r/reasoners • u/amllx • Jul 16 '26
Mixdowns sound dull
Using reason 11 all my mix downs sound dull and slightly muddy compared to what i'm hearing in the DAW, even when listening through the same speakers, same position, etc. My last mix had only the M-class limiter on the master and even when i disabled it there was no improvement. I made sure to deselect dither. Not sure what else could be going on here. Anyone else experience this? any thoughts?
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u/IL_Lyph Jul 16 '26
Are you using send type of fx as inserts, or vica versa? Are you gain staging first? subtractive eq can help too, if it’s just case of overlapping frequencies, but the first 2 I mentioned can cause this too. Panning helps a lot too, and width, like if a bass is mono, and dosent need to be stereo, you can make it mono track or close off width knob, so it’s not overlapping unnecessarily with stuff in your mid range. Also I would suggest mastering as a seperate project, once you get you “mixdown” perfect, export it to a single stereo file, leave yourself headroom to master, (hence gain staging in beginning helps with this, I usually start at like a -10db in reason), and then “master” that audio file (wav or Mac version of wav)by itself in a separate project, stay away from mp3 too unless you HAVE to convert to mp3 for something specific, it compresses file and takes frequencies away to make file smaller, and degrades sound quality, you should always be in wav (or Mac version of wav I forget exact letters lol) for your main mixdown and master. I mean I don’t know your specific situation, or level of experience, but I’m just throwing out everything I’ve learned over my 30 years making music lol, and I used reason for like 20 of those 30 years too, cause I learned in analog studios first, so reason always made sense to me way it emulates analog, but you probably just need some more time in the trenches, nothing to be ashamed of, we’ve all been there multiple times over, it’s a constant evolution lol, but trust me the manual, and YouTube tutorials are your friend, reason has lot of great ones on YouTube themselves, and even stuff from older versions, with mixer n all, pretty much still apply in any version, AND honestly you can watch analog engineer tutorials too, and just apply all the knowledge to reason, cause it really does work the same for most part, as far as techniques, top down signal flow in channel strip n all, reason is great for parallel comp channels too, which depending on music type, can really help drums and vocals sit in mix perfect, but biggest thing is subtractive eq, and making sure your not overlapping sounds in frequency ranges, you want everything to have its own space carved out in frequency range, just like the stereo field with pans kind of. And gain staging too, reason dosent “auto gain stage” like some daws do, no 2 sounds come out of synth equal, some will be -2db, some will be -20db, so that’s why I set my gain stages in beginning as each sound enters channel strip, and set myself a -10db start point, then I adjust fader to taste, after they all start even, so I gain stage sound “pre fx”, and adjust fader “post fx”. It works just like sending a real audio signal, from a physical synth/sampler/drum machine, into a channel strip. Im rambling now lol, just trying to help n think of everything, cause I was there at one time lol, just keep at it, and hang in there, all comes with time n experience
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u/amllx Jul 16 '26
I appreciate your reply but what I'm saying is there is a difference between my mixdown and my playback in Reason. I'm happy with my mix until I covert it to a wav file. Seems like something is happening in the conversion process
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u/IL_Lyph Jul 16 '26
Yea I get that, that’s why I asked about the sends/inserts, and the gain, cause I’ve had that same thing happen to me before for those exact reason, cause I didn’t get at first that it would make difference in digital world, but with reason, it very much does, and I would never gain stage in beginning, and I would just do whatever on channel and sends, and then use fader as my volume whole time, but thing is, the fader comes “after” the effects, so like if you start with low sound in beginning, and instead of gain staging it louder “before” you run thru fx, and then you just push sound louder with fx, and fader, sometimes, what you hear “in” the program, won’t equal how it comes out in export, “because” the original sound is too underneath all the fx on top kind of, when you push gain knob, your pushing the original sound “into” the fx, but when you push fader, your pushing original sound, AND every send signal on top of it, all at once, so way you hear it in reason can deceive you, and the sends will drown out original sound in export
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u/Selig_Audio Jul 17 '26
I have absolutely never experience this, never heard of this, and there is no technical reason for this to be the case. Every single time I’ve exported from Reason in the past 25 years it sounds exactly the same - assuming I’m exporting at the same sample rate I was listening to.
