Samplitude user disses Live as 'shit for mixing in' at GS

[leedsquietman]

OK. I agree that name calling in infantile and apologize. Diskowipe I take it back and I'm sorry for name calling.

Let's try and conduct the debate with a bit more intelligence. Passion is certainly high and we have some contrasting views, but we should not resort to juvenile behaviour and I'm guilty of it so I apologize.

This is better than TV - Jerry Springer - Ableton Live Forum edition rated XXX

[Tarekith]

I love these threads, almost as much as I love gearslutz.

[Johnisfaster]

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[shatzer]

I just read through 9 pages of crap. 9 pages of people telling diskowipe to show proof and all he can do is ignore it and give you a link to what someone else said. I assume that since you agree with these people that you did your own tests, and if you did your own tests you would have these to post up as physical proof right? Or did you just believe what the internet told you?
I don't give 2 shits or a fuck if youre the most famous person alive in music, I'm still not going to believe it unless there is physical proof; not a statement made at some stupid website. Biased opinions are everywhere. You've ignored every post asking for proof. If you don't care about changing people's minds or backing up your statements then go away and quit posting. Because I'm sure none of these guys here give a shit about what you have to say until you properly prove your point.
Sorry for the ranting, its nothing personal but I just read through 9 pages of crap. Yes, that was my choice, but fuck my ass. Show some damn proof. I don't disagree or agree and honestly I don't give a crap. I just don't like people not being able to back the shit up.
Thank you.

[q.musgrove]

"Yeah, and if you ever come back... we'll kill you!"

-The Lion King

[diskowipe]

Analog summing always sounds better than digital summing.

absolutely incorrect

[Machinesworking]

what's weird is the Apple people, even with overall stability with Live. identical hardware, same OS, largely the same software installed, totally different experiences.

Digital Performer syncs perfectly with the DSI Evolver step sequencer here on a mac, Live does not. It's possible (but doubtful) I guess for it to be a Live/Mac issue? DP has more choices on how to send Beat Clock, though I don't think that matters.

[Khazul]

It is intriging that so many accomplished audio heads have a problem with mixing down in Live so it's something to consider. You notice they don't say anything about writing or performing in Live.

Im allways caught between being too lazy (and unsure of my sounds) to export everything and mix elsewhere and my general annoyance at the lack of an actual normal looking mixer in Live. Granted, other DAWs are not much better from the point of view of having nicely laid out channel strips with everything you generally want, but they are generally more pleasent from a UI perpective to mix with - often better meters, sometimes convenience of controls in one place and mostly that you dont have to keep switching views to see it!

In an ideal world for me, DAWs would have plugin mixers (not just plugin fx, instruments etc), then I could have my ideal create and arrange workflow in Live *AND* have my preferred (from UI, workflow and sound perpectives) software mixer in Live as well.

I gues in the VST3 world there is probably nothing to stop someone from creating a 32 channel SSL console model plugin for example - its ironic in some ways that Live is probably about the only DAW whos audio routing is flexible enough to cope with such a plugin... Hmmm - maybe my first proper M4L project a decent mixer experience for Live

[anybody human]

Analog summing always sounds better than digital summing.

absolutely incorrect

I thought the context was obvious as I mentioned Black Lion Audio's analog summing mixer in that post. I was implying quality analog summing vs. any DAW's digital summing. Which is absolutely correct. Go search gearsluts for that, see what you find. There are inherent artifacts in all DAW's digital summing engines. Ask a mastering engineer. Sorry, I was with you up until then, atleast open to your points but you really gave yourself away with that pithy stumble.

Edit: because digital is subject to digital errors as it tries to blah blah why bother even I've tired of this thread click.

[Tarekith]

Cue my favorite Roger Nichols article:

"I heard the mixing buss in Pro Tools is no good. Everyone says I should mix through an external analogue summing buss."

Someone asked Al Schmitt how he mixed a record. Al answered "I just turn the knobs until it sounds good." You can't argue with that.

The first thing I had to learn about audio engineering was signal flow. You have to know how to get the audio signal from the microphone to the recorder and back to the speakers so you can hear what you are doing. The second item is gain structure. At any point in the signal path you have to keep the signal higher than the noise floor but lower than the point of clipping and distortion. Everything else is going to be easy. Just twist the knobs.

Every console is designed to add signals together before they come out as finished mix. It is called a mix because the individual tracks are mixed together. I rather fancy the English term 'two-track reduction': it is being reduced from 24 tracks to two tracks.

Physical consoles usually have a stereo mix buss 'summing amp' for each group of eight modules. These summing amps then feed another summing amp connected to the master output module. During the mixing process the master fader is turned all the way up. As individual tracks are turned up their audio is heard through the master fader and the level is registered on the main output meters. As more and more audio channels are introduced to the mix, the overall master level starts getting high, so the master fader is turned down a little to compensate. This work flow proceeds in a loop until the mix is getting pretty far along.

