Ableton Forum

H20nly wrote:

macmurphy wrote:16 pages of shit and still going strong.

do you have a science™ degree to back up that statement?

great. i now have 'shit' and 'back up' in the same thought bubble

how about a theoretical theoretical physics degree that's only slightly imaginary -
in one of the infinite multiverses i'm bound to have one.

I'm sorry I've read through this thread and there seems to be a lot of messages defending Ableton and old versions, etc. but I am really on the side of the Ableton 9 followers. There are some obvious reasons for this but I have to say I've been using Ableton since version 2 and I'm a developer myself... once it reached 8 + things like the APC40, I started to realise Live could actually replace the traditional DJ platform into a more elaborate performance type thing... but I really feel the bugs in Ableton have prevented Ableton from becoming a truly mainstream LIVE performance tool, a lot of people have to strip down their sets, a lot of people have to use CDJ's for stability... and you've got to consider new people who aren't up on computers, they need stability too.

I think there are some obvious things happening at Ableton, it's been a long cycle, it's also obvious that the original codebase is getting old and they are probably rewriting it. Ableton is slow compared to competitors, I mean in app performance, a lot of people saying Cubase performs better because Live is used in a Live context, but I have a hard time believing that.... Ableton needs no more bug fixes and tweaks, it needs to be completely rebuilt from the ground up, using all the latest optimisation fetures... it can look exactly the same, but the internals need to be different..... is there something going on with sound and/or summing, maybe not, but probably not.

Others have mentioned seperately the UI layer from the sound processing layer, and this could be helpful if they're considering mobile functionality on ipad, etc.

64 bit support. obvious. Vst3 support. helpful.

I don't care personally about instruments or samples....

OK, well more than a few times now I've sworn that I would not be drawn into this topic again, yet I can't resist, especially since now people are referencing my tests. So, this is the LAST time I'm going to share my own PERSONAL views on the subject, since obviously so many other people are sharing nothing but their opinion as well.

When I posted my recent findings about Logic 9 and Live 8, it was mainly due to the fact that I thought I had finally found a situation where they cancelled completely in a null test. Some people might remember it, most won't, but I did this exact same test with Live 7 and Logic 8 (posted here on the Live forums) and found that from an audible standpoint, I could not hear a difference, yet in a bit for bit comparison, there were some small differences in the lowest 3 bits.

Fast forward a couple of years, and I've had this same conversation with some other producers I respect recently, and I think to myself "why not run the test again, let's see if something has changed in the newer versions of both apps". This time I decide to not only make the project files of both apps available for others to use, but also use a metering plug-in that's free so anyone can repeat my test and find any flaws with it. So I chose the Sonalksis Free-G plugin, since it's free for both Mac and PC users.

At the time the test was only for my own knowledge, and I wasn't at all looking to prove the issue one way or the other. I was just curious, nothing more. Despite what people think, I like Live, but it's not the only DAW I use, and I stand to gain nothing by standing up for them in these matters.

So I was quite surprised when I ran the test this time, that Free-G was showing me total cancellation of both the Logic and Live renders. Not at all what I had discovered with Live 7 and Logic 8 (from a purely analytical standpoint, again I thought both results were audibly the same). So based on this testing, I decided to repost my testing, and see what other people thought, or if there was some error in my test I overlooked. I even repeateded the results using more tracks, and 3rd party plug ins for the test, based on feedback from other users on how I could modify the test.

And lo and behold, there was a difference.

So I decided to post the results, since they contradicted what I had found previously. When other, more accurate (apparently) tools were used to compare the renders, it was shown that the lower 3 bits differed. I admitted that, and posted the corrections to both my blog and the original post here on the Ableton forums.

Here's where the science for me differs from personal opinion.

Despite this difference in raw digital signals, under no listening environment at my disposal can I, or anyone else who's listened, hear any difference in the resulting files. For reference, I think it's important to point out that the lowest three bits, indeed the lowest 8 bits, of these signal are going to be discarded or rewritten by dither noise when converted to CD quality wav files, converted to MP3, or even burned to CD. Even accounting for the effects of dither to extend our perception of dynamic range in the best of circumstances, any differences in the signal will be discarded during the truncation from 24bit to 16bit.

