Ableton Forum

agent314 wrote:You're doing something different between the two when exporting, because the PT is peaking at around -1.1db and the Live version is clipping throughout

To me it's seems to be the difference in 'digital summing' of both hosts.
For me, this is a good example and that's the reason why I'll be recording and mixing in PT.

As I said, the level of the audio coming in is the same for both hosts and both hosts have all faders set to unity.
I can't stream what I hear coming from my monitors into this thread.
I deliberately left the master bus fader at unity. The fact that it clips and how awful it clips is due to the way it sums the audio coming from the inputs.
As these programs are simply not the same, it's impossible to have identical settings of the program itself and during bouncing. But I tried to match them a much as possible.
Still, the difference you hear in the rendered files is already there upon live monitoring prior to recording and during playback after recording.
So what causes the difference?

Double post.

Opz wrote:To answer some questions and comments first:

@the_planet:
I'll try that polarity/phase cancellation test you describe as soon as I have the time. But hearing the difference of the rendered files below I can't imagine full cancellation taking place.


I used the 96 kHz/32 Bit Float PT10 recording and rendered a small part of it as 44.1 kHz/32 Bit Float WAV.
Then I used the 96 kHz/32 Bit Live recording and rendered a small part of it as 44.1 kHz/32 Bit WAV. (Live does not indicate whether or not it is 'Float').
I also made a recording at 44.1 Khz of which a small part was also rendered as 44.1 kHz/32 Bit WAV.
The PT file is smaller in size due to a difference in length of the loop I quickly made.
So I ended with the following results upon bouncing in both PT10 and Live, the links are shortened Dropbox urls:
PT10 - 96 to 44.1 kHz/32 bit float WAV: http://db.tt/qJLclgyz
Live 8.3 - 96 to 44.1 kHz/32 bit WAV - Warped: http://db.tt/ejsOq0KX
Live 8.3 - 96 to 44.1 kHz/32 bit WAV - Not Warped: http://db.tt/LXMoCi0T
Live 8.3 - 44.1 kHz/32 bit WAV - Warped: http://db.tt/Zsgtz3Sr
Live 8.3 - 44.1 kHz/32 bit WAV - Not Warped: http://db.tt/ryU3lcqC

I don't know why but the Live recordings are far louder, more squeezed and boxed and less bright and open.
I monitor using Adam A7X's with balanced audio coming out of the 828mkII, going through a passive monitor controller (SM Pro Audio M-Patch 2) to the A7X's.
One might argue about rendering/bouncing differences when it comes to conversion, dithering etc, but the fact is that this audible difference is noticeable on my setup during playback after and during recording and before bouncing.
I can't explain the difference as the audio passed on from the inputs of the 828mkII does not change at all during use with both hosts.
Both hosts just seem to tap in and handle that audio differently. Both hosts have all settings the same as far as possible.

Your PT render has more stereo separation than the Live renders (which sound mono). Also, 32 bit is indeed floating point in Live.

the_planet wrote:Your PT render has more stereo separation than the Live renders (which sound mono). Also, 32 bit is indeed floating point in Live.

Would do you want me to do, make screenshots of the GUI's of both hosts and of their setup settings?
Like I said before, I only recorded to the same audio in different hosts using the same settings (96 kHz/32 bit float wav). I did not pan anything nor did I add compression or whatever processing, no mixing whatsoever.
I left the masterbus faders (and all audio tracks) of both hosts at unity to deliberately let them clip to show the difference between the two. Like I also said before, these differences are there before bouncing but I can't stream what I hear to this thread.

PT10 and Live just seem to handle the audio differently when summing all the audio on the master bus.

shadx312 wrote:Might check them out in a spectrogram later just out of curiosity.

What information would a spectrogram reveal in this case?

Sorry but I hope this myth (or as some would say BS) is going to stop at one time.
EVERY DAW sounds EXACTLY the same! This has been proven many times before this thread.

