What Ableton IS KEEPING SECRET about Live's audio engine...

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
fx23
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Re: What Ableton IS KEEPING SECRET about Live's audio engine...

Post by fx23 » Tue Jun 15, 2010 1:01 am

Ahah that good old debate again
the Cpu/quality ratio must be some problematic

live was at start supposed to be used "live" and had to be very efficient, over years it went more on the daw
sequencer side, with sound progress as computer progress but i agree with 3phase, over the past Live had a grain.
I personally rewired live6 to cubase with much better results.
wethere it's on some summing, dsp ,envelopes, potential soft clipper, or adding noize to reduce Cpu load due
to 32 bit float ( float computations nearing 0 higly raise cpu, some add noize),busses,racks or whatever, i, and most
of friend using studio always felt live had a perceptible grain.
Now my ears are quite ok with live8, still i totally understand what 3phaze is speaking about.

but we all wanna running XX tracks live with XX vst ne, there is a price to pay somewhere, i doubt it's the
cleanest mathematical sound path , but one very good and now acceptable compromise, still this is not a legend.

macmurphy
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Re: What Ableton IS KEEPING SECRET about Live's audio engine...

Post by macmurphy » Tue Jun 15, 2010 5:10 am

H20nly wrote: :lol:

you'd think with all these geniuses around there'd be so many more DAWs to choose from.... each of them better than Live.

I'd like to suggest some names:

Whine
Wank Bank
Super Awesome Audio Engine
16th Change Up Lite
Fit Pitch
Ramble
IJW (It Just Works)
Villalobos Analog D
OT
CPerrezzz Pro Tool
No Reason
Loopy Fruit
Airclub For DJ
Yoink
GOAT
Nice Lemur
Screw Bass
Jitter - by 3Phase...
Pros Only Tools
Washin Maschine
Palm Face
Tapir
Feebleton Life (the Jitter Suite)
Image

leave off the Tapirs, bro :wink:

leedsquietman
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Re: What Ableton IS KEEPING SECRET about Live's audio engine...

Post by leedsquietman » Tue Jun 15, 2010 10:54 am

I rewired Live 6 to Cubase SX3. No difference.
http://soundcloud.com/umbriel-rising http://www.myspace.com/leedsquietmandemos Live 7.0.18 SUITE, Cubase 5.5.2], Soundforge 9, Dell XPS M1530, 2.2 Ghz C2D, 4GB, Vista Ult SP2, legit plugins a plenty, Alesis IO14.

leedsquietman
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Re: What Ableton IS KEEPING SECRET about Live's audio engine...

Post by leedsquietman » Tue Jun 15, 2010 11:08 am

my issue is that i've yet to meet anybody that pulls off as good of sound quality in Ableton as people do in Logic or Cubase...
not my experience at all ... happy to mix in both.

http://umbrielrising.bandcamp.com/album ... axi-single
2 are mixed in Cubase, 2 in Live. Can you name which ones are which ?

http://umbrielrising.bandcamp.com/album/solarity-ep
2 are mixed in Cubase, 2 in Live, 1 a combination of DAWS (including a different daw to Cubase and Live) spliced together in Soundforge. Can you name which ones are which?

What is true in my experience is that not many people are equally capable at operating more than one DAW to the same ability (self included) and don't set things up properly sometimes, or compare bundled plugins. I tend to almost exclusively use 3rd party plugins so that doesn't affect the above titles.
http://soundcloud.com/umbriel-rising http://www.myspace.com/leedsquietmandemos Live 7.0.18 SUITE, Cubase 5.5.2], Soundforge 9, Dell XPS M1530, 2.2 Ghz C2D, 4GB, Vista Ult SP2, legit plugins a plenty, Alesis IO14.

rasputin
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Re: What Ableton IS KEEPING SECRET about Live's audio engine...

Post by rasputin » Tue Jun 15, 2010 1:10 pm

Isturite- wrote:
so you like a mixer that by default colors your material? :?

just learn to use the tools in Live..
absolutely not... and that's part of the reason I don't use Reason... I like having ultimate control over everything, which is why I use near to none of other people's samples... but it becomes really stressful after a while, and I would like to know if it's even possible for me to 'produce' something that is of decent sound quality in this program... my issue is that i've yet to meet anybody that pulls off as good of sound quality in Ableton as people do in Logic or Cubase... not saying they aren't out there, just what I've seen
"...I like having ultimate control over everything..."