That's fact. Pure digital signal processing and math fact.

BUT…

I admit, that perhaps there are things we can't measure in science about digital audio that might outlay this fact. With that mind, I'm 99.99999% sure that no one on this planet or any other can reliably pick out the differences in my test renders in a reproducible way. I'd stack every last bit of music gear I own on that statement. Theoretically different yes, audibly different no. Not even close.

And yet, despite all this testing and admissions to the possibilities to the contrary, I still firmly believe believe it's not only a moot point, but a dumb argument. I don't care what professional musicians think (in this scenario), or what the rest of the forum thinks even. To me, what matters is what we hear.

Specifically, what comes between the speakers and our ears.

If Live was to have some sort of sound, or bias towards any audio attribute (IE, it's too dull, too mono, too shallow, etc), we would still hear that from the output of our soundcards to our monitors to our ears, and compensate appropriately. We'll use any and all audio references we have to make any small corrections as we write and produce our music, so that at the end of the day, REGARDLESS OF WHAT TOOLS WE USE, our music sounds on par with anything else we hear on the same signal chain.

Part of me is extremely loath to use that statement, because I know how easily the naysayers will pounce on it as a signal of defeat or admission of Live's short-comings, which I do not at all admit or believe. But for me the simple fact of this argument is that both sides may be right (and both might be wrong!), and regardless it doesn't matter. A good, experienced producer is going to work based on what they hear, and make production decisions accordingly. If something sounds dull to you, you boost the highs, if it's too bright, you boost the lower mids (or whatever), etc.

My point is simple, it really doesn't matter what the lower 3 bits are doing (for instance), because we all use our ears to make these decisions anyway.

Maybe some day I'll be proven wrong, and there is something that Ableton is doing differently that makes it sound different (and I truly believe this is not the case). But even if that is fact, it doesn't matter because I'm writing and producing based on what I hear, and in that scenario this is all a pointless argument.

Here's something I don't understand about these phase cancellation tests. Everyone is saying it's the last 3 bits or -100db level, etc, which is very quiet level we can all agree. But does that really mean just because what was left over was at -100db, there was an actual -100db sound present (at that specific sound pressure level) in one original file or the other or that this specific difference needed to be confined down there at the noise floor? Think about it for a sec. It's just the difference between the waveforms, so I'm wondering if listening to the remaining difference of uncancelled audio waveform all by itself is removing it from context.

What remains after phase cancellation only represents the amount of difference, not an actual "complete" volume of sound in one file or the other. So let's say you take the same part of the track, in one original file it's at -12db and the other original file at -12.5. That's only .5db, maybe barely audible, but it's a lot different than trying to discern .5db difference from -100db to -99.5db. And aren't both scenarios going to register a .5db difference remaining of audio file when you cancel them?

I'm just wondering if we're all thinking of this the right way. I mean if there are small differences between 2 tracks (that could theoretically be anywhere in audible range) & you remove everything except the difference, and that's all you are left with (without most of the original audio intact to hold this small difference within the audible range), of course the level is going to drop way down.

macmurphy wrote:

H20nly wrote:

macmurphy wrote:16 pages of shit and still going strong.

do you have a science™ degree to back up that statement?

great. i now have 'shit' and 'back up' in the same thought bubble

how about a theoretical theoretical physics degree that's only slightly imaginary -
in one of the infinite multiverses i'm bound to have one.

that'll do.

levimoniz wrote:

H20nly wrote:Tarekith posted the results

The results were that they weren't the same.

How much will the diffrence widen in complex project?

