very informative post here, i was unaware you needed to deactivate plugins to recalc the PDC. I always was annoyed with Live's sidechain compressor as i was never able to time it the way i like even after setting look ahead to 0... this may explain the issue as i have heard many many people discount the native live compressor and state that it's always "late" compared to other native sidechain compressors (ie logic).mr.ergonomics wrote:I agree with you that live is not sample accurate (that said I did some test on other pro DAWs and found out that they aren't sample accurate too!), and I agree that it really could affect effect chains and parallel processing. I did various tests and showed that live is not sample accurate (search my name and sample accurate), but so far I failed to proof it with effect chains. If you have some ideas what scenarios I can test I'm happy for every Idea ( you can pm me if you don't want a flame war here).diskowipe wrote: if you want scientific proof, get a plugin that measures sample accurate latency in plugin chain and compare it to other programs doing the same things.
I found out one thing so far but that's also true for other pro daws(!), if the plugin have a delay - like look-ahead from a compressor - the PDC is only recalculated if you disable/enable the plugin. so If you change the look-ahead time you should disable/enable the plugin to get propper PDC.
this is exactly the type of thing that bothers me about ableton though. you shouldnt have to know information like that to set up a simple sidechain compressor to get it working right. its the same as how drum racks dont have velocity sensitivity enabled by default. i understand the "open/free concept" of the application but these little things can really be an obstacle to creative people who arent as technically inclined to find this information.
I will say that it's true many people i know who prefer something like Logic over ableton arent as technical and something like logic doesnt require the user to set up every little aspect of the program to get musical results (ie velocity), and if there is something that needs additional attention, its usually a large control sticking out saying "i'm important, turn me." whereas everything in Live if flat and requires you know its there in order to get things working properly for your music...
And to the person who was asking why I was hanging out on this board and saying my post was "anything but humble." My intention was not to come off as arrogant, in fact whoever said there was no money in releasing house music was very correct about that. Like everyone else, sound is my life journey and I happen to be one of the more nerdy people that likes to know as much as possible about all things audio. I learned to mix and produce what i consider good sounding music from reading gearslutz and other resources every single day for many years and still do cause I love it...
If you read what I actually said in my previous posts, I did not criticize Live, nor do I buy into the "sound engine" debate at all. My main gripe and reason for posting here is that I'm sick of people getting harassed when they have honest questions about what they are hearing (and make no mistake they DO hear something), people shouldnt get criticized in their attempts to learn about sound and in the case of ableton, there are definitely some real world factors leading to these constant discussions about sound quality (PDC, no automation compensation, more latency, etc...) I think it would be best for the company and dedicated users on this forums to clarify things in a more tasteful manner rather than the usual slag off, its better for the company in the long run anyway as many people less sensible than myself will continue telling all their friends and posting on the internet that Ableton has crappy sound and the reputation will keep multiplying exponentially until some rational people give real-world explanations like the FL Studio guys. I seriously suggest everyone to read that manual as it was the single most informative and helpful thing ive ever read about digital audio...
