iPod Touch Speaker Distorting Music

[John Hoge]

Hey guys,

 

I'm writing music for an iPhone/iPod Touch game that's going to be coming out. The problem is, when I bounce the finished tracks and put them on my iPod Touch to test the sound, the little iPod Touch speaker actually distorts the sound in certain areas of the song when particular instruments are playing. I can't figure it out, no other music on other apps or games that I have on my iPod distort the speaker like this is doing. Any ideas? I've posted this discussion in the Art of Composition section as well.

 

Thanks,

John

[John Hoge]

The tracks sound fine on everything except the iPod. The distortion seems to occur between 1k and 2k. Yes, it's only certain instruments that cause the distortion. I've adjusted the levels, even down to around -24 dB, and while it then sounds horribly unbalanced and barely audible when listening through any other device, those problem instruments still actually stick out and are louder than the rest when listening through the iPod speaker, and they still distort. As far as mastering, I have a limiter and an EQ on the output channel, and like I said the mix sounds good on other devices. Also, I have used other iPods to test to make sure it wasn't just my iPod, and the problem persists. Thanks for the reply, I'm going to ask my audio professor when I have class with him tomorrow as well.

[John Hoge]

Yeah I don't have an audio input to my ipod, I'll just have to do trial and error with mp3. Lame!