CD sounds like I made it in a bathroom

WaveLab
1

Hi Everyone,

I’ve produced four songs using Cubase and they sound fine through my studio and bluetooth headphones. Today, I made a CD EP using Wavelab 12 and all four tracks sound like they were recorded in a bathroom. They sound more spacial than I intended, there are even some extra harmonies on the vocals that I didn’t put there! It’s only the burnt CD that sounds bad, if I listen to the montage in Wavelab through headphones all is OK.

I wondered if it is because the mixdowns were saved in 64bit float using Cubase 15. I’m not that experienced with Wavelab and, before I start trying a plethora of possible fixes, I’m hoping someone might have a better idea of what is up.

Here are the tracks as they should sound on my website:

My Music

Why can’t I get the CD to sound like that?

Thanks in advance for any help.

2

That seems to indicate there’s something wrong with your methodology when you burn the CD.

What sample rate is the montage? What are the precise steps you take to burn the CD in Wavelab Pro12 (please include all details)? What CD/DVD drive are you using to burn the CD?

3

Thanks for replying stingray. The sample rate is 44 100. The bit rate is 64 F.

I created a new montage and uploaded the four tracks to the timeline. I checked the tracks were stereo and listened to the whole montage which sounded as I had expected. I used the Album Wizard to create a Red Book compliant CD and checked that all was OK in this respect.

During my session I did experiment with the Loudness Meta Normalizer and changed the Clips LUFS setting from 0 LUFS to -8 LUFS to see what it sounded like, thinking of the future. I changed it back to 0 LUFS before burning the CD.

When I came to burn the CD I opted not to bypass the Master Section. I used a Verbatim model DPAA external CD/DVD writer to burn the disc using an ACU-DISC pro series CD-R. The drive burnt the disc at 10x and confirmed viability at the end.

I played the disc in 2 different HiFi CD players that have, one is a Sony which sounded really awful the other is a Panasonic and that wasn’t much better. I use both players daily to play commercially available CDs and those sound fine.

I can’t think of anything else you may need to know but please do let me know if there are any specifics that would help, I still have the montage loaded in Wavelab Pro 12. Thanks for helping.

4

Have you tried 16 Bit int?

5

Presumably you used Lin Dither plug-in or a similar plug-in to truncate to 16-bit?

After burning, how are you listening to your CD? If you are not playing it through the same system as when auditioning the montage in Wavelab then it will obviously sound different.

Suggestion: try importing your CD back into Wavelab. If it sounds the same as the original montage used to burn the CD then the CD is the same as the original montage (or very close).

6

That’s a helpful suggestion, thanks. I haven’t used any form of dithering, it is not something I know much about. I’ll do some research and experimentation over the next few days and post what the end result is. Do you think I should export a separate version of the files at 16 bit in Cubase, would that help? Thanks again.