JD76 wrote:LOL.. For all of you who are posting in defense of Ableton's sound while cracking jokes on "noobs"... You'll see that we "noobs" know what we're talking about when Ableton releases a new version with some sort of Audio Engine improvement/update. Workflow wise - Abelton rocks. Mixing and mastering wise, right now other DAWs sound fuller and less crunchy
OK first off I sympathize to a degree. IMO Live sounds funky when the CPU is pushed, most other DAWs I've worked with tend to stop the engine before you get some of the similar artifacts that you get with too low latency/buffer settings, Live seems to keep on playing and mush up the sound. I'm just guessing this is what you're experiencing, but I have had similar problems with heavy sets or CPU spiking plug ins. If you're mixing and mastering in Live I tend to be super ultra cautious with the CPU, like under 60%. <-- Live's CPU meter at 60% is about 85% in the system meter in OSX. IMO it's a trade off, you can have the game stopping "system overload" messages of Logic, or the absolute clay sludge GUI where it takes 45 seconds to stop the song playing of Digital Performer, or you get slight audio grunge at higher CPU settings (or unfortunately with VSTs that don't behave properly, always fun to figure out), and still have a functioning live set. Live is a horrible CPU pig and any other DAW literally on your system is going to release at least 20% more CPU resources for mixing and mastering which would IMO explain why some people swear Live sounds bad, and others have no problems whatsoever.
That said, Live has been accused of having a lower overall sound quality to where in version 7 they changed the internal engine to 64 bit, which some other DAWs don't even have yet to combat this stigma. If I'm right about this mainly being due to the way Live handles CPU overloads then what might happen instead of a "new engine" is a setting in Live's preferences for how it behaves when it gets CPU spikes or overloads.
Donning flame hat..... >