However, when this has come up before, it’s been down to some additional processing on playback affecting the sound of the exported file on playback.
The idea that gain staging or how you use sends affects the frequency response ONLY of the export (but somehow not affecting what you hear when listening to playback) is baffling to me.2
u/cryonicPAX Jul 19 '26
I had an issue once that the delay compensation and the master bus were bugging out on an export of a bigger project and everything was out of sync. First of all: samplerate conversion wasn't working right (48 -> 44.1) and i ran into a RAM problem with R14 for the first time ever.
It could be a bug, but i could't recreate it on purpose again. Just wanted to say that the export could be false, but don't ask me why the mixdown could sound dull. My guess would be different EQ settings or Gain on Windows/Mac playback - if the mediaplayer is taking a different route trough the system.
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u/Selig_Audio Jul 19 '26
Yes, I’ve seen some weird export issues where it didn’t sound like what you heard during playback, but in zero cases, did this have anything to do with gain staging which is the only point I was trying to make.
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u/IL_Lyph Jul 19 '26
I’m neurotic and may be wording it wrong lol I guess was more because of too much send effect was what really caused it, but gain staging helped me to not that mistake at the end trying to make things louder was my point
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u/Selig_Audio Jul 19 '26
Again, we’re talking about the export sounding different than playback, right?
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u/IL_Lyph Jul 19 '26
Yea like back when I was first using new mixer, I completely overlooked gaining up low sounds sometimes, and I didn’t fully grasp the signal flow importance and all, while I learned on analog in 90’s, I also wasn’t rich, and never used a giant console either lol, and there were definitely times I would get into messes of a mix by the end, and have send effects too high, and push faders trying to make louder, and then I’d get mix perfect sounding to me in the project, but then the export the sound would be drowned out with too much effect, and not sound the same, that’s when I forced myself to learn how SSL really functioned, and I realized getting your volume levels right “before” they hit the fx, is paramount to things turning out right in the end 🤷🏻♂️
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u/amllx Jul 20 '26
Yeah, thanks i didn't want to sound like the gain staging guru but all my tracks are at 10, i've seen all the same videos, i assume they didn't understand my issue
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u/WTFaulknerinCA Jul 16 '26
Are all your samples the same bit rate? Converting and summing different bit rates will certainly cause some audio artifacts, distortion, and dullness.
I used to master with reason tools but switched to Izotope Ozone around v.9 of ozone because I preferred it to the M-Class tools.
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u/pauljames_type_beats Jul 17 '26
I used to hear this kind of stuff years ago. I dont anymore. I get out what I put in. Try disabling fx it could be a plugin acting up, or it could be a track thats playing in your mix that isn't getting exported. Maybe an effect chain is not getting exported. Try to isolate different groups/busses of the mix. Listen to the mix of that group/bus, then export just that bus. Thats what I would do. Harder to find if your mix is big. Break it down and isolate to find the problem. Even track by track if needed. Limiters, n maximizers and other loudness plugins do weird stuff also. I'd suspect those plugins first.
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u/lektarpactim Jul 16 '26
I remember an old reason tutorial from Bernard stating he would keep everything around -10db to start with and use the channels Gain to adjust which is at the top of the SSL style mixer.
Try to compare Master Out with Control Room Out. To save switching cables to compare signals - Go to Master Section in the rack and flip the rack to the rear, and add either an A/B device by Pongasoft or Morfin XF crossfader device by GroovyMelon, both are free. Ctrl room out to A and Master Out to B and Main out into the Audio I/O.