Why? Unless the DAW uses a special kind of summing engine (like Harrison's mixbuss) the standard summing are just zero's and ones.
DAW's combine the audio just the same as every other DAW and have a huge amount of headroom - Live has 60 (!) dB Headroom (so clipping isn't the case either).
The only things that can make a difference are the Pan Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_law), internal FX and special things like Warping.
As Donnie already mentioned, many people forget about the auto-warping or mess their stereo signal up when doing comparison tests (busses / panning / sends and returns).
Also, many people say that their DAW has a certain "sound" because they're using a lot of native plugins in their tracks (think Ableton's Reverb, Erosion or Grain delay - all are easy recognizable because of their sound or maybe Logic's excellent amp and guitar FX section). Combine plain audio tracks with no FX / warping / ... and the result nulls out when doing phase tests.
I also suggest reading some Gearslutz threads about this, the topic has been very active over the lasts years but eventually settled down, because it has been proven that DAW's sound exactly the same for combining the audio to one stereo track.

From the manual:

31.2.5 Recording external signals (bit depth >/= A/D converter)

Recording audio signals into Live is a neutral operation, provided that the bit depth set in
Live’s Preferences window is the same or higher than that of the A/D converters used for
the recording. In this context, neutral means identical to the audio as it was delivered to
Live by the A/D converters.

cheers

Opz: I'm amazed that you think this difference is due to actual differences between Live and PT as recording applications, to the extent of starting this thread in the tone you did.

Now just calm down and check this out. The difference between your Live and PT renders is MASSIVE, and it's the result of you doing something wrong or your equipment just plain misbehaving on you. Again, bear with me here, before getting defensive: there is no way Live would mangle a stereo signal like this as an intended behavior. See below.

And to everyone else: it's not even worth it to jump on this before listening to the files. The thing is, the Live export he uploaded is "two channel mono" - it's the same signal on both the left and right channels, thus in practice sounding mono and dead centered. The PT export is an actual stereo signal with differences between the left and right channels, spanning a wide image.

Now, the most important part: for a nice comparison, place the PT export (96 to 44.1 32) and the Live export (96 to 44.1 32) on different tracks, unstretched, in pretty much any DAW software. Place a stereo to mono plugin on the mixer channel playing the PT export (for example in Live, slap in Utility and adjust Width to 0.0%) ... Then match the levels, that is, pull down the channel fader on the channel playing the Live export until it's the same volume than the PT one.

Now A/B listen to these by soloing them one after the other. Sounding startlingly similar yet?

So Opz: troubleshoot your process. You're effectively capturing a mono signal when you record in Live. If you didn't screw up yourself, maybe someone just forgot a Utility plugin (or similar) on the master in your template, and you are actually capturing stuff just fine, only unintentionally putting it through some rogue process when listening/rendering? Maybe you encountered a rare yet serious bug that manifests with your audio interface? Heh, whatever the reason, this is NOT a demonstration of the inherent & intended recording behavior of Live.

Opz wrote:To me it's seems to be the difference in 'digital summing' of both hosts. For me, this is a good example and that's the reason why I'll be recording and mixing in PT.

Again, it boggles the mind that you think this is the cause for a stereo signal to go totally flat mono. If this was the case, nobody would be able to record a stereo signal (conveniently) into Live and have it appear stereo after the fact. My troll radar is starting to stir up, actually

Nokatus wrote:

Opz wrote:To me it's seems to be the difference in 'digital summing' of both hosts. For me, this is a good example and that's the reason why I'll be recording and mixing in PT.

Again, it boggles the mind that you think this is the cause for a stereo signal to go totally flat mono. If this was the case, nobody would be able to record a stereo signal (conveniently) into Live and have it appear stereo after the fact. My troll radar is starting to stir up, actually :P

I got prepared for detecting subtle differences .... Nothing subtle about it at all, it is not PT vs Live but stereo vs mono.
So either trolling attempt or totally, monumentally embarrassing user error of OP, actually double fault
1. inability of the handling most elementary audio tasks
2. pulling huge cannons, internet whining - "Summning, engines, DAWs and what not" before basic examination of the case and as consequence (sorry, no offence but you asked for it) making a fool out of yourself.

