Lives sound engine argument again ...

[rarelyseen]

propper measuring equipment is something like that

http://www2.rohde-schwarz.com/en/produc ... o/UPV.html

And then you do what? Send the audio out of your interface, back into the analyzer, huh?
Very accurate.

That's perhaps a good tool to measure the DACs of your bloody M-Audio interface, but nothing useful to measure the audio engine of a DAW. Digital audio is pure math. Nothing fancy in here.

[slirak]

What is the point of this thread? Just rehashing the same old shit over and over? This thread has contributed nothing new to the pointless discussion of Live audio quality. People only complain about it because they are looking to place blame for their own lack of talent and/or skills. Why am I even posting this?

Hehe, good questions. I have no valid explanation as to why I'm posting either. Goes for many posts though...

I used to use Cubase and similar debates kept coming up about Cubase too. I'm sure you'll find similar stuff at Logic forums or whatever.

My personal favourite was at a so called "pro's only" audio recording forum where a guy famous for working with some big shots claimed with quite some fervour that his Pro Tools system sounded significantly better if he placed some very special (and very expensive) high-end hi-fi stone (yep!) on his hard drive (yep!!).

[bicarbone]

Anyway, most of the music ends up being over compressed and then converted to mp3 that are converted back to wav and then again to mp3 before being burned to a cd that get scratched in your ex-girlfriend's car before being re-imported to a puter, converted to mp3 again, uploaded to myspace, and played through crappy laptop speakers.

[8O]

propper measuring equipment is something like that

http://www2.rohde-schwarz.com/en/produc ... o/UPV.html

And then you do what? Send the audio out of your interface, back into the analyzer, huh?
Very accurate.

That's perhaps a good tool to measure the DACs of your bloody M-Audio interface, but nothing useful to measure the audio engine of a DAW. Digital audio is pure math. Nothing fancy in here.

+1 for rarelyseen

[slirak]

BTW, I just realised the audio fact sheet says "64 bit double precision". AFAIK, "precision" is a term that has no meaning in integer math and thus indicates that it's 64 bits floating point, not integer. If that's so, I guess you won't get 384 dB at all times, since when needed, some of them bits will be used to gain precision (and avoid rounding errors) rather than dynamics. Though since rounding errors are a much smaller issue with summing than it can be with other types of audio processing, I suppose you will get a hell of a headroom at most times anyway. And if the summing is floating point, it sure makes sense if the non-summing 32 bit processing is as well, even if the audio fact sheet doesn't say so.

I'm getting off topic here I suppose, but I'm just curious to know how things work.

[Martyn]

If you don't like something about Live's sound quality just use another DAW, it really is as simple as that.

It's great that we have so much choice between such fantastic software these days, we really are spoiled to the point of bickering about such finite details, look back at what the Beatles used to make albums with! The bottom line is that a shit tune is still a shit tune regardless as to whether it's played on a pair of crappy computer speakers or over the most expensive system that money can buy, a great tune will sound great on absolutely anything.

Stop worrying about what other people think and make some music.

[Machinesworking]

you know what sucks balls about shit like this?
Live IMO still has areas where UI workflow could be improved. I would rather see improved MIDI, the ability to split off the warp or MIDI editors for two screens,
simple things like global assignable keyboard shortcuts or other improvements that other DAWs do. Yet every month some lame ass conversation about how Live doesn't sound as pro as Pro Tools or Logic comes up. They all sound the same, period! I have Live, Logic, Digital Performer, Renoise etc. Nothing is different about the way Zebra sounds on any of them, and yet Ableton wasted time on improving Live's audio engine, when it gets bounced to 16bit 44.1kz I guarantee you cannot hear a difference, period. It's because people refuse to take blind hearing tests and rely on their 'perception', they simply will not do the real work.

Thanks a lot for keeping the Ableton team wrapped up in getting 64 bit audio engines etc. instead of improving the little things. Thanks for the hot air and constant smearing of Live with no blind tests, because blind tests prove this is BS.

[hurlingdervish]

i rewire things through ableton just for the gritty lofi sound...then i bounce them into audacity which is far superior tbhimobbq

[slirak]

If you don't like something about Live's sound quality just use another DAW, it really is as simple as that.

It's great that we have so much choice between such fantastic software these days, we really are spoiled to the point of bickering about such finite details, look back at what the Beatles used to make albums with!

Me, I like finite details because I'm a nerd. I like to know exactly how things work. That doesn't help me much in writing better songs but I can't help it. The nerdness, the nerdness...

