Post
by ilia » Mon Sep 03, 2007 1:30 am
to 3phase:
ok, I'm gonna try this.
I think most sane people will agree that as long we are talking about digital audio, same sequence of numbers sent to the same converters at the same sampling rate will produce the same sound (ok, during listening tests there will be changes in temperature, humidity, head position, and your hormonal balance, and you'll be a bit older during the second test, but it'd be pretty tough to hold Ableton accountable for that). So from here we can continue as follows:
1. you disagree with the above statement --> end of discussion
2. you agree --> then when you are hearing a difference in the way Live and another software are playing a particular file there must be some difference in what is being sent to your card's DA converters. You can then route the sound to your card's digital outs and record them digitally to another computer or DAT. This will bypass issues like rendering and platform/driver interaction and should give you the digital footprint of the output before it hits the converters. Compare these recordings (yes, phase cancellation).
a. If they are identical, then what you are hearing is purely psychological.
b. If they are different, then measure the relative volume of the residue. if it's below -130dB (compared to the original signal), than this might be the round-off error that Robert was talking about (although it shouldn't manifest itself when playing just one file). If you can hear that, you have very unusually sentisitive ears (or again, it's something psychological); this may or may not get fixed in the updates.
c. If the residue is significantly louder than that, then perhaps you stumbled upon something that Ableton need to take care of.
Doing these simple tests will likely convince most people on the board and push Ableton to do something about this if they show the difference. Otherwise it's mostly blowing hot air.