Then why aren't you using Csound? Or does its quality fall short of your standards as well?
Live 9.1 <> occasionally Reason 4.0.1 <> Reaper.latest! <> Windows 7 on a bespoke Intel Q6600 <> ASUS P5E <> 8GB RAM, M-Audio Delta 2496 and that's it.

rasputin
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Re: What Ableton IS KEEPING SECRET about Live's audio engine...

Post by rasputin » Tue Jun 15, 2010 1:19 pm

I should stay far away from these threads, since I know arguing with certain people -- or even trying to be rational -- leads nowhere. But one comment I have to make:
3phase wrote:
trust my ears..

but i´ve to admit.. i liked the alaising grain sound of the first versions.. ..than they tried to polish it up what was in the first step rather a muffeling.. and than it got more transparent and open.. as it should be...

i actually like booth.. harsh characterfull sounds.. and highend transparent smoothness..
the inbetweens are rather disgusting
When was the last time your had a thorough audiological test of your hearing? You could even design some of your own: borrow some ultra high end reference loudspeakers. Create a sample of perhaps some live acoustic music with 0.01, 0.1, 0.5 and 1.0% total harmonic distortion and tell us you can tell the difference in an A/B test. Then take the sample and roll it off -1 db at 20kHz, 15 kHz and 12 kHz and prove that you can always identify which is which.

Maybe then you can realize that those sorts of quality issues are minimal compared to creating a good piece of music.

Technical issues are important and I'm glad engineers are always working on it but get some perspective for god's sake.
Live 9.1 <> occasionally Reason 4.0.1 <> Reaper.latest! <> Windows 7 on a bespoke Intel Q6600 <> ASUS P5E <> 8GB RAM, M-Audio Delta 2496 and that's it.

fx23
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Re: What Ableton IS KEEPING SECRET about Live's audio engine...

Post by fx23 » Tue Jun 15, 2010 1:56 pm

hehe leedman, if i well remember we kind arguee by past on same topic, history repeat itself,
leedsquietman wrote:I rewired Live 6 to Cubase SX3. No difference.
im really happy for ya, that wasn't the case for me neither Mass Hysteria Sound engineer or lot of people i knew at that time around paris studios. those A_B tests or phase cancelation are nonsense, we don't speak about putting two sample at 0db and eq them, but a complete process with various stages and gain reduction. Im sorry Live 6 Had a grain pb, and ableton worked on it and everybody
heard a clear progress with live7 and live8, meaning there was a pb, if ya didn't see im sorry for ya.

you can tell i got not ears or i can't mix, no pb, but the people i know , i know they have ears, pieoro from Mass Hysteria has golden ears, he knows what he talks about, and again, he's far to be the only one at that time..all my Dnb or PsyTrance Scenes friends producers saw that grain as well, now you could say that's not music, but psytrance is one of style needing the cleanest sound ever.
I didn't wait to have 10/15 review from producers, My ears felt it as 3phaze, that was just a confirmation.

Now don't get me wrong Live8 is ok now.

leedsquietman
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Re: What Ableton IS KEEPING SECRET about Live's audio engine...

Post by leedsquietman » Tue Jun 15, 2010 2:16 pm

I am talking Live from v6, as I never tried Live from L1-L4 and only briefly demoed L5 before buying at L6. If Live was 'grainy' in L1-L5 I would not have experienced it and I am currently working on Live 7. I won remix competitions mixing in Live 6, so although some technical upgrades happened in Live 7, again it's mostly stuff which shows up on a spectograph more prominently than hearing. Proper studio engineers who know how to use Live (which is about 5% max) should regardless have been able to make a good sounding mix, as many people have done/I just had a certified audiology check in March and was in the top 5% of frequency range and response to tones, not bad for an old man.