At some point the engineer looks at the gain structure of the mix he has going on the console. He has learned that by running the individual faders high and pulling down the master fader he runs the risk of overdriving the summing amps with too much level and adding distortion to the final mix. The engineer will trim down all of the track faders by 6dB or some similar amount so that the master fader can be brought back up to zero.

This method has worked for decades to keep the audio quality as high as possible while remaining within the limits of the console's design, but for some reason engineers ignore this procedure when mixing inside a DAW (digital audio workstation). When asked why they don't perform this requisite task the answer is always "It's digital, you don't have to do that." All of the 78 track faders are up near zero and the master fader by now is down to -40dB. Soon the engineer starts to complain about how gritty and distorted digital sounds.

How do they fix it? They connect the DAW to a console. At the console they either trim down the inputs or pull down the track faders to prevent the summing amps from clipping, and they make sure that the master fader is all the way up. "Hear how much better the mix sounds through a console?"

Sound familiar? I know all of you have run across this situation from one end or the other. The smart guys who saw this wanton disregard for gain structure quickly designed 'outboard analogue summing boxes', charged a lot of money (because it can't be good if it doesn't cost enough), and made a fortune. Good for them. Too bad I didn't think of it.

Because Pro Tools was the most visible professional DAW, Digidesign took the brunt of the criticism. "Man, I can't mix inside Pro Tools, their internal mixer sucks." Although there were tons of good-sounding records made and mixed in Pro Tools by engineers who knew how to turn down a fader, the majority of the forums on the Web hosted tons of complaints. "It shouldn't do that, it's digital."

Digidesign have updated their internal mixer to 48-bit. This means that you can mix 128 faders at +12dB with the master fader down to -90dB without overdriving the internal mixing buss. There will not be much room for a final fade, but at least Pro Tools is now being idiot-proofed. Me, I prefer to watch what I am doing and trim all of my faders down so that my master fader stays at zero. It has worked for me since the '60s and continues to work for me in whatever digital DAW I mix in.

PS: Just so you know, I do tell my clients that "I only mix on dual 64-bit processors with a 48-bit mixer fed by 16 gigabytes of memory and an on-line RAID5 disk array of 8 terabytes and a 15 gigabit-per-second fibre-optic Internet connection. You do hear the difference, don't you?"

[shatzer]

Cue my favorite Roger Nichols article:

PS: Just so you know, I do tell my clients that "I only mix on dual 64-bit processors with a 48-bit mixer fed by 16 gigabytes of memory and an on-line RAID5 disk array of 8 terabytes and a 15 gigabit-per-second fibre-optic Internet connection. You do hear the difference, don't you?"

lol. Hell, most musicians wouldn't be able to tell you the difference between a Neuman or a Radio Shack Mic little alone the specs on a computer. Even dumb ass producers think they know stuff.....for example, (producer talking to engineer) "I would like to ride that fader on the guitar track." Engineer says "ok, sure" As he attaches (dummy fader) so the stupid producer doesn't mess anything up. "Yes, that sounds a lot better" Says the producer. Even tho he was using a dummy fader. Gotta love em.

[evernaut]

^^^ Great post Tarekith.

It's a shame that this very point, this crucial piece of information is overlooked so very often.

Even now, I'll bet people read it and go, 'well, yeah...but you don't have to do any of that in Live and it's because Live's summing sucks that it sounds crap'....and so on and etc. etc etc.

[leedsquietman]

Good analog practices, such as leaving headroom and keeping track faders below the master fader still apply in the digital domain. (Gannon Kashiwa, digidesign head of marketing quoted from the mixing engineer's handbook 2nd edition by Bobby Owsinski).

Ignoring this, ignoring the effects of warping modes and stretching certain transient rich sounds heavily (esp in a mode like beats), is one of the main reasons why Live developed a negative attitude and people found it necessary to go to a 'traditional' DAW such as PT, Logic, Cubase etc. People didn't take this warping little audio tweakbox seriously and along with Reason and FL Studio, considers to suffer from being considered a second class DAW. I think the majority of us here, whether we agree on whatever theory or not, ought to feel comfortable and confident that if you have some experience and skills, that you ought to be able to get a decent sounding product in Live.

[kb420]

Cue my favorite Roger Nichols article:

Great post. This is why I said the Abes should release their own "How to get the most out of your Live mix" video tutorial. Some people are soo ready to blame Live for the fact that they haven't truly mastered the Art of digital mixing.

[morbid]

To summarise....

my dads bigger than your dad

I dont get the problem - its like using NS10's to mix on - if you get it sounding good in Live then even if you can percieve a difference in sound with other DAWs then your mix is gonna sound better anyway if and when you do export it over.