sound quality: live vs. logic

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
MrYellow
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Post by MrYellow » Fri Apr 08, 2005 4:10 am

Now after typing that......

I can hear no difference at all on any of the monitors.

Either my ears have woken up or it was all hallucination/placebo from
trying too hard to find a difference.

-Ben

MrYellow
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Post by MrYellow » Fri Apr 08, 2005 4:16 am

Now looking at the meters more closely I can't find a difference there
either. My conclusion is there is no difference, any difference you hear is
purely in your ears and head.

edit: Do a double blind with a mate, have them play each to you and
record your responses along with what version they were playing.

I'd bet you'll swear you're able to tell them apart easy, only to findout
your results were random at best.

Actually............. bah I could do up one, but it would mean we'd all have
to download like 20 copies of the same wavs.

-Ben
Last edited by MrYellow on Fri Apr 08, 2005 4:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

AdamJay
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Post by AdamJay » Fri Apr 08, 2005 4:17 am

conclusion
everyone who thinks there is a difference in sound between logic and live has just woken up with hours of crust in their ears.

:lol:

i kid! i kid!

Rahlo
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Post by Rahlo » Fri Apr 08, 2005 4:24 am

hmm. I could hear a difference, but only a very slight one.
peace,

rahlo
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http://www.rahlo.com

MacBook Pro, Live 8, Reason 4, Akai MPD 32, Akai MPK 49, Akai APC 40, Metric Halo ULN-2 expanded, Apogee Duet.

AdamJay
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Post by AdamJay » Fri Apr 08, 2005 4:25 am

rahlo wrote:hmm. I could hear a difference, but only a very slight one.
could you elaborate rahlo?

randyh
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Post by randyh » Fri Apr 08, 2005 4:25 am

The live version is approximately .374db louder than the logic version. That's the only difference anyone could possibly be hearing.

I did some phase cancellation tests. adjusted.wav has -.374db of gain applied. The other is a straight diff of the files AdamJay posted.

Phase cancelled waves:
http://www.surveillance.net/test/adjusted.wav
http://www.surveillance.net/test/no_change.wav

-r

dj metronome
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Post by dj metronome » Fri Apr 08, 2005 4:30 am

I did a bunch of frequency analyst on both files, I'm not going to say what I found. It seems that it boils down to eq and since eq is a subjective point of view because all of our ears are different the point of this thread is mute.
I would like to add though, that after 3 hardware sequencers and every known software sequencing app on the planet that I know off, I have finally found my long lost companion-Live, Live, Live-if you don't like it don't use it :wink:

AdamJay
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Post by AdamJay » Fri Apr 08, 2005 4:33 am

randyh,
is the adjusted.wav supposed to be silent?

randyh
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Post by randyh » Fri Apr 08, 2005 4:35 am

AdamJay wrote:randyh,
is the adjusted.wav supposed to be silent?
yes. It's the difference between the files with a slight adjustment in gain to match them up. Basically, there is no difference.

-r

AdamJay
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Post by AdamJay » Fri Apr 08, 2005 4:36 am

aaaah

MrYellow
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Post by MrYellow » Fri Apr 08, 2005 4:43 am

"Silent" ...... oh the sound of a glaring difference in sound quality :-D

-Ben

Rahlo
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Post by Rahlo » Fri Apr 08, 2005 5:00 am

AdamJay wrote:
rahlo wrote:hmm. I could hear a difference, but only a very slight one.
could you elaborate rahlo?
the kick drum in the logic one sounded a little different to me. tighter, maybe. Could be my imagination though, as I heard no difference the first 3 or 4 times.

I gotta say though, even if the difference was greater than that somehow, it wouldn't be worth it to me to ditch live.
peace,

rahlo
------------------------------------------------------
http://www.rahlo.com

MacBook Pro, Live 8, Reason 4, Akai MPD 32, Akai MPK 49, Akai APC 40, Metric Halo ULN-2 expanded, Apogee Duet.

MrYellow
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Post by MrYellow » Fri Apr 08, 2005 7:38 am

the kick drum in the logic one sounded a little different to me. tighter,
maybe. Could be my imagination though, as I heard no difference the
first 3 or 4 times.
Yeah this is what I was focused on..... However when I played the loops
in reverse order all of a sudden the Live loop took on that quality. I think
it has to do with your ears perking up in the break between playing the
tracks.

-Ben

AdamJay
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Post by AdamJay » Fri Apr 08, 2005 7:49 am

.
i wonder what all of you would say if you knew that both of those files were actually 2 copies of the same file...































































i'm kidding of course
:P

they are indeed VERRRRRY similar. i was surprised myself at just how close the two files are sonically. I remember some Live vs. Cubase tests done by some users last year and it seemed that the differences were greater. Which leads me to believe that A) Live sound quality has improved since 4.0, or B) These users were embellishing their tests and results in favor of being right. or C) Cubase is better than both Live and Logic!

me thinks option B is the closest to the truth.

lets have a look at Waves PAZ Stereo Frequency Analysis:
Image

okay Live is on the LEFT, Logic is on the RIGHT.
peaks are all the same, some of the valleys are a little different.
Live is smoother in the 350hz and 700hz ranges, where as Logic is smoother in the 1800hz and 6000hz ranges

whats important here is that it takes a graphic analysis of the spectrum to see that the files are different. And that the human ear can't definitively say "this was made with Live, this was made with Logic".

NOW CAN WE F*#$^ING DROP THIS SUBJECT ALREADY?!?!?!?
:D

supster
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Post by supster » Fri Apr 08, 2005 11:43 am

lol @ this whole topic

of course there was never any difference
.
.
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