latest versions of Logic also uses Quicktime as core audio engine (part of the reasons for me staying with 7.2).

My iTunes playback nulls with most other wave-players on my studio Mac, FWIW.
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dcollins

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Re: Problem with Itunes. . .weird
« Reply #10 on: January 29, 2011, 03:11:25 PM »

Tomas Danko wrote on Sat, 29 January 2011 10:40


My iTunes playback nulls with most other wave-players on my studio Mac, FWIW.


Yes.  If you turn off all the magic, it works fine.

I don't understand all the other companies arguing that their player is somehow more "transparent."


DC

Peter Beckmann

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Re: Problem with Itunes. . .weird
« Reply #11 on: January 29, 2011, 03:48:17 PM »

dcollins wrote on Sat, 29 January 2011 20:11



Yes.  If you turn off all the magic, it works fine.

DC


Exactly.
My point was, playing straight from the Quicktime player you don't have to check/remember to turn all the bells and whistles off.


Peter
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paddyk

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Re: Problem with Itunes. . .weird
« Reply #12 on: January 29, 2011, 06:08:03 PM »

Hi J
I had the same problem with itunes a about a month ago. The mix information pans and volumes were all different from how I had originally mixed things. Everything was summed mono and volumes of instruments were all messed up. I found the problem to be in the kps  I was mixing bouncing to mp3 and mp4 ( Logic Pro) and using in separate occasions normal and stereo interleaved at 96kps to try to keep the file small for email.  This was the problem to small of a kps. The problem was solved when I went to 320kps.


best pat
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Tomas Danko

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Re: Problem with Itunes. . .weird
« Reply #13 on: January 29, 2011, 07:24:15 PM »

paddyk wrote on Sat, 29 January 2011 23:08

Hi J
I had the same problem with itunes a about a month ago. The mix information pans and volumes were all different from how I had originally mixed things. Everything was summed mono and volumes of instruments were all messed up. I found the problem to be in the kps  I was mixing bouncing to mp3 and mp4 ( Logic Pro) and using in separate occasions normal and stereo interleaved at 96kps to try to keep the file small for email.  This was the problem to small of a kps. The problem was solved when I went to 320kps.


best pat

I just listen to the uncompressed wav-files instead, in iTunes. It sounds the way they should, of course.

Whenever I need a bit more portable of a file, I tend to encode 224 kbit/s with VBR (set to highest), joint stereo and with 10 Hz filtering disabled.

My reason for not going to 320 kbit/s is that I'm mp3 encoding in order to lower file size, otherwise I'll just send a zip-archived wav-file instead.

Cheers,

Danko
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paddyk

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Re: Problem with Itunes. . .weird
« Reply #14 on: January 29, 2011, 08:49:41 PM »

Hi Tom,
thanks for the advice. I will try those settings next time I bounce to an mp3 file.


cheers

Pat
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bushwick

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Re: Problem with Itunes. . .weird
« Reply #15 on: January 31, 2011, 09:19:42 AM »

Sorry I wasn't back here sooner. Left town for the weekend before I could download the newer version of iTunes. And indeed that was the problem. I had been using 10.1.1, which gave me the very bizarre playback issues. Upgraded to 10.2 and the problem is gone, the material plays back fine.

Phew.
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Joshua Kessler
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Tidewater

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Re: Problem with Itunes. . .weird
« Reply #16 on: January 31, 2011, 02:29:49 PM »

dcollins wrote on Sat, 29 January 2011 15:11


I don't understand all the other companies arguing that their player is somehow more "transparent."


DC



So is their marketing.


M
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