can't believe - does reason really sound better than live?

ultrasonyk · Post by **ultrasonyk** » Wed Feb 13, 2008 4:00 pm

hi all,

horrifying news:

i've tested 2 setups:

-ableton live with impulse and a given set of drumsounds
-reason 4 (3 too) with the same given sounds
-reason 4 (3 too) with the same given sounds in rewire with ableton

1. doesn't sound very powerful. needs lots of compression to get good sound.
2. sounds much more powerful without any effect or compressor
3. sounds as weak as the first setup. needs again a lot of compression to
get the sound as in the reason standalone setup.

what the f**k ? is live's audio engine really that weak? do you
really wanna say that reason sounds that good? i always thought that
live is professional software. but when it needs 10+ effects to get the powerful sounds - which another noob-a-like software can do without any
effect....well no comment.

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Wed Feb 13, 2008 4:06 pm

what monitors do you use?

koneko · Post by **koneko** » Wed Feb 13, 2008 4:06 pm

1. not sure what you mean by "powerful sound"
2. "powerful sound" = professional ?

is it possible that Live is more dynamic? maybe gives more headroom ..?

hoffman2k · Post by **hoffman2k** » Wed Feb 13, 2008 4:07 pm

Maybe next time you could test it with some more care. Off course its going to sound weak in Impulse. It only has a 10 second linear decay.
Try Drum Racks so the samples are played from Simplers with an opened release.

Funny you managed to squeeze "horrifying" "Professional" and "noob-a-like" in such a short post.

We need more creativity like that around here.

In case you missed the gazillion other posts claiming Live's audio engine is worse then others: Watch out for LeisureMuffin!!

willdahbe · Post by **willdahbe** » Wed Feb 13, 2008 4:15 pm

Are you sure you didnt have the mastering rack enabled at the top of reason? Kinda easy to forget sometimes that its floating around up there.

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Wed Feb 13, 2008 4:17 pm

Yeah, it's impossible to compare the two apps like this, totally different signal chains. Heck, fundamentally different.

laird · Post by **laird** » Wed Feb 13, 2008 4:39 pm

something is definitely "weak".

Beatport · Post by **Beatport** » Wed Feb 13, 2008 4:52 pm

lets just throw scientific method completely out the window and say Reason automatically sounds better than anything else.

Geeeesh!

tjwett · Post by **tjwett** » Wed Feb 13, 2008 4:52 pm

just off the top of my head:

the default Reason rack has the default "MClass Mastering Suite" Combinator at the top of every rack.

could this be what you are hearing?

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Wed Feb 13, 2008 4:55 pm

tjwett wrote:just off the top of my head:

the default Reason rack has the default "MClass Mastering Suite" Combinator at the top of every rack.

could this be what you are hearing?

this guy doesn't know what he's hearing.

I want to hear the troll describe its setup.

$10 says it starts with "I have a pair of sweet M Audio monitors."

nq · Post by nq » Wed Feb 13, 2008 5:21 pm

i'd say it'S exactly the opposite.
live sounds quite dynamic, while reason sounds squashed and with not that much headroom, when using just the default mixer-settings

ultrasonyk · Post by **ultrasonyk** » Wed Feb 13, 2008 5:32 pm

Ok, listen up. My monitors are a pair of senheiser headphones.

No doubt - if i had bad monitors - reason would sound as bad too,
so f**k that hazzles about my monitors.

i do NOT have the mastering suite in reason enabled.

i'm not starting a "what is better" thread. i'm just making
conclousions after a few tests and yes i still know that live is very good
software. that's why i'm curious about my test results.

thanks to all the constructive replies. and maybe it's all up to me
and i'm unable to setup my sound studio. and with powerful sound i
just mean that what it says. the opposite of weak one. take basic
4/4 drumkit and pump it up with compressor. the result is powerful.
the raw drumkit before fx's is weak...

again my question: why do i need to add a lot of effects in a chain
in live before getting a sound, which reason can do without any effect
and only 1 single instrument - the redrum

and NO i'm not a reason lover. i'm a dedicated live user and i hate
the structure of reason. otherwise i would have never touched live.
reason just sounds better. no doubt.

laird · Post by **laird** » Wed Feb 13, 2008 5:37 pm

you gotta add all those effects because you think louder is better?

Do a search for "sounds better than Live" here, and you'll find countless threads where someone says what you are saying, without proof, and a bunch of folks pipe in 50 reasons why Live might sound different than another program.

I think most folks here are gonna assume User Error until you can illustrate otherwise. Saying "i did it the same" doesn't count as proof.

Since you are on headphones, I'm gonna hazard a guess: the different pan-laws could be causing Live to sound different than Reason.

laird · Post by **laird** » Wed Feb 13, 2008 5:39 pm

This sorta test is an important test to do, but don't jump to conclusions and blame your tools. If it leads to better understanding of your tools, you win.

edit: heh heh, I just told you to understand your tool.

bgc · Post by **bgc** » Wed Feb 13, 2008 5:48 pm

Tweaking and adjusting and getting to know your tools is what it is all about. Really, at some point, you just have to maybe pick two or three and get down to business. You can basically do all the same stuff anyway, if you really try. If you are really into Live, just stay there and work with it. It will do what you want. It might not all work out of the box, but that is part of the fun.