Quirky Mastering Situation

[gathernogloss]

Peace. I’m in a bit of a situation and any insight/theories would be greatly appreciated. I recently sent an album from my back catalog to a recommended gentleman to get it up to snuff/mastered for rerelease- the guy actually had a tape op article that I liked and helped me decide to go with him, and he had a good price. The album is a bit lo fi, by accident, didn’t really know what I was doing at time of recording to tape(may be useful info).
He sent the album back. I have this cheap Bluetooth speaker for listening to digital stuff. When I crank the album up on the Bluetooth it is getting horrendous rattle and distortion. When I listen to any music on YouTube -super lo fi, well produced rap, you name it -at the same perceived volume-sometimes even louder- it doesn’t distort 3% as much as my newly received master does. We talked and I told him I was going to listen on a different system. My friend has a newer Volvo with a great system and the Master sounded great in there.
I’m wondering if anyone has any ideas why this is happening- why it sounds so bad on this speaker that isn’t great, but everything else I play on it has no major issues.
Thank you so much if you can formulate a theory as me and the fella are in a bit of an uncomfortable standstill.
one love

[digitaldrummer]

Bluetooth is not a "lossless" transmission. So there is additional conversion/compression that happens when it gets sent over BT. So it is possible that the musical content is just getting destroyed over the BT link itself and maybe not every song reacts the same way. Or depending on what kind of distortion, perhaps there is low-end content that can't be reproduced by that speaker and it is just resulting in distortion? I think most songs "on YouTube" are going to be compressed (like an mp3) and may be missing some of the sub low end frequencies, so I would not trust YouTube (or mp3's ripped from YouTube) as a source to compare with. Use a CD or a different full WAV master.

I would definitely recommend to listen on a lot more different systems. You can also download something like YouLean loudness meter (if you don't have it already) https://youlean.co/youlean-loudness-meter/

and that will tell you if there are digital overages or inter-sample peaks that are > 0.0, which can also cause distortion. It would also tell you how "loud" it is and you could compare it to other masters or commercial releases.

a frequency analyzer like https://www.bluecataudio.com/Products/P ... eqAnalyst/ might also be helpful when comparing other commercial recordings/masters (make a WAV off a CD). That should tell you if one or the other has some abundance of a frequency that might be causing that distortion in the BT speaker.

[gathernogloss]

thank you so much for taking your time on this earth to help me out. On the Bluetooth isn’t lossless front… it’s almost the only format I can access it in- the songs were sent to me over samply.app as a way for me to listen before we $quared up.

[Nick Sevilla]

I'd ask this:

What is the best playback system you have, and can you somehow play what the ME sent back to you on that?
What other high quality material can you play back?
Is this BT speaker the only thing you have to play back stuff with?

[gathernogloss]

Listened to it in my friends new volvo- sounded great.
I uploaded a track of it to YouTube to test if it was a YouTube compresses and that could be why your track is doing this and it still sounds bad on Bluetooth speaker, and everything else on YouTube still sounds fine

[kslight]

What does the ME say about it? Presumedly, since you haven’t paid them yet, they ought to have some incentive to make you happy. Really kind of hard to troubleshoot from your post.

[gathernogloss]

His solutionary stance is he could knock a few DB off , that doesn’t seem like the issue to me as I listen to modern era rap songs that are much louder than what we have on our hands

[kslight]

His solutionary stance is he could knock a few DB off , that doesn’t seem like the issue to me as I listen to modern era rap songs that are much louder than what we have on our hands

I think communicate with them and allow the ME to make revisions and relisten or find a different ME. Maybe just choose one problematic song to work on before going through the whole album.

[digitaldrummer]

I don't think you can put the blame on your ME just yet.

