Lets talk about sound baby

muthafunka · Post by **muthafunka** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 5:06 pm

Update:
Exported 3 files and compared lengths with original, Peak produced a file exactly the same length as the original, Live 1 sample longer and Quicktime Pro 3 samples shorter!!

Which all goes to show....?

drumroll57 · Post by **drumroll57** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 5:08 pm

fjolublar wrote:playing straight from comp at 24khz thru a soundcard that outputs the same bitrates makes a clearer sound, I brought in 16bit and mp3 cos thats the media "non-live" recordings usually end up on.

not much need to argue analog-digital, all comes down to preferance. . . A good analog eq connected to a 16bit 44khz output of a casual laptop can make mp'3 sound as warm as vinyl, in my experience, doesnt have to be much more complicated than that . . . unless one likes complex setups.

Please read slowly again what was posted above, and in my humble opinion: the bigger the system and the more you hear the difference. If you just play music in your living room, it has no bearing. An EQ, no matter how good, will never take ugly stairsteps out of the waveform.

- Vinyl is a very imperfect way of playing the music, but in a very strange manner, the waveforms are smooth and musical to the ear, especially in the upper frequencies, as well as the bottom end. You may think of its frequency response as limited, but there is no brick-wall nasty-ass digital filter to clip all of the harmonics, which can extend up to 40 or 60 kHz, and are significant not because they are directly heard, but how their waveforms create interference patterns with the audible ones. (think: throwing rocks in a pond)

-Digital has some very pronounced filtering effects, and horrendous stairsteps which are most apparent in those same upper frequencies. The digital format commonly used was developed 25 years ago, and designed for the limitations of that time. It is incredible no one has taken the music companies to court (for false advertising on their 'superior sound' marketing claims) over this.

fjolublar · Post by **fjolublar** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 5:46 pm

for me sound is sound, simple, for bigger systems I would think the clearest resulution would be prefferable and care taken not to distort the digital anywhere in the chain. I have on numerous occasion been asked by DJ's which "Phat Analog" synth I used in some songs, when in actuality it was a neon vsti with some cut in the upper frequency and lo-mid enhancements . . .

It comes down to fidelity of recording for clarity and selective frequncy ranges , not the equipment one chooses for performance . . .

ethios4 · Post by **ethios4** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 6:06 pm

i put the drum loop in Track 1 and set the input of Track 2 to "Master Out".
Things got weirder for me this morning... i performed the test with a breakbeat off a sample CD and was able to cancel it out with its phase-inverted Live copy. This, to me, would indicate that Live made a perfect recorded copy of the file. I performed the same test with different files at 44.1 and 48 kHz, as well as 16- and 24-bit depths. Almost all files cancelled out perfectly...except files where the Hi-Q switch was turned off, even though the sample-rate and bit-depth were the same as the settings in Live preferences and on the Control Panel for my soundcard, which is an M-Audio Audiophile 24/96 (the PCI version) in ASIO mode. In fact here's my specs...
PC : AMD 2600+ 512MB RAM 7200rpm HardDrives
Windows XP, Live 3.0.4, 48kHz 24bit
According to the Live manual, the Hi-Q setting only affects sample-rate conversions and bit-depth changes, but these files shouldn't have needed these conversions, so the Hi-Q setting shouldn't change anything. However, the phase-cancellation test would indicate that having the Hi-Q setting turned off does change the audio playback. So i'm a little confused now...
Well, the conclusion for me is that recording a file back into Live does not change the file at all.
For me, all these esoteric audio tests are for my personal learning and experimental fun. My enjoyment of Live is not affected by miniscule audio discrepancies or timing issues...Live is absolutely my favorite program, which is why its fun for me to learn more about its inner workings, and use it to learn more about digital audio. Again thats just me...

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 6:20 pm

your non cancelation if HQ is on on one track and off on the other one
is due to a 1 sample delay introduced by the HQ interpoation.

See my Test Results Post...

Robert
Ableton

Purple · Post by **Purple** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 6:29 pm

drumroll57,

I really do appreciate your advice about maximizing my audio chain in the quest for a better sound. I am very interested in all the best options for this, however I'm afraid that at the moment (after buying my laptop and RME convertor), I can hardly collect the cash for my next (modest) vinyl purchase (and know one thing: this I will *never* give up, even if I have to eat only computer chips for a week or two..), so I'm afraid all of this wonderful equipment will have to remain in my night dreams, at least until I manage to produce a hit single or win the lottery.

My second producer-friend didn't show up so I couldn't test it on another person.

So is it not possible to come to a concensus about the main question: if Live and Sound Forge do sound different playing back the same file, uneffected?

Purple · Post by **Purple** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 6:33 pm

Robert,

I would like to understand please: Do you say that what I experienced, ie different sound of the same file, *exact* same settings, between Live and Sound Forge, is impossible?

And if so - it means that there must be something different in the settings somehow somewhere?

creepjoint · Post by **creepjoint** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 6:55 pm

Kind of interesting topic,

on the point of the pitch shifting/more or less bits in the live rendered sound file someone here discovered. Should be pretty easy for everyone to hear if you carry out the same tests with a plain sine wave. If there is a change in pitch/number of bits there should be some beating caused by the interaction of the original and the Live rendered file due to phase differences.

Also, anyone bothered to forget their ears and actually use some analysis software??

