Hi
I have exported a song as wav. Playback on the media player ducks out on the loud bits and muffles them. Then the quiet bits crown again seemingly to a higher volume than the “loud” bits once the loud bit is passed almost like a limiter going frantic.
The same file imported for mastering back into Cubase plays back as intended. This is annoying because I spent A lot of time trying to adjust compressor effects in vain it seems as the media player corrupts the result. Can anyone please explain?
Thank you.
I was reading a discussion about the loudness wars, interesting stuff.
The main thing they were talking about was how when you upload to youtube and the music sites they normalize your recording. You would need to master at the right level to keep from having their software overcompress your tunes.(and other problems) Didn’t think media player did anything like that but maybe so.
I work in 48k and export 44.1k mp3 files.
I listen to them right after export and they sound the same to me.
But I take them to different places to see how they translate to other audio players.
I go back and forth sometimes changing a mix to get what I want in the exported file.
Not something I can tell working in the DAW alone.
Tacman7
Thank you for your reply. Yes that is the bog standard media player in Windows 8.1. You are right, it is like a compression with severe hashing of the hi volume. If I play it with the media player volume almost zero, say at 3, and up the laptop main volume at the keyboard then there is no problem . If i increase the media player volume and decrease the laptop volume to keep the same headphone volume then the problem appears. So it’s almost like the media player is preamp controlled. Maybe I need to remix at lower output but I double checked the out bus in the mix and the irony is that it peaks occasionally on a couple of snare peaks in the quieter verse bits but they’re fine in the playback. In the louder overall volume of the “chorus” there are no over peaks but there is sustained higher volume below the threshold. I have checked and there’s a low 22Hz cut in place on the output bus so it’s not like it’s wasting effort pushing the subsonics??!! 
You’ve got me thinking now - thanks - I could upload to web and see how it comes back.
If you find a link to that article that would be handy.
Cheers.
I think you can read stuff here without becoming a member, nice place though.
http://forum.recordingreview.com/f8/loudness-wars-fighting-71463/
Aha and another forum! Cheers.
Just having a chuckle to myself as I just realised it looks like your dog’s got headphones outside the ear flaps!