Does anyone know exactly what YouTube does to uploaded MP3 files between what you upload and what comes out the YouTube speakers? I uploaded an MP3 of my song, and the mix coming out of YouTube in several ways is preferable to the original mix. What does YouTube do ( db limiter, compression, etc?) to MP3 files you send them before they are played on YouTube? Thanks. Brian.
They may re-encode it to one of their own compatible formats, but I hope they are not intentionally altering the audio! Any time you encode to a lossy format or transcode from one lossy format to another, you theoretically degrade the quality.
The concept of “high fidelity” audio reproduction is to reproduce the audio exactly as recorded (or as close as possible). This is different from original audio production (or re-mastering, etc.) where you are creating the sound you want.
In general, there is nothing you can do to every recording to make it better, and you should only alter the sound if there is something wrong that needs to be corrected. Some recordings may have wimpy bass and other recordings may have annoying-overpowering boomy-bass, or excessive background noise… So, you can’t use the same processing/treatment on every recording.
If your playback system has a weakness, you can also make a correction for that. But that should be done a playback-time, because if you change the recording, it won’t sound good on another system.
One person may like a lot of bass or other EQ, or compression, etc. It’s your music and you can alter/adjust it as you like. But, you wouldn’t want to force those preferences on every listener.
Thanks for your time and insights, DVDoug. I liked the way the song in question came out of YouTube, it’s better than my original to me. A different, instrumental orchestral piece, however, came out really flat on YouTube, you are so right in that one size does not fit all. I would like to know exactly what YouTube did with my first song, so I could duplicate it and improve my own original mix. I pulled it off YouTube using MP3Grabber, but strangely, I got pretty much same as the original, not the new YouTube mix.
My biggest problem so far, and I’m a newbie at the recording aspect, is that I create a clear sounding and good volume original on Audacity, but when I export it as an MP3, for sharing purposes, the volume level is always anemic on the final product. One can obtain a decent listen on YouTube, for example, but volume must be turned way up. Can you tell me what is the most critical thing that controls final export volume? And recommend any online tutorials specifically on this aspect? I know of one I will revisit. Thanks gain.
PS what I’m recording is Roland xp30 synth thru Tascam US122 into Audacity.
I think the highest quality audio you can send them is WAV. Then you have no control of what happens from there as it’s youtubes converters
I found the change in song mix came from playing it in Movie Maker versus Windows Media Player. I happened to click on the file stored on MovieMaker for use on the video I uploaded to YouTube, and YT pretty faithfully reproduced what I sent. The drastic change in sound came from listening thru a different player, MM vs WMP.