All this about sound quality

[macmurphy]

you moved completely to reaper?

yes. apart from the occasional little bit of sound design. it was odd at first due to the change in workflow etc
but, for me at least, it just 'fits' better and i'm very happy

[Hermanus]

for sure 3phase has spread his energy.

Come on boys, henke is one of the rare abe men to discuss with users and forumers.
This topic is such a good example, he even answers to agressiveness thread.

talking talking and no action
Do music instead of loosing time

Maybe a remind about the forum rules could be useful to a few forumers.
"Respect the other" is the most obvious [...well I guessed]

[Nokatus]

Are you getting paranoid now with the old age? And its not a mission against live its one for live. Its not only 3phase that thinks there are issues..

Maybe not, but every time it turns out that "someone else" is actually you, 3phase, you kind of undermine your cause

You're absolutely on a personal mission against Ableton, 3phase. That's undeniable. What ever alias you use, you usually try to give an initial impression of being sincerely interested in constructive analysis and troubleshooting, but in the end, it's all about stirring up shit. Seriously.

Like the one time an Ableton tech offered to personally come over and troubleshoot your setup, checking what might be wrong when you were constantly complaining -- and you declined.

I don't know WHAT initially happened to incite such rage. You say it's solely the problems you're having with Live -- fair enough, way to hold a grudge, it's going to be a full decade in a couple of years. For those who don't know, this guy has written literally thousands of posts through the years while on his vendetta, stretching over multiple forums. Sometimes it's more straightforward bashing, sometimes masked in his technical knowhow and a constructive tone, and then escalates from there. It's the same crap every time.

Yeah, let's compare with "newboss":

theier problem at that point.. random crashbugs didnt exsisted in theier world.. they havent taken the cigarette example serious.. but that just the way you can report a random crashbug..

The arrogance of ableton hasnt helped with the L8 crashbugs that was accepted way to late..
Ableton claimed them to be user bugs and wanted the users to proove the bugs to them with a standarized bug report routine that didnt allowed to report random crash bugs at all.

Its just often more work involved to get it there.. just like doing a mix on a not so good analoge console.. On some you have to work hard on the sound ..maybe even use the weekness of the console as a feature.. On others, especially vintage highend stuff like Neumann or API you just set the levels..done...

When the special ableton sound is a feature it should be a switchable option..Because the basic mode of operation should be transparent.
When its a bug that just happen on some configs it should be fixed.

One also can become allergic about the special ableton sound.. 10 years ago i liked it, was rougher but somehow more special back than..but by now it gets in my way when i have it all the time.. sometimes neutral is a nicer startpoint.
Like having had the same curry way to often you get allergic about it.. Its really a bit like mixing with a behringer desk.. when a coloration dont sounds posh and expensive it gets on your nerves after a while.

And a quote from almost seven years ago:

Between the musicans i know the soundquality problem of Live is somehow common sense. When mister Henke himself states there is no problem its probably necessary to proove that there is one, to force future developments of the program in the wright direction.
I really would like to find a home sequencer wise...And Ableton was so close... But all this Live 4 mess is dont makes my Live easier..
I had to go back to Logic again...

All that time and no end in sight, apparently. A lot of bloody good sounding music made in Live during those seven years, by the way

[UncleAge]

I thought the monolake post was well timed and sort of humorous...

What I have always found odd in this repetitive discussion that takes place across the internet far too frequently is the need to put the program in question at fault. I mean, I think that once it is established that two somewhat (not totally) different programs added the same list of numbers (audio data) and came to the same sum (rendered wav/aiff/flac or whatever file), that the discussion would turn to what else in the chain would cause the difference. I mean if what one seeks is the truth and a process is provided to find a path to that truth, yet that process is ignored then I just wander what is the real goal in the discussion? The program (any of them) are not responsible for the output of the monitors in the room, or the condition of your hearing after years of abuse, small rotational head adjustments, or the shape or quality of the listening room. And all of those things, and not just those things, probably play a larger role in what you think you are hearing at any given time than some discrepancy that may exist below -140db or whatever. I'm not even suggesting that the differences are not perceived to be there. I'm just puzzled as to why the discussion is not about the items that haven't been ruled out yet.