I worked full time in pro studios from 1993-2000 (having done Music Technology and Audio Engineering courses at University) and part time (combined with education) from 2001-2009, so I have a BIT of a clue, I'm not a bedroom producer with a Soundblaster 16 sound card, walkman headphones, Radio Shack $30 mic and Behringer monitors. I worked with Logic and Protools HD every day, and Cubase in my home studio since the Atari ST.

Studio engineers, no matter how golden their ears are, are still fooled by placebo/correctional bias and many of them are so ingrained in Protools that they don't wish to even acknowledge anything else and certainly don't want to encourage it, moving out of their comfort zone and having to spend time and money learning else. Many scream bloody murder at having to learn Logic or Cubase/Nuendo.

Again, if your hearing is so great you would obviously be able to spot which mixes were done in Live from the links I posted ...
Last edited by leedsquietman on Tue Jun 15, 2010 2:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
http://soundcloud.com/umbriel-rising http://www.myspace.com/leedsquietmandemos Live 7.0.18 SUITE, Cubase 5.5.2], Soundforge 9, Dell XPS M1530, 2.2 Ghz C2D, 4GB, Vista Ult SP2, legit plugins a plenty, Alesis IO14.

3phase
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Re: What Ableton IS KEEPING SECRET about Live's audio engine...

Post by 3phase » Tue Jun 15, 2010 2:17 pm

rasputin wrote:I should stay far away from these threads, since I know arguing with certain people -- or even trying to be rational -- leads nowhere. But one comment I have to make:
3phase wrote:
trust my ears..

but i´ve to admit.. i liked the alaising grain sound of the first versions.. ..than they tried to polish it up what was in the first step rather a muffeling.. and than it got more transparent and open.. as it should be...

i actually like booth.. harsh characterfull sounds.. and highend transparent smoothness..
the inbetweens are rather disgusting
When was the last time your had a thorough audiological test of your hearing? You could even design some of your own: borrow some ultra high end reference loudspeakers. Create a sample of perhaps some live acoustic music with 0.01, 0.1, 0.5 and 1.0% total harmonic distortion and tell us you can tell the difference in an A/B test. Then take the sample and roll it off -1 db at 20kHz, 15 kHz and 12 kHz and prove that you can always identify which is which.

Maybe then you can realize that those sorts of quality issues are minimal compared to creating a good piece of music.

Technical issues are important and I'm glad engineers are always working on it but get some perspective for god's sake.
do you say i am allwright with the ableton sound now because my listening went bad?

possible.. 10 years ago it was good enough to spot jitter in wordclock distributers by listening to the end result... does that sound like an ssl axiom? no..whats wrong?..ok..there is a splitter..measure it..bingo..

you know..you can measure many things..but its usualy my ears that tell that there is something one should measure..
at least i ve a 99-100% statistics when it comes to the point that i think soemthing is not wright..so i started to trust my ears instead wasting time to proove me wrong by measurements.... however..thats 10 years ago.. so i might have to reconsider..
but..
The last time i heard the flew caughing was 2 years ago during the development of a mic pre.. i had to rebuild it 2 times just to find out that my ears wasnt cheating to me and after i ve done that the other developers went deep into them, trying to explain the unexplainable..and finaly.. it came out that the impossible was possible ..the unexplainable became explainable..and than, and only than, we was able to measure it ...its hard to proove something with measurements when you dont know which parameter is resposnible for a phenomen...



but that is only setting up studios and gear development.. within music production you dont have to meet so high standards.. a little distortion and clipping dont hurts aslong the people like the record... thats true...
mac book 2,16 ghz 4(3)gb ram, Os 10.62, fireface 400,

mikemc
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Re: What Ableton IS KEEPING SECRET about Live's audio engine...

Post by mikemc » Tue Jun 15, 2010 2:27 pm

leedsquietman wrote:
http://umbrielrising.bandcamp.com/album ... axi-single
2 are mixed in Cubase, 2 in Live. Can you name which ones are which ?

http://umbrielrising.bandcamp.com/album/solarity-ep
2 are mixed in Cubase, 2 in Live, 1 a combination of DAWS (including a different daw to Cubase and Live) spliced together in Soundforge. Can you name which ones are which?
OOOOooo! I cannot wait to try this when I get home, thanks. :D

macmurphy
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Re: What Ableton IS KEEPING SECRET about Live's audio engine...

