Ableton Forum

dbfs wrote:And people wonder why theres always people who bitch about the sound quality of live.. This would absolutely start to make your mix phasy and sound like shit... The more plugs you get rolling, the worse it starts to sound.. This has been going on for ages with this program.

But were all still crazy and need to go clean our ears out and do the quadrupal blind test.

I love live, but honestly, with this many bugs with such senstive audio data, I don't know how any of you defend this program and its sound quality. I guess fanboys will be fanboys...

yeah, i was quasi insulted when i defended 3phaze on the fact live had not the accuracy and sound quality of other daw.
Anybody including fanboys can clearly prove it by themself by the above tests in 5mn.

Simply clips Modulations, arrange Automations and device Sync timer are not latency compensated in any way, wich is the simple fact of live legendary 'imagined' elastic timing and sound accuracy wich certainly affects the sound more than one can imagine, at least results in bad hearable unwanted things compared to properly working adc. messed attacks, offseted and out of sync rytmic fx, and potential phasing effect just to name few of them that certainly make your way harder to get 'musical' results.
somebody tells me how im supposed to draw my clips modulations if i automate a device and the result appears in audio 100ms later than how it is represented on the wavform? we zoom and make our cuts a 1.24567 by disabling grid instead of 1.1? mmmm
people just put tracks at 0db in each daws and say they cancel, so daws are all the same, oh yeah...
this won't happen if you don't use 3rd party oh yeah..

ADC is purely and simply another half achieved virtual concept in live.
i seriously doubt cubase, logic, pt or other behaves the same relating this but will test for sure.

still... live is the best for what it does,. but it could do better.

dbfs wrote:And people wonder why theres always people who bitch about the sound quality of live.. This would absolutely start to make your mix phasy and sound like shit... The more plugs you get rolling, the worse it starts to sound.. This has been going on for ages with this program.

But were all still crazy and need to go clean our ears out and do the quadrupal blind test.

I love live, but honestly, with this many bugs with such senstive audio data, I don't know how any of you defend this program and its sound quality. I guess fanboys will be fanboys...

I've defended it's sound quality before. I don't think there's anything wrong with it's actual 'sound' per se. I'm pretty confident that if you import stems and remix them, taking into account pan law and all the rest, that you'll get Live to phase cancel with another DAW. But this is as far as it goes.

fx23 wrote:ADC is purely and simply another half achieved virtual concept in live.
i seriously doubt cubase, logic, pt or other behaves the same relating this but will test for sure.

Logic is tight in all respects AFAIK. From what I've recently read here Cubase's automation isn't delay compensated. Don't know about any others.

I was pretty disappointed after spending 6 months building a workflow in Live that I found out its automation isn't delay compensated. Funny enough I discovered this while trying to automate the Utility, as a workaround for not being able to to use gating plugins (which of course didn't work).
After using Logic I was surprised to find out not all DAW's do this. I decided to put up with it in Live because I've put too much time into it, but this clock sync issue is pathetic.

fx23 wrote:still... live is the best for what it does,. but it could do better.

For me everything else that Live does (apart from use on stage) is redundant if it's plugins can't stay in time LIKE THEY CLAIM IN THE MANUAL.

WHOA guys tell me someone did that test in LOGIC 9 and it works as expected and i'll switch to apple's DAW! Now I understand why with mangling-sync-lfo plugins the sync is not as i expect! Please LOGIC users advise 'cause i can't try this....

I used Logic 8 for about six months before deciding to switch fully to Live. So I didn't get into any substantial production in Logic. But when I discovered this problem in Live 13 months ago (which until now I thought only applied to 3rd party gating plugins) I went back and tested Logic using CamelSpace. It was perfect.

Logic has it's foibles though and its share of bugs. It's a massive program and it's nowhere near as streamlined as Live or as fun to use (if you pretend that Live works properly course).

Anyone have an idea how Ableton should fix this?

Live is treading on thin ice. Live 9 needs to be pretty spectacular or a huge group of people will be jumping ship.

I use lots of plugins, mainly EastWest Play, Kontakt4, Omnisphere, and Geist. I also use various effect plugins and I don't hear any problems. After reading this article, I exported a midi session from live and put it in logic with the same plugs. No difference.

JBlongz wrote:I use lots of plugins, mainly EastWest Play, Kontakt4, Omnisphere, and Geist. I also use various effect plugins and I don't hear any problems. After reading this article, I exported a midi session from live and put it in logic with the same plugs. No difference.

