Live vs. Pro Tools vs. Logic: Can you tell the difference?

frahnque · Post by **frahnque** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 9:49 am

From a fast listen to it on my shitty speakers I cannot tell the difference, however it seems that if I listen to Track 1 and 2 at the same time and phase invert one of them there's no difference (i.e. dead silent output), but track 1 & 3 (phase inverting one of them) gives differences which are not supposed to be there (you have to amplify it quite a bit though to hear it).

Timur · Post by **Timur** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 10:57 am

Can Protools or Logic use dithering/noise shaping and has it been used when boucing the track? That should be the only perceiveable difference then as far as the sum is concerned. I assume that AU/VST plugins always transmit the same data/signal to whatever host is used!?

Jonny Pancake · Post by **Jonny Pancake** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 12:03 pm

i can hear diffrences in the low end 1 has less bass 2 has bit more 3 has the most i would say

1 is live

3 sounded the best to my ears.i like bass u know hehe!

raw · Post by **raw** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 2:31 pm

hello,

No differences for me...

joewes · Post by **joewes** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 2:42 pm

frahnque wrote:if I listen to Track 1 and 2 at the same time and phase invert one of them there's no difference (i.e. dead silent output)

Jonny Pancake wrote:i can hear diffrences in the low end 1 has less bass 2 has bit more

That's the proof we've been searching for: the human ear is better than math!

Jörg

hoffman2k · Post by **hoffman2k** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 2:50 pm

I say its the same file copied and renamed twice.

hoffman2k · Post by **hoffman2k** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 2:53 pm

Exact amount of bytes. Creation date between file 1 and 3 off by a minute.

Carbon copies and you didn't even bother to hurry renaming them :p

sparklepuff · Post by **sparklepuff** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 3:17 pm

hoffman2k wrote:Exact amount of bytes. Creation date between file 1 and 3 off by a minute.

Carbon copies and you didn't even bother to hurry renaming them :p

Sherlock Homeboy ftw!

mohler · Post by **mohler** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 3:36 pm

I loaded them all into logic, looped them and I can't tell the difference!!!

Nah, At 5am this morninglistening on cans I couldn't really pick them apart, it'll have to wait till I can fire them through my Genelecs down the studio.

Straight up 2+3 sound the most similar both are a little softer than 1, which looses some of the transients so I don't like it. Still undecided on which I'd vote for

Any way serious listen later.

Perhaps the creation date was on loading it to the webserver???

laird · Post by **laird** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 3:55 pm

hoffman2k wrote:I say its the same file copied and renamed twice.

And they all seem to start a hair late.

laird · Post by **laird** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 4:06 pm

hoffman2k wrote:Exact amount of bytes. Creation date between file 1 and 3 off by a minute.

Carbon copies and you didn't even bother to hurry renaming them :p

This is just good science.

As a biologist, I know that experiments done in the morning do not always turn out the same as ones done in the afternoon. Animals have circadian rhythms that affect their basic metabolism, and they can respond very differently at different times of day. I see no reason why computers would behave differently.

Having the exact same number of bytes also controls for the well known fact that more bits is better. We all know 32 bits is better than 24 bits is better than 16 bits. So having a file lengths off by just 8 bits can make a huge difference!

Bravo, I nominate the OP for the NObel Prize in Electronic Music!

hacktheplanet · Post by **hacktheplanet** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 6:02 pm

laird wrote: Bravo, I nominate the OP for the NObel Prize in Electronic Music!

I nominate you for the prize in Butthole Science.

Take your prize and shove it, slick.

mohler wrote: Perhaps the creation date was on loading it to the webserver???

Bingo.

mohler · Post by **mohler** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 10:14 pm

the_planet wrote:
mohler wrote: Perhaps the creation date was on loading it to the webserver???
Bingo.

Nice, thanks! & thanks for the aural challenge.

tylenol · Post by **tylenol** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 11:11 pm

xrayfish wrote:
tylenol wrote:
timothyallan wrote:FYI they should all null-cancel each other if you did the test correctly.
(they do, and in fact the files are bit for bit identical according to diff)
They do cancel each other perfectly, so they must be identical.

Well, I was expecting there to be some difference in some kind of metadata or structure or something that wouldn't affect the sound. The format at least in principle allows for all sorts of non-audio chunks, I was expecting there to at least be an "encoded in pro tools" part. But perhaps applications don't actually use this metadata (more likely they all use the same bsd license library for writing aif or something.) (Or perhaps they are just copies of the same file...)

corygilbert · Post by **corygilbert** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 12:01 am

1 felt smoother between the lower freqs to the mids.
2 I felt was the worst, a little dry and with less roundness in the bottom, although a bit more punchy.
3 felt very similar to 1, although somewhat more brittle.

Live vs. Pro Tools vs. Logic: Can you tell the difference?

Which render sounds the best?