Sound quality issues

morganpage · Post by **morganpage** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 6:13 pm

Yeah - I think it all depends on sonic content of the tracks. Some tracks sound almost perfect time-stretched and others (using the same mode) get twisted quite a bit. I wish there was a more straightforward way to optimize the quality of each tracks.. I keep going back and forth between beats and complex mode.

I'll check out the external clock option - the Digi002 may have some faults.
anyway - I don't mean to gripe - I *love* Live 5.. just wanted to hear if anyone had any specific tips for getting the most out of it

- Morgan

3phase · Post by **3phase** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 1:41 am

Alex wrote:Hi folks,

basically I would doubt there is something like an time stretching algorithm that sounds "perfect" on every material and for every ear.
This is a very subjective issue and the the discussion reminds me of other discussion about bit depth, sample rate, dithering, analog vs. digital,...

But however, which other time stretching algorithm from which application do you prefer or do you think sounds better?

regards,
Alex

I lately checked acid pro and was surprised that i found the stretching there better... acid cant compare to live in relation of performance ability and remote control ability...but...the stretching and audio quality was pretty good!
I especially liked it more on warping complete mixes.
I however havent had the chance to compare the complex mode against acid... complex seems to be even smoother than the acid stretching...but
the acid stretching keeps quite good definiton without sounding too metalic.
CPU wise i had the impression that acids algorythm is more expensiv than Lives standard warp modes but cheaper than the very expensiv complex mode.
Sofar i know acid and live are booth based on granular stretching.
But they sound quite different.
Maybe the filters that need to be involved are better coded in acid???
At least the vst filter and eq plugs from acid have very good algorythms that easily can compare to waves plugs. So they know how to do filters.

regards
Sven

3phase · Post by **3phase** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 1:54 am

morganpage wrote:Yeah - I think it all depends on sonic content of the tracks. Some tracks sound almost perfect time-stretched and others (using the same mode) get twisted quite a bit. I wish there was a more straightforward way to optimize the quality of each tracks.. I keep going back and forth between beats and complex mode.

I'll check out the external clock option - the Digi002 may have some faults.
anyway - I don't mean to gripe - I *love* Live 5.. just wanted to hear if anyone had any specific tips for getting the most out of it

- Morgan

instead a freeze an offline freeze warp with a very good quality.
turnes warped clips into identical copys that play in high quality on a fixed samplerate.
to change warpmarkers you need to "unfreeze" the clip.
I would like to have an non realtime stretching without the need to use an external program.

morganpage · Post by **morganpage** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 4:29 pm

Great call on using "Re-pitch" - sounds excellent. Never even thought to try this! Now I know it's definitely not the Digi002 or some special setting in Live. I may have to start using this instead of the other modes.

- Morgan

neodjandre · Post by **neodjandre** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 10:44 pm

I think my songs do not sound natural either in Live 5. I just bought an echo indigo dj and it sounds much differently than my old sound card quattro.. It seems to have much more punch but is not as warm as old good quattro was.. I have noticed this with Traktor as well. The bass is too flat (although I had to turn the bass knob on my subwoofer down with echo indigo because it was just too much)... I think I need to replan my sound arrangement although I do think in any case Live distorts the natural sound of my tunes. Perhaps I could post some pictures of the shit I did to connect all three outputs of my creative speakers to a single 1/8" jack...

Angstrom · Post by **Angstrom** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 10:47 pm

Live distorts the natural sound of your tunes ....

through 'creative' speakers

*cough cough*

morganpage · Post by **morganpage** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 10:59 pm

Just a note: Live 5 played back all my AIFFs in perfect quality, with no coloration, when using repitch - other than the difference in pitch of course.

- Morgan

Tuur · Post by **Tuur** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 10:07 am

Alex wrote:Hi folks,

basically I would doubt there is something like an time stretching algorithm that sounds "perfect" on every material and for every ear.

Hi Alex,

I found that it sounds pretty good with big values, but with smaller you tend to get a free 'under water' effect.

E.g. when you have a 135 bpm track running on 134.5 (if you want to hear what I mean: it's *very* noticable with 'fat' tracks - sawtooth synths - or trance tracks in general

).

It's a shame because I think it sounds pretty good most of the time (I'd say Pioneer like - I own a coupe of these), but this problem makes it more or less unusable - texture or beat sounds *a lot* better with small tempo corrections.

If you could find a way to fix this issue in the lower tempo correction region complex would be perfect IMHO.