sound quality

[3phase]

I've tested Live against many other DAWs, across multiple revisions. As long as you don't add warping and they have the same pan law, they cancel. If they don't cancel (Live 8 and Logic 7,9) the differences are slow minute and close to the noise floor as to be completely irrelevant. I won't say there's no difference between different DAWs anymore, but if there is, it's so low as to not even be worried about. Dither is a stronger signal by far compared to these differences.

i dont belive on phase cancelation tests of static signals... but this here is not about the general sound quality of live theese days
I am ok with the sound quality of L8..
Its much better than in L4 times

Just had some old issues a few month ago when it came to compare mix versions.. bringin a handfull of mixes done in prootools into life to see how the compare when beeing pitched..

There i defently didnt had a better sound when beeing on songspeed/original speed .
As i had before.. And playing the plain file in the finder or in logc sounded like removing a curtain.. the old allways warp problem

maybe the guy that has opened the thread is running into a bug aswell ..or just dnt knows that warping and samplerate conversion is only off on original speed..


i would expect an importet audiofile that i set manualy on the song speed to be processed without warp / SR of aslong

songspeed = clipspeed..

or?

[Sage]

Why do you think uad is so after emulating 12 bit reverbs from the 80´s? because they are so inferior?

sorry..wrong argument

I don't think emulations prove anything with regards to older gear.

sure they do..they proove a demand. and the demand is created by the special sound..
the good sound..

My experience with guitar amp/effect sims would suggest otherwise, just a collection of what people expect to see rather than what is "good".
And then with actual amps, effects, guitars, every time there's a new version, everyone bitches about it, then the next version comes along, everyone bitches about that and suddenly the previous version was good all along... Most people wouldn't know a good sound if they didn't have eyes.

[ChiDJ]

As long as you don't add warping

This

[Gurulogic]

If there is no difference in sound between different sequencer software, how do I explain a mix in Sensomusic Usine that is super tight and punchy and sounds just great but then when I bring it into Live with the Usine VST to multitrack it for further editing, the gorgeous sounds I am hearing lose all their shine and snap in the mix!?
To be fair I also tried the same mix into Reaper and it still didn't sound as good as the original (bass heavy and unable to properly render the more "delicate" sounds in the mix) , and it definately sounded different than it did in Live which was just straight up murky and lack-lustre.
All audio engines are not ceated equal, methinks!

[ze2be]

how do I explain a mix in Sensomusic Usine that is super tight and punchy and sounds just great but then when I bring it into Live with the Usine VST to multitrack it for further editing, the gorgeous sounds I am hearing lose all their shine and snap in the mix!?

Knowledge.

[leedsquietman]

because internal resolution 32 bit or 64 bit float gives insane headroom without clipping or artifacts which if you don't have knowledge on how to properly mix for an end product of 16 bit / 44.1 (CD standard) will not translate.

Ever notice that when you're playing back a track in Live and you redline the output buss by a few dB that you don't hear it distorting? Mix that down to 16 bit / 44.1 and it will be clipping like crazy, distorting, and as well as possibly sounding distorted, it will be killing transients and making everything sound dull and 'grainy'

Also things such as internal dithering, a lot for plugins run in high sample rates such as 96 Khz for the best sonic quality and the most internal headroom and when you bounce that down to a 44.1 or 48 Khz mix, it has to recalculate and use internal dithering, which can slightly affect sound (some plugins have a 'hi res' on or off control such as Guitar Rig which if you turn hi res off you will notice this immediately).

This is a universal situation, not something unique to Live or Reaper. With experience you will learn to leave appropriate headroom in your mixes, use plugins to achieve specific goals rather than just throw them on willy-nilly for the sake of it, and to leave mastering as a seperate process instead of chucking on a multiband compressor and limiter on the mix buss for a quick and dirty 'loud' version.

Most of these issues can be resolved to a large degree by simply turning down your levels and leaving appropriate headroom and not using too many plugins and especially being careful with compression/limiting.

[ChiDJ]

Most of these issues can be resolved to a large degree by simply turning down your levels and leaving appropriate headroom and especially being careful with compression/limiting.

It sounds so simple, but it is so true.

[SubFunk]

Most of these issues can be resolved to a large degree by simply turning down your levels and leaving appropriate headroom and especially being careful with compression/limiting.

It sounds so simple, but it is so true.

+1 absolute!

or additive EQ-ing like mad, instead of subtractive EQ-ing or using phase linear EQs... the list of possible mistakes is endless.

[drumguy1234]

because internal resolution 32 bit or 64 bit float gives insane headroom without clipping or artifacts which if you don't have knowledge on how to properly mix for an end product of 16 bit / 44.1 (CD standard) will not translate.

Ever notice that when you're playing back a track in Live and you redline the output buss by a few dB that you don't hear it distorting? Mix that down to 16 bit / 44.1 and it will be clipping like crazy, distorting, and as well as possibly sounding distorted, it will be killing transients and making everything sound dull and 'grainy'

Also things such as internal dithering, a lot for plugins run in high sample rates such as 96 Khz for the best sonic quality and the most internal headroom and when you bounce that down to a 44.1 or 48 Khz mix, it has to recalculate and use internal dithering, which can slightly affect sound (some plugins have a 'hi res' on or off control such as Guitar Rig which if you turn hi res off you will notice this immediately).