You say you are only able to listen over bluetooth and only so far only in 2 places? Honestly that just sounds like you are just fucking around with us.... but lets say you are not. Can you get a high quality mp3, or maybe a WAV file from the ME (maybe that is only part of the song or has a "watermark" in it, i.e., white noise, blank space, etc)? [EDIT: I now see what samply.app is, but it appears you could still listen on a device that is not a phone] You need to get something that you can properly evaluate the work the ME has done and listen to it on a proper system. Sorry, one BT speaker is not that. And listening in a car over BT is not a great second opinion (and impossible to tell if the distortion is caused by your playback device, which I'm guessing is a phone, or the device you are connecting to). How do you expect to tell if the ME has done a good job if you don't have something decent to playback, listen on and compare?

don't get me wrong here - this forum is helpful and friendly and laid back, but you are describing an impossible situation - or maybe I just haven't had enough coffee yet. if the ME knew you had no way to playback the material properly then he/she probably never would have taken the job (because it makes their job impossible too). You can help yourself by finding a better way to listen back. I'm assuming this is a "remote" mastering situation and not in person. Perhaps you want to try something like the free AI mastering from LANDR as a second opinion. if you like the results then you can go with that and be done.

[digitaldrummer]

His solutionary stance is he could knock a few DB off , that doesn’t seem like the issue to me as I listen to modern era rap songs that are much louder than what we have on our hands

what you perceive as "louder" might not be the same kind of loud - a professional mix/master should be balanced. That is why loudness meters and frequency analyzers will help - and I would think might help the ME understand if your mix (or the resulting master even) is very bass heavy or too much high end -- both can cause distortion on a playback system that is not designed to reproduce those frequencies (and don't filter them out), but my money is on too much low end in your mix/master from what you described for the BT speaker (while the Volvo probably has a sub or at least speakers that won't distort).

[gathernogloss]

why would I be fucking with you? Not everybody has or is interested in having all sorts of audio gear, personally i feel it can get in the way of life and capturing genuine emotion in music. Not everyone is built the same or has the same ideas. Your apparent frustration is frustrating to me, almost suffocating, as it seems I’m laying it out there so simple. I put one of the songs , he had sent me one wav file originally, up on YouTube- it still sounds shitty compared to everything else on YouTube, by shitty I mean rattling and distortion from speaker. I don’t know why you think someone needs a high end monitor system to make and listen to music- I often think of hearing they mastered drakes first hit on built in MacBook speakers because that’s what they thought most their fans would be listening on. I sense most my fans are listening in their car or on cheap Bluetooth speakers and youre acting like it’s blasphemy to use that as a judge of how it sounds. I do appreciate the “feedback” just maybe don’t assume everyone in here that is passionate about recording is passionate in the same way as you, maybe they record with a 4 track tape machine and a 20 year old mac that is so outdated it can’t get on the internet to download apps and sound gauges

[The Scum]

If this speaker is the gold standard that the masters have to meet, so be it.

But it's not working, and it's unclear why. You're going to need to do some experimentation to figure out what it takes. And you'll need a mastering engineer who is willing to go the extra mile to do it.

So try everything that's been mentioned. Do the experiments, and keep track of the results. Try different levels, try different devices, try different limiting, try different EQ. Eventually you'll identify what's wrong.

Can you get some other playback system to misbehave the same way? That it's only happening on the one speaker so far could indicate that the speaker really is broken.

Can you at least point us at what model speaker it is?

(Part of me wonders if the speaker is working in Hands-Free mode (bidirectional, mono, voice grade, telephony encoding, with low bit rates) rather than A2DP (higher bit rates, stereo, unidirectional)...it's also very hard to get that level of information out of some of these systems. Good phones/headsets/speakers will switch mode when you make a call vs when you listen to music.)

[Snarl 12/8]

I suspect you need a hi pass filter.

[vvv]

I tell the story of chasing a kick drum sound through multiple remixes, only to find the drummer was playing back onna US$50 bookshelf system.

If you are serious about the sound, at least get to a decent playback system.

Between the car and "this cheap Bluetooth speaker" it seems obvious which to trust more; home surveillance devices are not meant to be audiophile quality and if you told me about that, I'd larf at you.

[gathernogloss]

If this speaker is the gold standard that the masters have to meet, so be it.

Lmao it isn’t the gold standard it’s just a mystery why everything else on YouTube sounds fine through it, makes me wonder how will it hold up on other peoples speakers.
It’s an onnpower bank
It’s a portable power station I use to do a lot of my recording while living out of van and the speakers in it have been my defacto system for my listening pleasure