Post by macmurphy » Tue Jun 15, 2010 3:40 pm

Leon Tricker wrote:The quality of the output is related to the ability of the user!

:lol:
fucking hell.
this thread started off as a joke. what the hell is wrong with people? :cry:

stonee
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Re: What Ableton IS KEEPING SECRET about Live's audio engine...

Post by stonee » Tue Jun 15, 2010 3:43 pm

Everyone just shut up untill someone does leed's A/B test, or whips up a decent null test.

our ears are very susceptible to be colored by perception. if you expect to hear a slight difference, you're going to hear it if its there or not.

"I trust my ears" is only valid to a certain point. human ears aren't particularly sensitive to sound.


you can buy these "special" rocks that you can tape to your cables, and some professional sound engineers swear they hear a difference. obviously they dont, but there's still a camp of people who "trust their ears" and swear they do.

and even if there is a difference between live and other daws, its not going to be enough of a difference for anyone to care.
the only people who might care, is you, and other "professionals" who are more busy huffing they're own ass gas and splitting hairs than making actual music.

Tone Deft
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Re: What Ableton IS KEEPING SECRET about Live's audio engine...

Post by Tone Deft » Tue Jun 15, 2010 3:47 pm

Leon Tricker wrote:The quality of the output is related to the ability of the user!
really good point that some people will never get. :?
In my life
Why do I smile
At people who I'd much rather kick in the eye?
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3phase
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Re: What Ableton IS KEEPING SECRET about Live's audio engine...

Post by 3phase » Tue Jun 15, 2010 3:56 pm

just surprising that as higher the abilitys of the user are the more critics on ableto live are there...

but we see that in any other segment of the instrument and tool market...

many people are happy with behringer but not because they have such a high ability to make it sounding good... maybe some have.. problem... the really cant apply that wisdom when working with a real desk..they have to relearn theire routine..therefore its adviced to use good tools as soon you can handle them.. otherwise your skills will suffer again because there is no further progress.. even your hearing can be damaged or be modified..wright mr tone deft?
mac book 2,16 ghz 4(3)gb ram, Os 10.62, fireface 400,

3phase
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Re: What Ableton IS KEEPING SECRET about Live's audio engine...

Post by 3phase » Tue Jun 15, 2010 4:00 pm

stonee wrote: or whips up a decent null test.

there are no decend null tests..thats marketing frauds or diy self cheapo tests..they only give hearable results when something is going really wrong.. and the dont matter anyway within the daw because its about what happening when mixing files..

That ableton is using them as arguments in theier fact sheet is part of theire bad reputation for some people.. they dont lie there..but they misslead the user.. its rather propaganda than real technical data we get there.

Its just ensuring the user that they have a product with the best possible quality..

what is actually the truth.. the best possible quality ... under the circumstances .

in case of behringer the circumstance that only cheap crap op amps are used... and cheap chinese faked alps pots and switches..

in case of ableton a smaller team, at least 6 years less in audio engine development, and 10-15 years less in midi and synchronisation questions on pc and mac.... and 25 years less on the sequencer market..
Under theese circumstances they are pretty good allready..

from the technical data the audio side might be at par by now, but many people in my surrounding claim its not...
i could do here some name dropping of known techno producers.. ricardo is oe of them as anybody knows now.. but he is just the tip of the iceberg...
therefore i ask theese questions...

Midi is defently still inferior..
we better dont talk about that

I any case the marketing style of ableton is questionable..simmilar to ensuring the stability of live 8 last year at the same time.. or even later...
They really like the modern marketing talk... Dont irritate the user sheeps with facts.. you might remember..they even wnated get rid of changelogs they anyway never have handled very accurate... And theese bloody fact sheets ..that of cause clear up some things wuth the warpengine..thats good..but beside that read pretty much as beeing writen by the same guy that is doing the behringer promotion..

the problem with the fact sheets is like this..

if they sell inferior midi performance as state of the art they might aswell do that with the audio performance...

I think some people should join together and do independend tests that matter...
Last edited by 3phase on Tue Jun 15, 2010 4:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
mac book 2,16 ghz 4(3)gb ram, Os 10.62, fireface 400,

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