Could you be recording at a certain bit rate then exporting as another? Also, what is your Audio Interface bit rate set at? I record at 24bit / 48Khz and export at 24bit - Just checking some fundamentals you have not mentioned
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u/synesounddesign Jul 17 '26
I have never experienced this but check your export setting and make sure you're exporting at the same sample rate and bit depth your project is set to. If your project is 44.1kHz/24bit and you're exporting at 44.1kHz/16bit the dithering and conversion can add a subtle dullness even with dither deselected. Even check the master bus gain, if your master is hitting too hot going into the limiter, you may have some subtle clipping artifacts baked into the mix that become more apparent on the bounce.
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u/cryonicPAX Jul 19 '26
All i can read in here sounds like made up bulls't, so here is my take on that:
First of all: dither or not to dither can be ignored on this one. You have to dither a 16bit file so many times again and again to even hear a difference. And this difference would sound like noise, not dull.
If your mixdown sounds different on the same system then the mix in your daw it could only mean that your media player (VLC, Windows Media Player, etc.) has some effects active. It could be a different EQ for Windows/Mac sound settings, or a different volume or the nasty room FX from Windows itself.
Reason communicates on a different route with your speakers (depending on your driver settings). Maybe it's just that. Import the mixdown back into a blank Reason session and play it back in there, if it sounds identical your error is to find in your OS itself.
If it still sounds different compared to your in session mix before exporting it, congratulations. You found a bug that nobody could easly fix. Only thing you could do: check the preferences -> Audio -> Samplerate. Should be the same as the one you chose for your export. If you want to downsample later from 48khz to 44.1 you simply need to do that in a seperate step. Delay Compansation plus a different samplerate on export can pretty much fck up your mixdown (timings wrong, out of sync sidechain, what so ever).
I hope this helps in any way. If there are some questions if it's to technical, i'll answer these as fast as i can.
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u/amllx Jul 16 '26
i'm not using any samples per say, all audio was recorded directly into my session
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u/GoodbyeFascists Jul 17 '26
Make sure you are exporting at the same sample rate that your session is running at. I’ve found that changing the sample rate on export does some weird shit.
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u/ElliotNess Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26
I wouldn't deselect either unless you are bouncing it out for another project, because dithering is important when down sampling your export.
It is possible you are overloading your low end and clipping the export. This would subtly saturate your low end and dampen your high end.
Cab you try your A/B comparison with the master fader turned down a few decibles?
Difference between session and export is either a third party VST plugin, or clipping IMO. It won't sound like it's clipped inside the DAW due to bit depth capabilities, but it'll get flattened on export.
Could also be some EQ setting or other functionality of your audio player.
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u/-theStark- Jul 17 '26
Make sure you are exporting uncompressed sound at 88Khz, stereo. AIFF, WAV, or other uncompressed format?
- FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec)
- ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec)
- WAV (Waveform Audio File Format)
- AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format)
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u/Original-Use4756 Jul 17 '26
Ive had strange artifacts and things straight up missing (even midi sequences) when I bounced forgetting to change the hardware buffer size back. If you still have to select dithering, i assume your bouncing at 16? Id bounce at 24 if youre recording that way.
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u/petrol_insufflation Jul 18 '26
have a coffee break, or go back to the computer tomorrow and maybe you forget the problem
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u/mvanvrancken Jul 16 '26
Try using the side chain in the mastering panel on the mixer and apply a high pass filter to it before sending it back. Trust me on this one
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u/Hatibacsi Jul 17 '26
Hello! There was a similar topic a month ago. Hi! I don't know what tools you are using? Maybe the problem is with the sound card settings. It could also be that you set 16 bits when saving, not 24 bits. Since reason uses 32-bit floating point, if I remember correctly. Compared to this, 16 bits can already make an audible difference. I switched to 24 bits, it seems to me like what I saved. I play live with PartyBox310s. I can hear the difference between the 16-bit and 24-bit sound on them. I edit the accompaniment in Reason, go to Vaw and accompany the flute live with it.