Poor audio quality when recording (again)

[andrepires]

@lapieuvre
Thanks for sharing your experience.
Some nice people here helped me to find the issue.
But I agree that there is still a small difference.
In my case it is not with Logic, but Cubase/SoundForge vs Ableton. The audio interface is the Montage.
Since it is very small difference now, I'm happy enough to continue using Ableton because the workflow on Ableton is great.

[lapieuvre]

100 stems? what kind of music do you work on?

Live music, hard to say what style it is, a mix of rock, pop, world with full orchestra ( recorded)

It goes in Ableton live, 32 outputs, sound system with 80 speakers, a surround mapper to make the sound travel from any source. 3 to 8 piece band.

Lots of fun!!!

[lapieuvre]

@lapieuvre
Since it is very small difference now, I'm happy enough to continue using Ableton because the workflow on Ableton is great.

I totally agree. I just hope they keep improving their audio engine and export function, and I'll just be happier.

[andrepires]

100 stems? what kind of music do you work on?

Live music, hard to say what style it is, a mix of rock, pop, world with full orchestra ( recorded)

It goes in Ableton live, 32 outputs, sound system with 80 speakers, a surround mapper to make the sound travel from any source. 3 to 8 piece band.

Lots of fun!!!

I would like to see this live

[Da hand]

It goes in Ableton live, 32 outputs, sound system with 80 speakers, a surround mapper to make the sound travel from any source.

Very nice! Which space is that btw? I am curious because I also do projects in surround - mainly in a dome (Satosphere at the SAT) here in Montreal with 25.4 channels / 156 speakers, but also in other parts of the world

http://sat.qc.ca/fr/satosphere

[lapieuvre]

It goes in Ableton live, 32 outputs, sound system with 80 speakers, a surround mapper to make the sound travel from any source.

Very nice! Which space is that btw? I am curious because I also do projects in surround - mainly in a dome (Satosphere at the SAT) here in Montreal with 25.4 channels / 156 speakers, but also in other parts of the world

http://sat.qc.ca/fr/satosphere

On est du même endroit!

It's Cirque du Soleil

[Da hand]

It goes in Ableton live, 32 outputs, sound system with 80 speakers, a surround mapper to make the sound travel from any source.

Very nice! Which space is that btw? I am curious because I also do projects in surround - mainly in a dome (Satosphere at the SAT) here in Montreal with 25.4 channels / 156 speakers, but also in other parts of the world

http://sat.qc.ca/fr/satosphere

On est du même endroit!

It's Cirque du Soleil

Eh ben oui! Effectivement le même endroit
Very nice!

[lwpweb]

Since i tested guitar sounds and recording takes in logic pro x, i experienced logic has superiour sound quality compared to ableton10. I compared raw and especially guitar rig sounds in the domain of distortions. The recording of an guitar delivers not the same results by far. For me being aware of this since today i’m shocked. Will figure it out more in detail, but at least i’m getting very sensible to watch this.

[Tarekith]

If you recorded something in Live, make sure you turn off warping for that clip when you're doing sound quality comparisons.

[Shift Gorden]

It's also worth noting the recording level/output - if one is louder than the other, then it will naturally sound "better."

[jlgrimes]

Hi all!

I saw an statement in a closed Ableton forum saying that Ableton records audio as any other DAW or app available...
I don't think it is true. Somehow ABleton alters the sound quality when recording.
I say this because I tried hard to make Ableton to just sound as good as other apps and I was never able to do that.
In the same computer, which is a very powerful PC, I have Ableton, Cubase AI and Sound Forge installed.
All applications using default settings. For the test I recorded at 44.1, 512 samples.
I use Yamaha Montage as the audio interface and I also tried with Fantom G.
I also tried different audio drivers/devices, like ASIO4ALL and the ones provided by the manufacturers (Fantom G and Yamaha Steinberg).
When recording using either Cubase or Sound Forge, the sound is crystal clear as it is in the instruments. When recording with Ableton, it is not. Something happens to the quality of the audio.
I can also confirm that by just opening the wav file recorded in Ableton in Cubase and it sounds poorly. If I do the opposite (load a wav file recorded in Cubase in Ableton), it sounds perfectly.
I don't know how to solve the problem.
Ableton has everything I need for producing music, but this. I love the interface and the easiness of use, but unfortunately I cannot use only Ableton when recording audio and I'm forced to use other DAWs for the job...
This is frustrating because I lose the good dynamics of working with Ableton and have to adapt my mindset when switching from DAW to DAW, not to mention the unpleasant work of importing audio from one DAW to the other...
If you have anything that could help me solve this, please share.
Best regards,
Andre

Your audio interface does the conversion, Ableton is more of a sophisticated bean counter and sorter. The audio by the time Ableton sees it is digital and the recording process is transparent. That said there could be driver issues with Ableton but I would imagine playback would be affected as well and you would notice problems well before you record anything. I would think the problem likely fall into a few categories:


1. Warp settings (general rule, if you use complex or complex pro, it will alter your sound even without technically "warping" or changing the bpm. The other ones should be transparent until you actually warp something or change the tempo).

2. Pan Laws (different DAWs have different pan laws and could cause different DAWs to sound different (especially when panning). It only affects panning scaling and playback levels. Also certain DAWs can and do have level differences between them. It is not a sound quality issue, it is just a volume playback level issue. Usually people prefer the ones that play back louder as sounding better, but it is just a perception issue and not reality.

3. Driver and DAW issues. There actually could be an issue with Ableton not playing well with your audio card due to the audio card's driver. I wouldn't classify this as a sound quality issue but more of a bug. Make sure your drivers are up to date, what are you using by the way. I had an issue like this with Cakewalk Project 5 where audio played back barely audible. luckily I had to change a MSB or LSB setting in the audio setup and got it working (never had to worry about with any other DAW).