H20nly wrote:

macmurphy wrote:

H20nly wrote:
do you have a science™ degree to back up that statement?

great. i now have 'shit' and 'back up' in the same thought bubble

how about a theoretical theoretical physics degree that's only slightly imaginary -
in one of the infinite multiverses i'm bound to have one.

that'll do.

excellent.

so, as the only theoretically, slightly and not to mention quantumly qualified scientist here i shall make the following statement -

everybody go and make some music

now get off my lawn, i need to set the traps

icedsushi wrote:Here's something I don't understand about these phase cancellation tests. Everyone is saying it's the last 3 bits or -100db level, etc, which is very quiet level we can all agree. But does that really mean just because what was left over was at -100db, there was an actual -100db sound present (at that specific sound pressure level) in one original file or the other or that this specific difference needed to be confined down there at the noise floor? Think about it for a sec. It's just the difference between the waveforms, so I'm wondering if listening to the remaining difference of uncancelled audio waveform all by itself is removing it from context.

What remains after phase cancellation only represents the amount of difference, not an actual "complete" volume of sound in one file or the other. So let's say you take the same part of the track, in one original file it's at -12db and the other original file at -12.5. That's only .5db, maybe barely audible, but it's a lot different than trying to discern .5db difference from -100db to -99.5db. And aren't both scenarios going to register a .5db difference remaining of audio file when you cancel them?

I'm just wondering if we're all thinking of this the right way. I mean if there are small differences between 2 tracks (that could theoretically be anywhere in audible range) & you remove everything except the difference, and that's all you are left with (without most of the original audio intact to hold this small difference within the audible range), of course the level is going to drop way down.

I think you are missing two ponts.

first - decibels is a logarithmic scale. The difference between -100 and -99.5 is about 25000 times smaller than the difference between -12 and -12.5

second - eventually it will be truncated and dithered to 16 bit for burning to disk or some form of lossy encoding. The least significant 8 bits are basically thrown away.

crumhorn wrote:I think you are missing two ponts.

first - decibels is a logarithmic scale. The difference between -100 and -99.5 is about 25000 times smaller than the difference between -12 and -12.5

OK, so going by that, the actual numbers in my example weren't right, but doesn't quite disprove the concept. Then pick an arbitrary two levels around the -100db range that will come up with the same amount of difference that -12db and -12.5db have after phase cancelled?

crumhorn wrote:second - eventually it will be truncated and dithered to 16 bit for burning to disk or some form of lossy encoding. The least significant 8 bits are basically thrown away.

I get this, but how do we know for sure that the difference between the 2 files resides in the least significant 8 bits? Is it correct to look at the difference remaining & assume it resided in the least significant 8 bits before everything else was stripped away? That's really the only point I'm making. If you have 2 waveforms that are only slightly different, but theoretically that difference residing at an audible level and you phase cancel them, you removed most of the energy that could have been supporting that difference into the audible range? Does my idea/theory make any sense?

Who's releasing in 24bit?

yes...and in 2012 they still print/burn audio cds...

and there are still convertors only capable of 16bit..

sorry to bust your bubble man...


soon enough though...

i dont want my bits truncated, thankyou very much


(now im learning some stuff in here actually, serious face)

Well, well, well...

Lots to respond too, its a shame I don't have the time for more then a quick blurb.

First and foremost - Thanks to all the people with thick skin who reported me. Good job, you big baby! Not surprising we would have so many little tattles tales on this site. I guess kidz will be kidz... "DADDY!!!!! HE SAID SOMETHING I DON'T LIKE ON THE INTERNET IN A THREAD I COULD TOTALLY AVOID!!!" You guys have mental issues, seriously... And honestly, I could give a fuck if I get banned. It's a god damn internet forum. Its not like you can't make a new account every god damn day. I don't need to be "popular" like our resident loud mouths do.

So yeah.. 3 bit variation Tarekith?? Well what do you know! Didn't I say that you aren't going to get a null test to work beyond a certain point? I think I did.

And 3 bits??? Thats fuckin 18db right there... And frequencies affect other frequencies no matter how low the db level is.. Your just fail Tarekith... just fail...

You admit to doing a test that PROVED shit was different, yet your still kicking and screaming that it isn't??? Mind blown..........

Yeah, but there's probably less than 0.1% of all released music that stays 24bit is my point. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for it, it's just not that common still.

24/48 should be the standard digital release at this point, 16/44 should not. Unless it's a cd release we need to move on. Since a few years ago!