Live audio quality?

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
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Krisstoff
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Live audio quality?

Post by Krisstoff » Thu Aug 30, 2007 6:00 pm

Is it me or does live sound dull and less detailed than DAWs such as cubase and logic ? I have also found the headroom to be lacking and things start to sound mushy when you start pushing up the volume.

Anyone have any tips on how to achieve the very best audio quality from Live I use the Hi Q on all my Clips but it still sound quite and a bit dull.

Cheers
K

leisuremuffin
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Post by leisuremuffin » Thu Aug 30, 2007 6:02 pm

yes! it's true. live audio quality sucks.


now please use something else and go fuck off to their forums.




.lm.
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icedsushi
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Post by icedsushi » Thu Aug 30, 2007 6:20 pm

Yes it's you. But go ahead and use the other programs. Whatever gives you peace of mind is best. It's all about comfort level in using what you think is best.

If that's all it takes to help you make better music then that's all that matters!

rbmonosylabik
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Post by rbmonosylabik » Thu Aug 30, 2007 6:45 pm

leisuremuffin wrote:yes! it's true. live audio quality sucks.


now please use something else and go fuck off to their forums.




.lm.
I can't say I didn't lol :lol:
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Robert Henke
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Post by Robert Henke » Thu Aug 30, 2007 7:06 pm

Hi Krisstoff,
the topic comes up in regular intervalls, and this is why some folks react a bit harsh to it. People here on the forum did a lot of tests and as a result allways came to the conclusion that nothing is wrong with Live. However, as a reaction to those threads we also did internal tests and comparisons between other DAWs and we found out that if you look careful enough you'll find slight differences between the ideal world and reality in pretty much all DAWs, and that Live is not exeptionally bad here. We are talking about distortion or noise as a result of internal rounding errors and things like this in the range of -180dB to maybe -130dB.... I have serious doubt that this is audible unless you do the most most most extreme treatments.

If you really experience audible issues in a specific case, there must be a simple explanation and a solution for it. The notion of "something sounds muddy" unfortunately will not help so much, since if we cannot track it down to a specific problem, we cannot improve things.

Talking about improving: as a result of the tests we did, we could indeed improve some details, and those improvements will be part of the next major update. But
none of those things IMHO has the power to make a track sound more or less muddy, because even the slightest EQing of some fraction of a dB would be a magnitude more significant.

Best, Robert

dpel
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Post by dpel » Thu Aug 30, 2007 7:17 pm

Robert Henke wrote:Hi Krisstoff,
the topic comes up in regular intervalls, and this is why some folks react a bit harsh to it. People here on the forum did a lot of tests and as a result allways came to the conclusion that nothing is wrong with Live. However, as a reaction to those threads we also did internal tests and comparisons between other DAWs and we found out that if you look careful enough you'll find slight differences between the ideal world and reality in pretty much all DAWs, and that Live is not exeptionally bad here. We are talking about distortion or noise as a result of internal rounding errors and things like this in the range of -180dB to maybe -130dB.... I have serious doubt that this is audible unless you do the most most most extreme treatments.

If you really experience audible issues in a specific case, there must be a simple explanation and a solution for it. The notion of "something sounds muddy" unfortunately will not help so much, since if we cannot track it down to a specific problem, we cannot improve things.

Talking about improving: as a result of the tests we did, we could indeed improve some details, and those improvements will be part of the next major update. But
none of those things IMHO has the power to make a track sound more or less muddy, because even the slightest EQing of some fraction of a dB would be a magnitude more significant.

Best, Robert
Thanks for responding here Robert. This post could've easily been ignored as this topic has been beaten to death with a stick.

My feeling is that as Live ages, the code will mature and become as robust if not more sophiticated than "the other DAWs".

Best,
dp
Dave Pelman Music
http://www.davepelman.com

leisuremuffin
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Post by leisuremuffin » Thu Aug 30, 2007 7:22 pm

i didn't hear him say that live isn't as robust as other daws.

I heard him say it's similar.


i don't think that they had to reinvent the wheel to deal with playing and mixing audio.....





.lm.
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Krisstoff
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Post by Krisstoff » Thu Aug 30, 2007 7:34 pm

Thanks Robert - I will tinker away with the setting it could well be a setting I've over looked.

leisuremuffin - Christ on a wankstick, you boring little Dick, why don't you fuck off and do something useful like like wire your head up to the mains.

leisuremuffin
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Post by leisuremuffin » Thu Aug 30, 2007 7:45 pm

awwwwwwwwwww, sorry, did i make you upset?

did you ever consider doing a search before you asked your awesome and in depth question?


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Tarekith
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Post by Tarekith » Thu Aug 30, 2007 8:16 pm

The best thing to remember is to not use warping if you don't need it.
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Krisstoff
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Post by Krisstoff » Thu Aug 30, 2007 8:17 pm

No didnt upset me, just thought this guys a bit of a wankmeister. Sorry for having the audacity to ask a question that has already been posted. If you can't be bothered with a question simply ignore it and find another one. This is a discussion forum after all.

leisuremuffin
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Post by leisuremuffin » Thu Aug 30, 2007 8:29 pm

whatever.

you asked an extremely vague question that has been the subject of about a billion pointless threads that invariably end with people ignoring evidence and test results with statements like, "you just can't hear the difference because you're not as *pro* as i am." and "my ears are better than a phase cancellation test".



seriously, go check out the fun, use the forum search tool to look for sound quality and search all terms.




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aburgener
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Post by aburgener » Thu Aug 30, 2007 9:57 pm

Yeah but dude, to be fair to Krisstoff, the search on this forum is practically worthless. It's not like you can type in something like "ableton live audio quality" and get what you want quickly. I just did that search and got 77 thousand fucking results. The number one result returned was "what was the name of that eric b and rakim song..."

Yes it's been asked a million times, yes he could have found the answer probably not more than a few pages deep into this forum, but in my experience, you can't expect phpBB's search function to be worth a shit.

leisuremuffin
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Post by leisuremuffin » Fri Aug 31, 2007 12:41 am

uhhhhm, i did it using search for all terms and yes, there was a lot of stuff that came up, but 3 on the first page of results had very clear titles and were about exactly what he asked. It is not *that* bad.



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mkelly
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Post by mkelly » Fri Aug 31, 2007 7:45 am

Robert Henke wrote:we found out that if you look careful enough you'll find slight differences between the ideal world and reality in pretty much all DAWs, and that Live is not exeptionally bad here
Reminds me of what I read every month in Sound on Sound, where some producer/whatever says something like "I use X desks exclusively, cause nothing else can match the sound..." - the differences between the mixing desks/other hardware, and the difference between the DAWs is what will give them their character, and I for one would rather that the different DAWs had their own character than to all sound identical.

Sorry, I was bored and felt like rambling a bit.

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