Before anyone who starts that stuff about trolling, just STFU.
I'm trying to find out what causes this weird problem, for real.
I already know about the 'myth' and 'all engines are the same' crap, but as I got these weird results I started doubting.

I'm going to record everything a second time instead of using the same recordings I used for this post.

Just to sum it up again:
Audio coming into the 828mkII is set as loud as possible without clipping the inputs.
All channels coming into the 828mkII are mono.
The audio to be recorded does not change during the switch between hosts.
There's no panning from my part (and if there would be any, those settings would be duplicated between the two hosts to eliminate differences).
There's NOTHING (plugin etc) on ANY bus in Live AND PT10.
Warping and Auto fade are supposedly off (see my previous posts for extra info about this).
Before the actual recording is performed there's already a difference between the two hosts on their respective master bus.
During bouncing, the same settings are chosen for sample rate, bit depth etc.

So what setting causes this difference? I'm just curious.
Why is the Live file 'dual mono' and the PT file 'stereo'?

is there "summing" for 1 track ?!
what is there to be "summed" (if it's 1 track at 'unity')..

Opz wrote:Before anyone who starts that stuff about trolling, just STFU.

Come on, I think you have to understand, if someone posts in that vein and repeatedly tells people how they think the summing engines are different, and then posts a mono vs. stereo comparison, some guys (like me) might think there's a chance it's just a joke / trolling attempt

But ok, let's assume you were serious about thinking mono is an example of the Live summing engine doing its magic. Heh. No harm done. Now, finding out what is really causing this problem, that might be interesting.

Double check all the audio settings of your interface and (especially) the in/out section of Live. See what channels are present, how they are selected, and what you have chosen as the actual physical input on the mixer channel you're using for recording. Make SURE you're dealing with an actual L/R stereo signal at each possible point of error.

And a side note: you say you're recording into the 828mkII "as loud as possible without clipping the inputs." Nowadays, unless you're dealing with particularly serious noise [edit: in such a part of your recording chain that you get actual benefit out of the hotter signal - speaking generally here, not about your 828mkII], relax and leave a nice bit of headroom in there instead of trying to almost hit the ceiling.

3dot... wrote:is there "summing" for 1 track ?!
what is there to be "summed" (if it's 1 track at 'unity')..

English is not my primary language.
I thought summing was the term used when for instance numbers are added up: the sum of 1+1=2. Therefor I assumed that when a host adds up all the individual audio channels on the master bus to make a single stereo channel of it all, it 'sums the channels on the master bus'. Maybe I used that word in the wrong context.

rikhyray wrote:

Nokatus wrote: 2. pulling huge cannons, internet whining - "Summning, engines, DAWs and what not" before basic examination of the case and as consequence (sorry, no offence but you asked for it) making a fool out of yourself.

In my previous post I explained why I might use the name 'summing' wrong as my primary language is not english. But DAW (Digital Audio Workstation)is not something special and for me to use that word would not be any different than using svp (that's French) or m.i.a. or any other abbreviation. And 'engine' or 'audio engine' is also not a special word, it's being used all over the forum here.
You're a bit short sighted for attacking me due to the fact that I want to figure out this strange observation. You don't know me and haven't got any idea of my knowlegde and skills. Maybe for the first time I'm not seeing what I'm doing wrong (also due to using options I haven't used before), but I usually have enough experience to fix any problem. That's why I'm so surprised of my recording result. So maybe I didn't use all the correct words using the correct tone according to you, but you're a douche for reacting the way you do...

you were correct with the term...
(my mistake..I thought it was only 1 track going to the master..)
but still... you said it..
1+1 is always 2... +1 is always 3
shouldn't matter who is "summing"..

the difference you're describing must be caused by another factor...
don't have PT so can't help you with the preferences...

I suggest you check that the inputs/outputs are set up the same in both..
and that no processing is on either master tracks..