When it comes to the Beatles, their equipment wasn't inferior to a modern digital studio, quite the contrary. When it comes to stuff like track count or editing or S/N ratio, well yes. But analogue gear have virtually infinite resolution, down to the noise floor. And the pre-amps, EQ's, compressors and microphones that people like the Beatles took for granted is now regarded as serious high end and highly sought after. And us less fortunate pay lots of money to get plug-ins that tries to faithfully emulate the non-linear behaviour of their gear.

The bottom line is that a shit tune is still a shit tune regardless as to whether it's played on a pair of crappy computer speakers or over the most expensive system that money can buy, a great tune will sound great on absolutely anything.

This is of course absolutely true.

[sampletanker]

if you're including the argument of vocal track sound quality, i get better results using SONY ACID PRO 6. my vocal tracks in LIVE 7 is poor. but, when i do bring the audio track files from ACID into a track in LIVE, it sounds good during export. i don't know why.

[Machinesworking]

if you're including the argument of vocal track sound quality, i get better results using SONY ACID PRO 6. my vocal tracks in LIVE 7 is poor. but, when i do bring the audio track files from ACID into a track in LIVE, it sounds good during export. i don't know why.

SIMPLE ANSWER IS YOU'RE DOING SOMETHING WRONG IN LIVE THEN. Bold type guy.

[leedsquietman]

I use Live and Cubase at home (Live since 6 and Cubase for donkey's years). I often use Logic at work. I have used Sonar and Samplitude and ACID Pro at various times in the past and PTHD.

When you use the same raw audio with no plugins, at the same pan law, there is NO DIFFERENCE. The only one with a tiniest amount of difference (not better, just different) was PTHD because of fixed point 48 bit conversion, instead of 32 bit floating point conversion.

Live doesn't allow you to change the pan law which could differ from the defaults in some other DAWS.

Null tests work just fine, as do my ears and I have 23 years of recording experience.

The reason WHY people say Logic, Cubase and others sound better is a) people have a misconception of Live as being a DJ's toy software and looking like an Excel screen must make it sound crap. b) Logic, Cubase and others do have better (IMO) plugins in the box and this is the difference people hear. People are not comparing raw audio files with nothing touched and no plugins applied, they are comparing files which have been processed through different plugins. You get a good 3rd party plugin such as SOnalksis's SV517mkII EQ and use the same settings in Live or Cubase, it sounds THE SAME !!


One guy in our studio said to me recently that Logic sounded better than Cubase, it had a less woolly low end - and had applied a channel EQ cut at 275 Hz in Logic - but no processing in Cubase, subsonsciously because he is a power Logic user and rarely uses Cubase. Doofus...

As I said before - dead horse flogging, is alive and well (again) at the Live forum.

[SubFunk]

leedsquiteman wrote:

The reason WHY people say Logic, Cubase and others sound better is a) people have a misconception of Live as being a DJ's toy software and looking like an Excel screen must make it sound crap. b) Logic, Cubase and others do have better (IMO) plugins in the box and this is the difference people hear. People are not comparing raw audio files with nothing touched and no plugins applied, they are comparing files which have been processed through different plugins. You get a good 3rd party plugin such as SOnalksis's SV517mkII EQ and use the same settings in Live or Cubase, it sounds THE SAME !!


One guy in our studio said to me recently that Logic sounded better than Cubase, it had a less woolly low end - and had applied a channel EQ cut at 275 Hz in Logic - but no processing in Cubase, subsonsciously because he is a power Logic user and rarely uses Cubase. Doofus...

i tend to agree... jeez this has been discussed to death... of course you need to compare a Raw file, no warping, time stretching, dithering or processing with any sort of plugs at all... once any of those factors are introduced to a file the difference can be obviously vary from a very little to a hell lot...

[ikeaboy]

Its just a meme that won't die as long as producers and engineeers feel the need to justify their choice of sequencer as the 'intelligent and informed' choice. I feel there maybe something in Leedsquietman's post too though.
I think it should be handled by starting a new meme that Cubase users have small penises, including the girls.

[IP]

Agree with leedsquietman for the audio quality part ...


For the plugs i start thinking lately that Ableton suite may finally have the best native plugins of any other daw (dont shot, this is my opinion).

They only need some time like any other plugin...
and many people dont even put a second on them (i may was on the same boat once)

Ok, some things are obvious! I cant say that live's reverb is better that logic's lol... but you know what i mean!

there are some excellent dynamics (multi - comp - lim), a KILLER vocoder, some great veeeeeeery very very underrated synths from AAS, top quality delays and some great saturation/overdrive shit.

Also for the midi side there are many midi tools that most people dont even know that exist!


dont know ... i remember in my cubase years, i rarely used any of its native plugins
now with ableton im getting closer to go 100% live day by day.


Also i believe that if we could have a huge poll about
how many people are making music with 100% the native plugins of their daw
then live will be the winner!
(ok reason will as there is no support for vst yet)