You won't notice any problem if just have one synth on a track with no third party effects after it.

'Various' plugins may not show up the problem either. As I said it only applies to plugins that need to sync to Live's clock.

Have you tried the test I mentioned?


I wish I knew how Ableton could fix it. Given the length of time maybe they wish that too. Maybe they don't consider it a priority? Maybe they do and they've nearly fixed it but it's only going to be for Live 9? Maybe they could engage in the discussion?

no, it doesn't just happen with devices that rely on sync, it apply to any automated/modulated parameter you will do, being 3rd party or not.

just put a vst with high latency on any track, drop an utility after that and try to modulate it's gain via clip modulation, like gating each 4th, 8th or 16th.

the result is totally out of sync Vs what is drawn and the grid , cause latency is not reported to modulations. the more plugz, the worst it gets.

fx23 wrote:no, it doesn't just happen with devices that rely on sync, it apply to any automated/modulated parameter you will do, being 3rd party or not.

just put a vst with high latency on any track, drop an utility after that and try to modulate it's gain via clip modulation, like gating each 4th, 8th or 16th.

the result is totally out of sync Vs what is drawn and the grid , cause latency is not reported to modulations. the more plugz, the worst it gets.

So are you saying that the issue with automation not being delay compensated and the issue with 'sync type' plugins are part of the same problem? I can see how they would be but I don't know much about it. The first issue can be worked around. It's still very limiting though. The second issue can't. It'd be awesome if both were solved by one solution.

yes booth rely on the same pb that live don't apply the offset to clocks, modulations and automations, wich make PDC irrelevant and useless.
it shifts audio but not all parameters to control that audio, wich result in output audio being out of sync related to wanted and supposed controlling results.

the only workaround i would see is give us a manual offset/Roll CVs function for each modulations and automations at clip level, and a way to shift clocks,
but it will still be nightmare so the best is simply that they make a properly working PDC before claiming it works.

JBlongz wrote:I use lots of plugins, mainly EastWest Play, Kontakt4, Omnisphere, and Geist. I also use various effect plugins and I don't hear any problems. After reading this article, I exported a midi session from live and put it in logic with the same plugs. No difference.

Well, try something like I did bellow :

track 1 : sample
track 2 : sample -> utility


I got phase cancelation. Then :

track 1 : sample
track 2 : sample -> camel space (deactivated) -> utility

I also got phase cancelation !

I tried with several plugins, including several instances, and I still had perfect silence.


Then I decided to activate camel space BUT to put the mix button (master section, down right corner) to 0. In this case, camel space isn't supposed t change the sound at all. I didn't get phase cancelation.

I don't really know how reliable this test is though.
Done that on Windows 7, live 8.2.

With camel space to get canellation you need to put mix to zero and volume to exactly 0dB - it normally resets to -10dB which of course will not cancel.
I can get cancellation out of camelspace doing exactly the same as you with delay compensation switched on (obviously not with it switched off)

I generally have to do something a bit more complex for live to get confused.

dinaiz wrote: Well, try something like I did bellow :
track 1 : sample
track 2 : sample -> utility

I got phase cancelation. Then :
track 1 : sample
track 2 : sample -> camel space (deactivated) -> utility

I also got phase cancelation !

I tried with several plugins, including several instances, and I still had perfect silence.

yes because live correctly reports latency to audio, however, do the same exact test with a device that rely on a clock (autopan-filter, beat repeat ect)
to replace utility, then they won't cancel. As well just try to automate or modulate this Utility via clip modulation, results won't cancel neither,
and Audio result will be out of sync.
again: simply clocks, modulations and automations are not compensated at all, so ADC works only if not doing any of those, wich minimalise a lot possibilities
and not really happen on daily simple musical uses.

Ok just to be clear :

track 1 : sample -> deactivated beat repeat
track 2 : sample -> deactivated camel space -> deactivated beat repeat -> utility

totally cancels !

Khazul wrote:
With camel space to get canellation you need to put mix to zero and volume to exactly 0dB - it normally resets to -10dB which of course will not cancel.
I can get cancellation out of camelspace doing exactly the same as you with delay compensation switched on (obviously not with it switched off)

I generally have to do something a bit more complex for live to get confused.

...but on the other hand this one doesn't ! I set the volume to 0db, and I can hear a strong volume reduction (compared to when "delay compensation" is off) but it's not a complete cancelation :-/

Weird aye ?