http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr12/articles/lost-in-translation.htm

After reading the article linked above, now I know why my mixes sound different on Soundcloud, BandCamp, etc., (since they all stream 128 mp3 quality) than they sound as the original wave. Not sure about Youtube or Vimeo, maybe the sound quality is better. So I figure well it's what we all have to live with and it's different but listenable.

But I was about to post a new song and the mix which I thought sounded good here sounds absolutely wretched at 128 kbps with warbling almost garbled acoustic guitar and artifacts so it’s back to the drawing board to figure what on earth I did.

From what I’ve read after searching, possible culprits could be - headroom ( but I’m no where near clipping), too much high freq (maybe but I‘d be surprised), panned too wide (hard to believe that would do it), compression (don‘t think so but …), or phase (checked in mono that’s not a problem). Thought it might be a bad connection so I put the wave into Audacity and used the LAME to encode a 128 mp3 myself - the result was not quite as wretched but still bad. Drat.

Is it just me, or do any of ya’ll have ever have to go back and remix to get things to sound right at that low bitrate? I’m just frustrated. It seems like sometimes I take one step forward and two steps back on this mixing.

Hi Josie.

I find that it varies from track to track without any discernible reason. Most tracks convert just fine with no real problems, but a few suffer quite badly.

I prefer to convert the track myself before uploading, rather than rely on the host to do it - the result tends to be more predictable. At the end of the day, I won't ever change a mix just so it plays well as an MP3 - I'll either put up with the artifacts, or simply not post it.

ROG.

yep

Hmm

If I can adjust an mp3 version I would.
Or use wma instead (and see how the end result turns out).

Panning (which affects phasing) is a real possibility.
So is the hi-freq content (especially when combined with phasing once compressed)

If it's a post for a forum thread I wouldn't bother and agree with Scott and ROG that I'd accept it or not post it .. but if it were something someone needed for their website/ video I'd rework it until it sounded right at the end result (format). Depends on how much it means to you.

A posted mp3 (or video) should not be assumed to be indicative of the original, and actually if I liked your MP3, then bought the CD I'd be disappointed if the CD didn't sound better than the MP3 (or m4a or whatever).

The audio for a TV commercial using a known song is usually not the same quality as the original. This is intentional for the use.

Same thing applies.
Compression is usually 'lossy' and sometimes you notice it more than others.
.. and sometimes you need to rework it.

Josie, you mentioned YouTube. My experience is that the sound is made considerably worse by them. It becomes more highly compressed, and sometimes out-of-sync with any accompanying video.

One thing I learned is never to compress an already-compressed audio file, if you can help it. Better to return to the original quality and redo it to create the intended final compression.

I recall when a technician made a video for me, he compressed it to make its size no more then 100 MB, because he said that was (at the time) the threshold for YouTube before they compressed it even more.

Most of the internet players, especially the free ones limit the streaming to 128 on the free accounts.

HOWEVER... even though you know it will be trashed down to 128kbs.....
NEVER, NEVER, NEVER upload a 128kbs file to their servers...NEVER.

Go ahead and convert from wave to 320KBS and upload that. No matter what you upload, they will convert and it does make a difference what you send.

A few years back, I was loading 128's thinking that would work. the 128 in my studio sounded just fine. But once it was uploaded the piano sounded warbled and just plain nasty. I rendered it again to 320 and redid the upload. This time the piano was clean and steady.

Send the highest bit rate MP3 that fits in the maximum size allowed for the account. If it's too big, drop ONE bit rate and try again. Soundclick limits to 10MB.... so I check now before I upload.

Hi Josie,

These days, and following advice that I've read from a number of sources over the years, I always upload the raw wav file to a host site. I dither the final audio file to 16 bit and usually use 44.1 kHz. That way the site's compression routine is using the best quality audio to work with. I used to find that if I uploaded an already-compressed file, it's compressed a second time and the sound quality plummets.

I wonder if you try dithering to 16 bit and using 44.1 kHz if you'll get a better reception at the host site?

Regards,
Noel

P.S. If you want to send a snippet of your song, I'm happy to play around with it.

Thanks everybody. Appreciate the tips. Noel that was a kind offer.

Turns out it was mostly upload glitches. This seems to happen more often with Chrome so I switched to the old uploader on SC. I stepped away from this song and will come back to it with fresh ears this weekend. Sometimes that helps more than anything to get my perspective back when I get all frustrated.

BTW, it finally dawned on me to upgrade my LAME converter to the latest one which sounds 1000% better for checking before I upload from now on. I know it's not the exact same as what I'll get from the different site converters processing my wav but should be close enough to give me a good idea of what to expect.

Always listen to the complete song when you upload it anywhere.

There can be glitches in the upload that make the song sound bad, click and pops, and other issues.