Track sounds dope on DT; sounds terrible when recorded over USB to laptop

Elektron Gear Digitakt
#1

Noob-level question but…

I have a track I’ve prepared on the DT which, when played back on the DT, sounds, at least to my ears and on my decent mixing headphones, good. Levels, filters, compressor, all that jazz.

I record the track out over USB to Audacity, and it sounds terrible (on the same headphones), like, way more muddy, no treble, different levels etc. No treatment or mixing, just playing back the raw wavefile.

Is it that the DT compressor is somehow ignored when recording out, or am I missing something else? It just sounds totally different on the DT so I must be missing something!

Probably something simple. Thank you in advance!

#2

I don’t really have problems recording over USB (ie sounds fine) and my computer isn’t all that new, also I don’t know anything about your laptop so that makes it difficult to be specific, but the integrated sound card may be the issue. Either the settings within audacity or within windows (assuming it’s windows since people who use macs always brand their computer by stating it’s a mac).

The other thing I would check is in audacity use the little slider to adjust input volume/gain, if it sounds muddy try turning it down while monitoring your track (before recording) and experiment a little with the gain staging, you can always bump up the volume post recording.

Also, if you’re monitoring through DT ie DT is used as your soundcard, try and monitor through your laptop for the recording, especially if you’re listening on your laptop afterwards. I suppose you could monitor through DT using that as your soundcard for the entire process, but if nothing else sounds bad directly on your laptop (no other music files) you may want to specifically look at the windows soundcard settings and use that to monitor.

#3

Check your soundcard setting, 48000 for me is good when I record electron device with usb/overbridge

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#4

Thanks both, particularly @shigginpit for the extensive info.

I’m on a Windows Mac. I don’t have it with me at the mo but it’s a mid-range HP - no dedicated soundcard or anything like that. So that’s a bit of an education for me; I’ve never thought about sound cards before. I naiively thought that exporting from the DT into my laptop would be like-for-like, so there’s clearly some homework for me to do here, ditto for Audacity settings.

Given my setup, does it sound like a specialist, external sound card / interface might be the ticket here?

Yes other audio coming out of my laptop sounds fine.

@Cedre which settings in particular are you referring to? It’s just an integrated sound card as I say. Drivers up to date, etc.

#5

Cedre is talking about the sound settings your computer defaults to, like this:

image

I’ve never used a mac running windows so not 100% sure the dialog box will look the same but it’s probably just under settings > sound settings > device properties > additional settings.

Honestly you shouldn’t need a dedicated soundcard / interface to get reasonable listen-back, it will help for better quality audio but I was just trying to give you a few things to look at instead of one, it’s more likely a setting or it might be overloading the input during playback. Are you watching the little meter while you record to make sure it doesn’t redline? That’s what comes to mind when you say muddy, are you hearing any clipping?

Also, before anything else, if you have a different USB cable that will work (usb B to usb A) try that. It’s a little nonsensical but cables cause all kinds of issues and it’s usually the simplest thing to check.

#6

This happens a lot especially in Audacity. Its the USB cable. You need to use a Hi speed USB cable like Belkin make. If you don’t you can end up with a muddy sound. Easy fix. Let us know how you get on.

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#7

If you’re using the original usb cable it should be fine.

From what you’re saying you’re simply recording the main out through usb right?

Do you hear any stereo information when playing the wav file or does it sound mono? Sounds a bit like you’re hearing a mono mix version. Which can have exactly the type of effect that you’re describing. If yes, than you’re probably recording on a mono track rather than stereo or you’re exporting a mono track or something along those lines. Meaning, the stereo signal is being summed to mono.

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#8

Silly question, but have you tried a different DAW to see if something weird is happening there? Recording Elektron over USB to GarageBand on my (12 year old) Mac is basically the only way I work, and I haven’t encountered what you’re talking about. The only similar thing I’ve seen is if my levels are really wonky, GB can auto-normalize the recording on export and really change how the track sounds.

I’d check recording bit depth in your DAW and computer system settings. Then I’d check the audio routing in the DT, to make sure there are no weird settings in there

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#9

just for a sanity check, I record over usb to audacity with a sub par usb cable and I don’t have this issue so it may be the specific cable, but I don’t think you need a special cable or a different daw.

