Track sounds very different after exporting

(Cubase 9.5. Couldn’t find a tag for it)
I made something I thought was pretty cool, decided to export an MP3 to send to my friend. MP3 sounds way different, like a lot is missing. No problem, can just go back and export anew, right? Wrong, the actual track sounds way different now, it sounds just like the MP3. Keep in mind this shift happened over the span of 10 seconds.
The actual track mainly comprises of a retrologue sine wave sent through 4 different FX tracks, and one of those tracks (number 3) which had a cool distorted sound is now almost inaudible and sounds really broken. I don’t remember all the effects I put on it but I think maybe some of them were removed? Not sure if that’s possible.
Anyway, any ideas what could have caused this and how it can be fixed? Could it be something stupid like the project sample rate being automatically changed when exporting or something like that?

What does the last backup version sound like? Exporting won’t change the sound, somehow you have changed something in the project inadvertently, or in the audio processing on your computer.

I don’t know if I have a backup, it’s a pretty new project. And it sounds the same except one of the FX tracks created a distorted sound that is kinda remeniscent of a guitar. After export I can no longer hear it. The sound was generaterd by the 3rd FX track, of which there are 4. I’ve tested and confirmed it still makes sound, it just sounds nothing like before. I didn’t change anything, I listened to it several times before export and was happy, then I just pressed project, export, mp3 etc etc, exported, then I listened to it. Sounded way different. Listened to the actual project, sounded way different from before.
It’s not like the whole thing has been pitched up or anything, it’s just like one of the intruments got muted kinda? I literally have no idea how this could have happened.

I’ve quite often made changes without realising. It’s quite easy to change things in the mixer, or accidentally delete automation. If you have automatic backups turned on, you might have backups without realising it.

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What @RichardTownsend said, check your project folder for any .bak files.

Yeah I actually got 5 BAK files, 2 of which were last modified today. How do I use them though, do I just double click them or is there more of a process to it?

You can open them through Cubase.

I opened them but there’s only 2 of them that are of the relevant date, one of them was saved 1 min before the actual project file and sounds the exact same, the other one is from before I even made the FX track whose sound is broken. :c

We ask for the obvious again… screenshots, please?

Screenshots of what, exactly? You can’t see that it sounds wrong. But thank you for the unnecessary attitude st10ss, I appreciate it.

Anyway, I think what happened is, at least in part, some of the effects on the FX tracks may have switched order or something like that, which is really strange to me since I hadn’t opened that track’s settings for a while, and I listened to the whole track last thing before export and it was fine. I didn’t really find any fix and still don’t know what happened, but I ended up managing to more or less recreate the sound manually, but thanks to everyone who tried to help out. :slight_smile:

Export settings?
Maybe you overlooked something.

Possibly you accidentally changed something in the mixer with the mouse without realising - I’ve done that a few times!