better sound through a firewire interface?

Bassilio · Post by **Bassilio** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 8:11 pm

So I'm new to this whole game and have been dabbling with ableton for about a month now.

Anyways, I'm highly unsatisfied with the sampling rate of my pathetic laptop's in-house soundcard. I'll make some muzak on live, then render it as a wave file. I noticed that when I do, I lose some of the attitude, effects, and subtleties of the original track, not to mention the fact that the volume is way low.

Question is, will buying a firewire audio interface make a difference? Or is that just for recording inputs into the computer? I basically just want to bypass the default soundcard and process sound through a better source[enter firewire interface]. GOAL: BETTER SOUND is that even possible or am i doomed with the mickey mouse soundcard currently residing in the ol' p4 notebook? yes i know, i probably need a new laptop, but for now I have about 3 hunj to drop. so i'm open to suggestions.

holla..

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 8:48 pm

I doubt the problem is with your sound card, no, firewire doesn't sound 'warmer' than USB. Even lowly 16 bit 44.1kHz material can sound amazing. It's more likely to be your monitors/headphones, your mp3 encoder and how you're using Live.

You did shave your balls, right? It's impossible to get good sound with a hairy sack, it interferes with the dynamics horribly.

Bassilio · Post by **Bassilio** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 9:00 pm

Thanks for the critique and subsequent hygiene advice. To be honest, I don't shave my balls. someone does it for me. you might actually know her. then again maybe not...

anyway, so if it's not my card what settings could i tweak in order to achieve the highest fidelity possible in my super amazing ableton live studio session extravaganza?

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 9:04 pm

List your gear.

The bitch who shaves my balls is named Nebulae, same person?

Bassilio · Post by **Bassilio** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 9:21 pm

haha...gear. what gear? i'm a headliner for amateur hour. i have a laptop and a pad kontrol. that's it. oh i have some super killer rad headphones too if that helps. they're shiny even. silver! (laptop is 2.4 ghz p4, 512 ram--maybe that's it?) cpu usage never really exceeds 30% with the shit i do.

i like to pretend i know how to use my technics mk5's every now and then but that's a different story altogether.

i've tweaked EQ up the wazoo and when i play it on live, the levels and effects are fine. but when rendered, it sounds like big fat ess. (wait, now that i think about it, might just be the bad music i make) haha.

PS never heard of Nebulae. i call my biznatch Roberta. she's trife.

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 9:37 pm

I think you just need to practice rendering tracks correctly, get the volume up. I don't know what you did so I can't help. Your computer will barely cut it running Live, eventually that will be a problem, or at least you'll have to trim down your sets.

Unless you make trance, then you definitely need an RME sound card and monster cable.

anti-banausic · Post by **anti-banausic** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 4:23 am

You could try resampling instead of rendering? Just create a new Audio track. Then set it to resample. This will bascially record exactly what you are hearing on the master out.

Rendering in LIVE can be a little niggling (from what I have read). I used to constantly record individual tracks due to not enough CPU, that has changed with my new Macbook, but I never got into rendering, and people have had issues with rendering in LIVE.

What is there to lose by resampling? A little time I think, and the fact that you can't select "normalize". But, you can do that later in an audio editor (audacity is free).

So, try resampling. I always liked it.

Best,
AB

Bassilio · Post by **Bassilio** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 2:21 pm

thanks. i'll def give resampling a whirl. stay tuned.

tone deft, u mentioned an RME soundcard. so let me get this straight, buying an external interface, like a fireface, would replace my on-baord soundcard as the primary device for sound?

if these questions seem lame and amatuerish, that's cuz I am a lame amateur so ur patronage is very much appreciated.

holla

anti-banausic · Post by **anti-banausic** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 4:11 pm

Bassilio wrote:thanks. i'll def give resampling a whirl. stay tuned.

tone deft, u mentioned an RME soundcard. so let me get this straight, buying an external interface, like a fireface, would replace my on-baord soundcard as the primary device for sound?

if these questions seem lame and amatuerish, that's cuz I am a lame amateur so ur patronage is very much appreciated.

holla

Yes, buying an external soundcard will by-pass the onboard soundcard. You will get much better quality delivering audio from programs to speakers, monitors, or headphones.

However, it won't affect the sound inside of LIVE, which is where your problem is it sounds. All things, like normalize, rendering, resampling are done inside LIVE's audio engine.

Best,
AB

method · Post by **method** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 5:12 pm

also worthwhile to note you can export in your choice of sampling rates.

freezes are 96khz i believe....

here's a few tricks:

freeze a track and then create a 2nd audio track, set to monitor in, and receive audio from frozen track. you can now add extra real-time automation to your frozen track.

you can alternatively go find the file under ..."project directory"/samples/processed/freeze/... and drop it into a new audio track.

i like method1 better personally...

@ anti-banausic: good tip! hadn't quite figured out how to use the resample feature. this is def. going to speed up my workflow

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 5:29 pm

Bassilio wrote:thanks. i'll def give resampling a whirl. stay tuned.

tone deft, u mentioned an RME soundcard. so let me get this straight, buying an external interface, like a fireface, would replace my on-baord soundcard as the primary device for sound?

if these questions seem lame and amatuerish, that's cuz I am a lame amateur so ur patronage is very much appreciated.

holla

Cool, we were all amateurs at one point, I like seeing new people get into Live.

RME was an example, an expensive example along with the sarcasm of monster cable (over priced, over kill), but RME is good shit.

I run ASIO4ALL and can use my internal and external sound cards at the same time, I can record winamp into Live that way too, or record YouTube audio. ASIO4ALL also lowers latency nicely.

Shop around, there's lots of stuff out there, avoid M Audio if you can, some people have no problems but they seem to be more problematic than most manufacturers. YMMV.

laird · Post by **laird** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 6:30 pm

I am confused about one thing:

You render your Live session to a .wav file, and suddenly it loses detail & volume?

Are you listening to this .wav file on the same soundcard?
Or are you rendering to .wav, burning it to a CD and playing that file on a good sound system? The latter would make sense.

yes, buying a good soundcard (firewire or USB) won't improve the sound Live is making, but it WILL greatly improve your ability to hear sound problems and fix them (better recordings is a seperate issue, and you already got it right)-- i.e. a better soundcard will increase your POTENTIAL for making Live sound good.

But, and here's the quandry-- if you are listening to a Live session, and listening to its rendered .wav file using the same soundcard/headphones, and you notice a difference bteween the two, then there is something else, something strange going on.

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 6:50 pm

I think that because his levels were low he had to crank it to hear the .wav, making it sound odd. Could be that some FX worked different at a lower level, dunno.

laird · Post by **laird** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 7:13 pm

Well, when you are listening to Ableton Live, you are listening to (up-to) a 32-bit file... even if you are recording at 16bits... but then when you render, you are rendering to a 16 bit .wav file...

so its not inconceivable that Ableton Live would sound better than a rendered .wav-- BUT

1) I thought that mainly affected the available hreadroom, meaning Live will sound fine while its rendered .wav file will clip.
2) hearing the differences between a 16-bit audio clip and a 32-bit clip would be, I think, difficult to do on a built-in laptop soundcard and (inexpensive?)heaphones. I'm guessing here, as I have never tried this... but that's what I'd imagine.

dancerchris · Post by **dancerchris** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 8:06 pm

Not if his levels were low and he was recording alot near the noise floor. When he converts to 16 bit he will lose clarity. If he's dumping out near 0db then there shouldn't be a difference. It's all in the mastering/mixing.