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#10

Must admit I wasn’t watching it - I was too busy playing the thing on the DT. I’ll have another go and keep an eye on that.

I’m using the original DT USB cable.

I think so? I have the USB cable connecting my DT and my laptop, and have set Audacity to record from the “Elektron” source. Then I just play the track on the DT, and it appears as a waveform in Audacity.c

SWEET MOTHER OF TOBLERONE :fury:. This is exactly what’s happening. Damm you, Audacity (a poor workman always blames his tools etc. etc.) I never thought of that. Shows how little experience I have in music production that I couldn’t even hear that it was squashed to mono! :laughing:

Thank you so much, everyone, really appreciate your kind help. I’ll try again tomorrow with, er, a stereo track :man_facepalming:

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#11

I’d be massively surprised if it was the cable. USB data is digital, not streamed audio. You’d have different issues, like dropouts, digital artifacts etc if it was the cable

1 Like
#12

:grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:
Yeah I immediately thought of that because of the wording you used to describe the difference in sound. Muddy, yeap as the low end often is mono in stereo mixes as well so that will be summed to mono and sound louder making the overall mix sounding muddy. Difference in levels, stereo information causing phasing issues when summed to mono will cause levels to drop and be boosted , which sounds like levels being different :).

Glad you found the issue :+1:

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#14

Ah so that’s what happens when stereo is squashed to mono. I’m learning a lot; makes total sense with how it sounded.

2 Likes
#15

Found the issue in the end, but appreciate your thoughts anyway. May have been a foolish mistake on my side, but in a way I’m thankful as I’ve still learned a lot from this thread about settings, cables, bit rate etc. etc. Every day’s a school day…

#16

One thing you may want to consider doing is just record independently of a DAW. You can capture the stereo outs just with Overbridge, and then later import the raw files into your DAW of choice.

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#17

Should be Crystal clear. Check your cable by recording into your telephone or other computer. If it sounds good the problem is your setup in audacity:

  1. Recording in stereo
  2. No clipping
  3. Sample rate is 48K
  4. Windows is using the apropiarte sound “driver” to record external inputs
1 Like
#18

Now recorded in stereo! Now I have a new issue I’m hoping someone can guide me with: played back on my (admittedly quite bassy) IEMS, it sounds bassey and muddy. Yet played back on my open-ear mixing headphones it sounds nice. So which do I cater for? My IEMs are Final Audio E4000s and my mixing headphones are Beyerdynamic DT 990s.

Here’s two versions - the one that came off the DT, untreated, and one that I’ve treated in Audacity with compressor, limiter etc. (but with very limited knowledge of these tools at the mo.)

I know it’s nothing special - it’s my first track (I know music theory but am very new to music production) and probably sounds like a dog’s dinner to experienced producers among you. But any advice appreciated - particularly on mixing/treating, or on the track in general.)

  1. Original (straight off the DT)
  2. “Touched up” version

Thank you in advance!

2 Likes
#19

Glad you figured out the problem!

Regarding the questions you asked:

  • The beyerdynamics are good headphones for mixing and should provide a clean image of what the song sounds like. Mixing is not exact science though, so trying out how it sounds on different systems helps a lot.
  • Not an expert on this genre, but your track sounds good to me! There’s a lifetime of things to learn about production and mixing, but the best advice I can give you for now is to trust your own ears/taste (it is a matter of taste, not science), dont try to follow the ‘rules’ too much, have fun, and dont think you need to buy more stuff to make serious music. A DT and a laptop are more than enough to make serious music.
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#20

Thanks, really appreciate the feedback and advice.

So I shouldn’t be thinking of binning the Beyers and just mixing on my IEMs, then? That was what was going through my head last night. Like, what’s the point of mixing on one set of headphones if I then need to massively treat the file to sound half-decent on the earphones I actually use for music listening (and on which all other music sounds nice.)

Good to know it’s not an exact science, though - I was getting a bit worried about the complexities and rights-and-wrongs of mixing.

#21

Should sound good even in mono. :wink: