live audio engine ? recording acoustic stuffs ?

isham · Post by **isham** » Fri Dec 29, 2006 12:42 am

Hello,

I was wondering if we take the same parameters (audio soundcard, converters, sample/bit rate, source, preamp, mic...) an acoustic recording can be as good in live 6 as in samplitude ?
What are the details about live 6 audio engine , can't find these informations...
thanks a lot for your feedbacks, opinions

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franknputer · Post by **franknputer** » Fri Dec 29, 2006 12:43 am

Turn off Warp mode for your tracks & it'll be fine.

isham · Post by **isham** » Fri Dec 29, 2006 8:41 am

thanks a lot for your reply,
do you know where can we find the ableton audio engine tech. specifities ?
so I can compare (on the paper) them with other DAW..

alvarog · Post by **alvarog** » Fri Dec 29, 2006 8:48 am

Hi, i remember a post where someone posted some chart stuff when comparing Live and Cubase SX audio quality signal, it seemed that the results where almost identical in both DAWs... i recommend to use the search button. Otherwise, i guess you can email abletons. Sorry for mi bad english.

isham · Post by **isham** » Fri Dec 29, 2006 9:15 am

excellent, I will do a search as well, thanks a lot !

Michael-SW · Post by **Michael-SW** » Fri Dec 29, 2006 10:58 am

When recording stuff, the audio engine is totally irrelevant. Your soundcard is doing everything. It is converting the incoming audio to digital ones and zeroes. Your application is only storing that data into a file. You might as well record into Windows Sound Recorder - the result will be the same.

leedsquietman · Post by **leedsquietman** » Fri Dec 29, 2006 4:33 pm

There is a lot of argument about this topic - one camp is adamant that the software is not responsible for the 'sound' that it is down to mics and audio equipment/converters/ etc. Then another camp is adamant that DAWS summing busses can affect the overall sound quality. Much debate at cubase.net.

What I know is this...That pan law settings can affect this (don't know what they are on Live as I'm new to it) but are often set differently in different DAWS. This can lead to a small difference and Samplitude is consistently regarded as having a certain 'something extra' in it's sound - however, on raw unprocessed data using no plug-ins the results should be very, very similar. Certain DAWS such as Logic and Samplitude have particularly good inbuilt audio fx/processing plug-ins out of the box which I'm sure leads to this reputation - however, both of these DAWS cost significantly more because of it (300 dollars more than Cubase, 550 dollars more than Live etc) ...

I think there is also a placebo affect - Samplitude has always had a good reputation for it's audio capabilities, whereas Logic, Cubase and Sonar were initially all MIDI only programs who evolved into adding audio, so people often assume Samp is superior. It's users are fanatical and will fight you to the death if you dare suggest otherwise, so I would not consider their comments objective.

Live 6 sounds fine to me. I've read a couple of reports that say it's summing bus on rendering is not as good as x,y or z traditional DAW but really I have found it to be totally acceptable - I would not say it's better than any other trad. DAW but I would certainly suggest it's as good or better than ACID, FL or stuff like Reaper etc.

Having said all of this, I typically mix in Cubase and master with Soundforge, just because I prefer Cubase's mixer and am so familiar with Soundforge. ALthough I have done mixes and mastered songs in Live and they sounded just fine to me.

isham · Post by **isham** » Fri Dec 29, 2006 7:57 pm

hi all,

I found this interesting quote from an other forum (on gearslutz.com)-->

"I don't know if anyone is really shocked if DAWs sound different, at least, I'm not. They all have different ways of storing data...32-bit, 64-bit, fixed point, floating point, blah, blah, blah. Given these differences are we all that surprised that they sound different?"

you can find the topic here --> http://gearslutz.com/board/showthread.p ... dio+engine

Michael-SW · Post by **Michael-SW** » Fri Dec 29, 2006 11:28 pm

That quote from gearslutz is bullshit. Almost all modern DAWs use the same format internally: 32 bit floating point. The exception is ProTools which uses 48 bits fixed point. If that makes any difference (better, worse or none) no one knows.

As for STORING data (ie. audio files) that is usually determine by the user, not the DAW. 16 bits, 44.1 KHz, 24 bits, 192 KHz etc is a setting made by you, usually made to match what format you record in.

leedsquietman · Post by **leedsquietman** » Sat Dec 30, 2006 12:32 am

Sonar and Tracktion both have 64 bit floating point engines...

headquest · Post by **headquest** » Sat Dec 30, 2006 9:23 am

FWIW, I have both Sonar and Tracktion, and have the 64-bit mix engine enabled. I personally cannot percieve that they offer *better* audio fidelity. In fact, I find it easier to get the mix I am after in Live than in either of those programmes.

In the case of Sonar I suspect that is due to me overusing the effects (excellent though they are). In passing I would say that Sonar is an outstanding and powerful program, but unnecessarily fiddly and it has some odd quirks that I found offputting. I have tried using version 5 Producer Edition for the last year or so since it came out, and jhave now decided to *retire* it completely.

In the case of Tracktion I have always found that I can get the mix I am after quite easily. As a programme in general though it needs more development, and I am looking forward to the new features promissed for version 3 when it comes out in the next month or so.

In the case of Live, it is important that if you want the best straightforward accoustic audio recording, you follow the previous advice of switching off the Warp modes. Having done that IMHO the software is capable of excellent audio results and pristine mixing.

I hope that helps, but once again, this is just my experience as a musician using all three programmes, and not something I have tested in a scientific way.

eyeknow · Post by **eyeknow** » Sat Dec 30, 2006 10:02 am

seriously, there are differences. It's a fact, and since everybody has different hearing abilities, it will always be a big debate.

I'm not a coder, so I can't give the ones/zeros of the deal but think of digital recording as analog.....there are certain signal flows and such. The way things flow is as much a matter of sound as the type of plugs/preamps and so on used.

Logic pro; this is the software i use for shit I have to give to clients. Why? Cause it has the SICKEST pdc! I can use bass/guitar and have aux/bus stuff with verbs/comps/q's/etc and there is no real latency side-effect. Live is NOT like that, even though it is a fine daw. Clearly, there is something that is under the hood that is taking care of that. However, there is a certain funky mixing issue I hear.....it's not something I can put my finger on.....I am CERTAIN it's a panning law issue. But, that's logic. It's so deep I would beleive I could spend YEARS with this thing and not understand it!

Live; has EXCELLENT sound quality. It is fantastic for recording quickly, and effeciently.....with deep freeze....well, it dope! I can record little bass parts, edit them loop wise, and get things DOWN in a hurry! But, put one of my URS plug in the bus and try to do what I do with logic.......FORGET IT! I hear phase (latency) issues...it's an under-the-hood thing. Not surprising actually, audio is fairly new in live and frankly, it wasn't originally made for that anyways. THUMBS UP to the abes for having a nice clean path originally......we'll get the pdc for the busses going later

Tracktion; Since tracktion has been mentioned, I must say......64 bit/64 "shmit". Whatever, for my ears.......I cannot even do a simple mix in tracktion. It's dull, lifeless, and adding plugs to comensate seems to provide an "eh" factor at best. As opposed to logice pro where the same fx/plug cause a WOW OH-MY-GAWD effect! btw, it's not the level thing cause I have all my templates at a -3db (as should you all) for initial setups.

PT (mpowered for me, but I've been doing some hd stuff with a colleuge lately) As far as the le/mpowered version is concerned, ya gotta say it's "crisp" It has tremedous setbacks as well as phenominal plusses.....but the one thing that is certain for all formats is it's "crisp". There is a certain way things "sit" in mixes, without allot of tweaking that is why it's the industry standard. And, if you get a chance to do hd/tdm.........omfg! latency.....what latency? There is a reason why that system costs so much more and why a huge chunk of music/studios use it.

Samplitude; My use here is limited, what I can say is this. IF you are on a PC and IF you have the money burning a hole in your wallet......consider it. It's rival would be logic pro in fx/pdc/etc.....for the pro who has to do pallets of different flavors....this could be the one. The only thing I don't know about is if it's like logic in that you can do separate mono rendering and such for pt comatibility and if that has the "offline" like logic. PT is only realtime.......did I see something that samplitude is the same?

Sonar; Well, It's been a while for me on this (switched to mac/stability issues) It was fine as far as audio quality......although I've heard nuendo's audio engine is 20-40 percent better

(that never get's old!) 6 looks decent, but it wasn't that long ago it was considered bloat-ware. What does that have to do with sound? I have no clue! But I needed a way to add sonar into this thing.....

isham · Post by **isham** » Sat Dec 30, 2006 1:19 pm

thanks for your input guys, yes it's an endless debate (it's always end by big fights on forum and I don't wanna go this way

What are the ableton spec about floating points ?

is ableton "only"able to record 24 bit (I know it's possible to record till 192 khz)

Michael-SW · Post by **Michael-SW** » Sun Dec 31, 2006 1:15 am

Live is able to record whatever your soundcard throws at it. I always record in 24 bits (which probably is more like 20 bits, given the limitations of A/D converters). Once again, recording isn't really done by your DAW. All the work is done by your hardware. The DAW simply saves the digital information in a file.

Mixing/summing/processing is done in your DAW, so that might cause some debate (although 90+% is bullshit) but recording isn't really an issue.

Tarekith did a pretty concusive summing test in Cubase SX 3 and Live BTW. The results were exactly the same. The final mixes cancelled each other when one was reversed in phase.