This is a universal situation, not something unique to Live or Reaper. With experience you will learn to leave appropriate headroom in your mixes, use plugins to achieve specific goals rather than just throw them on willy-nilly for the sake of it, and to leave mastering as a seperate process instead of chucking on a multiband compressor and limiter on the mix buss for a quick and dirty 'loud' version.

Most of these issues can be resolved to a large degree by simply turning down your levels and leaving appropriate headroom and not using too many plugins and especially being careful with compression/limiting.

I take it ( 100% musician, 1% tech/ computer savvy ) that you are saying
that Ableton audio representation of a sound is equal to any other DAW?

Eg ( all other gear, settings being equal ) If I JUST plug in a mic and sing into 3 DAWs including Ableton 8, they will all sound the same?

[leedsquietman]

yes, so long as the settings are the same and you aren't using internal plugins, i.e. Logic's EQ and compressor could sound slightly different from EQ8 and Compressor in Live even with the same settings but if you use the same 3rd party (i.e. Sonnox, UAD, Sonalksis, Waves, etc) plugins at the same settings in each they'd sound the same.

So long as warping is off.

[dum]

because internal resolution 32 bit or 64 bit float gives insane headroom without clipping or artifacts which if you don't have knowledge on how to properly mix for an end product of 16 bit / 44.1 (CD standard) will not translate.

Ever notice that when you're playing back a track in Live and you redline the output buss by a few dB that you don't hear it distorting? Mix that down to 16 bit / 44.1 and it will be clipping like crazy, distorting, and as well as possibly sounding distorted, it will be killing transients and making everything sound dull and 'grainy'

Also things such as internal dithering, a lot for plugins run in high sample rates such as 96 Khz for the best sonic quality and the most internal headroom and when you bounce that down to a 44.1 or 48 Khz mix, it has to recalculate and use internal dithering, which can slightly affect sound (some plugins have a 'hi res' on or off control such as Guitar Rig which if you turn hi res off you will notice this immediately).

This is a universal situation, not something unique to Live or Reaper. With experience you will learn to leave appropriate headroom in your mixes, use plugins to achieve specific goals rather than just throw them on willy-nilly for the sake of it, and to leave mastering as a seperate process instead of chucking on a multiband compressor and limiter on the mix buss for a quick and dirty 'loud' version.

Most of these issues can be resolved to a large degree by simply turning down your levels and leaving appropriate headroom and not using too many plugins and especially being careful with compression/limiting.

I take it ( 100% musician, 1% tech/ computer savvy ) that you are saying
that Ableton audio representation of a sound is equal to any other DAW?

Eg ( all other gear, settings being equal ) If I JUST plug in a mic and sing into 3 DAWs including Ableton 8, they will all sound the same?

Well, as long as you don't intend to use any automation data either.


http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php? ... 9&start=23

Mixing desks sound different because they use different hardware. DAWs sound exactly the same because they are all using the same mathematical algorithms.

(...)

This is not really true, there are surprisingly many ways to do the same thing. The differences are just not where you would expect them if you have no expert knowledge, and they are all in a range way below of what I personally believe is audible.

Of course summing two or more tracks in every DAW is output = a+b+c+d, where a = signal of track a * volume of track a . So it is impossible to introduce here compression or any change in frequency response, and the dynmanic range if you do this with normal floating point mathematics is allready super big, not talking about the headroom if you do it with 64bit resolution.

But there are other details: if you draw a volume automation curve and this curve has a sharp edge theory says that this edge introduces nonlinear distortions to the signal. A good example for this is what is called "zipper noise" when moving a MIDI fader on a cheap audio processor.MIDI resolution is 128 steps. If you move a fader assigned to volume and you do no further smoothing you will get a bit of noise every time a new value comes in. In order to avoid this you have to create a smooth ramp instead of a sharp edge. This is known and every DAW manufacturer of course does some kind of ramping. But this is nothing where you can look up the one perfect way to do it in some research paper and every company does it like that. Instead it is always a compromise between reaction speed, cpu usage, and resulting quality. Some of our competitors are quite conservative here, they do very long ramps. This minimizes distortion but also makes all automation a bit floppy. Others prefer punchy automation, and as a result are more likely to introduce more distortion. Unless they use a more intelligent alogortihm. Which east more CPU or introduces latency... and so on.

This is just one example. There are probably a dozend places in a DAW where there is a potential differerence. So, yes, they all do sound different. But it is important to understand that this is a very very accademic way to look at it, because as mentoned before, the effects are in a range of -120db if things are really bad and maybe -160dB typically. Every active speaker introduces a noise floor way above this, every microphone has less dynamic range, not talking about a typical recording environment.

I personally would judge a DAW by all kinds of things but certainly not buy its meassured sound quality. Much more important is: do i like the way the EQs works, am i fine with the compressor, can i use my favourite plug ins with it and so on. This is what will shape the sound of my productions and not the ramping algorithm.

Robert

[leisuremuffin]

i continue to wonder if your whole shtick is a wind up. you've burned through, what, half a dozen user names? if i were you i'd be spending more time fucking with that moog voyager you have.


.lm.

[dum]

if you were me people would probably stop mistaking you for a trans-gender kevin smith.

[leisuremuffin]

oh come on, i've lost some weight, brah. at least give me jack black.

.lm.

[tw1nstates]

just don't use it then.

Simple. . .