*** Please note that I am heavily medicated right now and it is possible that none of that or this makes any sense.***

[3dot...]

wow...
3phase using 2 monikers in the same conversation ?!!!
that's some psycho shit..

[simmerdown]

...funny, the same thing crossed my mind yesterday...what are the chances of 2 arrogant malcontents turning up on the same day agreeing with each other? what luck for Science and ableton...

i actually saw this on another forum, and when it was exposed with certainty, and you read back to all of the things that this 1 person had typed? fekkn mental.

.out there

[Coupe70]

All that talking...
Where are the audio examples to prove the differences ?!
All you guys talking about Live sounding bad:
Give me blind tests !

Give me 3 files:
One from your favourite, best sounding DAW
One from Live
and let's say one that you have MADE sound a little less good,
or at least a little "different" by reducing bitrate or samplerate
or by a little bad EQing on the master...

I will take the time to listen to all these tests.
Don't tell me what these files are in advance.
It's ok to fool me by sending me 3 identical files or whatever if you like.
But please be honest when revealing the solution for your puzzle !

And please be ready to talk about your test project afterwards.
It's no distrust, but we've seen in the past that it's easy to
put something in a project that causes different sounding results
(e.g. time based effects like chorus, ...) by mistake.

Bring it on, I'm ready !

[Tarekith]

3phase doesn't do tests.

[Coupe70]

3phase doesn't do tests.

Is he Chuck Norris or what ?!

[MPGK]

3phase doesn't do tests.

Is he Chuck Norris or what ?!

Definitely not.

Chuck Norris produces number-one smash hits just by breathing into a cheap microphone, using Magix Music Maker as a DAW.

3phase, on the other hand, is a very very poor sap that I am starting to pity.

[Tone Deft]

probably best to not add fuel to the fire. 3phase has stuff to say, getting on his case won't help with his delivery. he's frustrated with the whole thing, clearly he loves audio, I can appreciate that. cheers 3phase, your message didn't fall on deaf ears.

Chuck Norris on the other hand is a homophobic asshole who wants Christianity taught in schools.

[Tone Deft]

-6dB is built on -126dB?

dB are the measure of the signal, -6dB is not built on -126dB. I can't think of a clean analogy right now.

try it yourself. take a really loud obnoxious overcompressed song, drop its level down to -120db with a bunch of Utility plugins. in another track put a mellow song with amazing production at 0dB. play them at the same time. do you hear the obnoxious track?

the noise floor in your studio, with no audio playing, just you and the computer sitting in a 'quiet' room is probably around -60 to -80dB.

do experiments, play with your hearing. the test tone generator in the preferences is a great resource.

[Tarekith]

Not to mention that once you export the song to 16bit wav or convert to MP3, those lower bits where that error is are truncated away anyway, and dither (itself noise) is added at approximately -96dBFS to -90dBFS (depending on the noise shaping used).

[zigzag]

This is extremely disrespectful, especially to a person who has devoted their life to music and to some one who has taught many many people many things about audio.

sorry.. 80% of the people i know fall into that department, and they all just cook with water.
And its disrespectfull too to disqualify other peoples opinions by being anal about writing styles and to suggest evil intentions.

you are my hero. my thoughts exactly. i hope L9 makes a strong statement & analysis about audio coloring. I would like to see tests published in the wide open from Ableton. I can't understand that from a business perspective they can tolerate such statements from established audio professionals, never mind their other user base. Even Sasha, so keen on Live since version 4, has mentioned that sometimes his tracks are ported to other DAWs simply because they don't sound as good when mastered within Live. Not that he's the authority, but definitely a professional & admirer of Live's capabilities. And if they have trouble finding use cases, they should contact him.

[H20nly]

so in summary:

no one (as of yet) can prove that Live creates sound files with audible differences (between those produced in other DAWs) using software and hardware; however, they can with their ears.

others have proven that Live does not create audible differences through testing with software and hardware... and their ears.

dbfs is pissed.

newboss might be 3Phase.

got it. thanks!

great thread. it changes everything.