Re: YouTube and acoustic guitar sound quality - ugh...

On May 8, 5:37 pm, walki...@xxxxxx (hank alrich) wrote:
poachedeggs <poachede...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I'm thinking this is something not a lot can be done about, unless I
get on a TV show run by one of YouTube's 'partners' as they like to
call them.  Sorry to any acoustic music lovers for any jargon and
techy dross - I'd rather be playing guitar than faffing with
waveforms, knobs and dials too...

A friend and I have been uploading videos to YouTube for a few years.
I've become fussier about the sound quality but generally my
recordings of acoustic guitar doodles are used in her videos, so I'm
having to twist her arm a bit so that she doesn't hurt people's
ears...  The sound quality once uploaded to YouTube isn't great, but
is getting worse it seems.

We use good software, Sony Vegas Platinum 9, to put video and music
together.  I experimented with different codecs and different output
types, tried exporting as .avi and then using a file converter to make
a modified file that compressed video but left the audio as a .wav, in
the hope that YouTube's encoding this for the first time from source
size rather than re-compressing the audio would improve things.  To no
avail so far.  I've read about turning the sound down a few notches,
eq settings to alter, all to no avail.  I've used different audio
software to do my recordings, some free, some Sony, and the .wav files
exported from these are lovely sounding prior to being mangled by
Youtube, and still sound very fine when I make smaller .mp3, .wma
and .ogg files from them using Audacity or Wavepad.  I use .wav files
in the video software.

I think it's a business thing, and that I should probably give up on
it and look for another site.  For example an already compressed 20 mb
file when you download it as an mp4 from YouTube becomes 3 mb.  I'm
thinking they're saving server space and bandwidth or whatever you
call it.  All the videos from YouTube's partners like the BBC look and
sound fine.  I suppose 'that's life', and it's been free for years, so
it's not like one can exactly moan, if there transpire to be
alternatives at any rate.

It does seem that acoustic guitar and piano compress more
unflatteringly than some instruments.  Synthy music seems okay on
YouTube (or no worse than it is full stop, heh).

Thanks for all input.

p.s If I haven't already come out with too much techy stuff, my
settings have been for examples:

Sony Vegas mp4 files at 512k, 768k, up to 2 or 3 mb bitrate for the
video, with 128k aac audio, the latter as specified by YouTube
itself.  I mean why do the twats want to compress already low quality
audio...
Sony Vegas avi files that have used 3ivx or divx compression with
full .wav audio
wmv files from Windows Movie Maker or Windows Live Movie Maker using
all of its standard settings from 3mb video up to 7mb at HD rates
(Christ, sorry...)  usually with 64k or 192k audio.

Vimeo

--
shut up and play your guitarhttp://hankalrich.com/http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/hsadharmahttp://armadillomusicproductions.com/who'slistening.html

Thanks - I had to google that to know what you meant. I thought you
were typing with a peg on your nose...

Looks promising though. Cheers!
.

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