Hope a definate conclusion comes from all this banter

(Dont have Live yet but looking forward to getting it next week)

bensuthers · Post by **bensuthers** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 10:52 pm

hey if you don't like it, don't use it.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 11:52 pm

drumroll57 wrote: -Digital has some very pronounced filtering effects, and horrendous stairsteps which are most apparent in those same upper frequencies.

Hoo boy. Back to digital school for you

There are NO stairsteps. Please go read the Nyquist theorem and come back when you understand that the output of a DAC has NO STAIRSTEPS.

As for filtering, there are no perfect filters so of course there can be some audible effects of the filtering. Some cheaper converters in the past have been particularly bad in this regard. However, one of the benefits of higher sampling rates is that the filters move up higher, beyond the audible range so that the negative side-effects of the filtering are minimized. So very high-end converters with well implemented filters can sound good at 44k while newer cheap 96k converters can sound pretty good too because the deficiencies in the filters are not as noticable.

muthafunka · Post by **muthafunka** » Fri Jun 11, 2004 1:25 am

Purple, message me and I'll give you an address to send the files to, I'd be interested to hear a/ how good your recordings are and b/ if I can hear the discrepancies too. As I said in my post, I couldn't detect any audible difference across conversion in 3 apps.

cathochic · Post by **cathochic** » Fri Jun 11, 2004 1:47 am

Go to Options -> Preferences -> Audio in Acid to find the audio driver and check to see what it is. It's called audio device type.

Purple · Post by **Purple** » Fri Jun 11, 2004 3:10 am

cathochic,

Thanks. I do know how to find the driver in Acid. My question was about Sound Forge, do you know?

muthafunka,

Thanks, I'll do that tomorrow because it's early morning here and I have to get some sleep!

Guesto · Post by **Guesto** » Fri Jun 11, 2004 3:59 am

"The human ear can definitely tell the difference. The bigger the sound system, the more they are magnified and apparent in A/B testing.
Go ask Jeff Mills, Derrick May, Carl Cox, Joe Claussell, Harvey, David Mancuso, and many others why they prefer to play the vinyl? It just sounds much more pleasant, warm and musical in a club. "

I've DJ'd with Live on various club systems from small to large including some of the very best sound systems such as Yellow in Japan. Of course the sound quality is different to vinyl - but I don't care, its good enough... with what I do with Live it really doesn't matter... it just rocks the crowd... hell what you gonna do? drag around your own pair of Linn Sondek's to every gig and play only audiophile half-speed masters?

I know plenty of big DJ's who still play vinyl only (including some of those you mention) and with the greatest respect with some DJ's its as much that they can't be assed to learn a software package like Live or invest the time needed to prepare audio files/loops for usage in Live as much as a love of vinyl... of course - some of them just prefer vinyl - as much for the psychological 'feel' as well as sound quality. (I'd love to see Harvey doing some of his 're-edits' on the fly with Live).

The only negative comments I've ever had about using Live at my gigs were from smaller bedroom DJ's who've spent years getting their mixing skills perfected only to feel threatened by the open-endedness of a program like Live which eliminates that technical aspect of DJ'ing. Instead Live tests your skills of reading the crowd in other ways: re-editing & re-arranging tracks on the fly, mixing together more disparate genres due to Live's extreme beat matching capabilities, learning how to control your fx & plug-in usage, introducing serious sound mangling instead of the usual generic DJ mixer effects, mixing 3,4,5,6 tracks/loops at once without it sounding a stupid mess, etc, etc.

For every vinyl only DJ there are plenty of DJ's using laptops (Claude Young, Francois K, Steve Bug, Richie Hawtin, etc)... and they certainly know everything about sound quality and the 'feel' of vinyl... don't get so hung up on the sound issues (all this talk about 96k, etc - c'mon, a lot of those beats are crunchy 12 or even 8 bit samples -who cares?).

A few DJ mates of mine (all well-known pro's in the UK) knew I was using Live to DJ and asked me to give them a demo. They were all impressed - but most of them still said they would stick to vinyl - comments ranged from 'can't be bothered to learn it', 'haven't got time to record all my new 12"'s into the computer' to 'not spending £3k on a laptop setup when I can just throw a bunch of records in a box'... DJ's huh?

Purple · Post by **Purple** » Fri Jun 11, 2004 10:25 am

Guesto,

You make some great points, which I absolutly agree with. You might remember from our talk in that DJ thread a couple of months ago how much I do think in similar lines, and I thought this even before ever trying Live, just reading about it and realizing the potential.

Still, I feel I am being attacked here by a few people for caring so much about small details, and I maintain that you can be an open minded DJ who understands the wonderful benefits and freedom of digital and still be very perfectionist about the sound quality, and try your best to be as close to vinyl as possible in that respect. It is not a contradiction. I want to make sure I made all my best efforts to sound as good as I possibly can.

And regarding "a lot of those beats are crunchy 12 or even 8 bit samples", it was explained earlier in this thread why that doesn't really mean they don't sound different via vinyl and can benefit from the highest bit depth and sample rate recording.

But as I said before, no matter how much will I be able to solve my problem of sound, I will give Live a try and see if I can live with the compromise on the long run. But before I do that I just want to make sure I did whatever I can to make it sound best.

BTW - I didn't know Francois K. uses a laptop for DJing, do you know what program does he use?

Lets talk about sound baby

Acid Driver