Lets talk about sound baby

Guesto · Post by **Guesto** » Fri Jun 11, 2004 1:39 pm

a mate said he saw him using a laptop at Fabric.. I wasn't there unfortunately...

I respect your viewpoint on the importance of sound quality in a club
situation, but I still think Live is more than good enough.

Vinyl may smooth out 12/8 bit samples but unless the tone arm and deck are calibrated perfectly vinyl also suffers from distortion as the stylus nears the centre of the disc... even my Linn LP12 couldn't eradicate this...

For a Producer like myself its also more convenient to use Live as a way of testing out new material - better than spending loads on acetates that wear out after a few plays and more flexible and reliable than CD-R's.

I don't know what else to say - if the sound difference really destroys your DJ experience then stick with vinyl - but its such a shame cos it sounds like you know your sh*t and I'm sure you could tear it up using Live. You really must have 'golden ears' - after 12 yrs DJing most guys I know are missing a few dB in their hearing in some frequencies at least...

Hopefully - after all this discussion Live 4 will have a sound that pleases you more... I do know what you mean - I've used Pro Tools for years and I can recognise its sound and its not as nice as tape, etc but its more than acceptable and enables me to do so much more...

take care

Guesto

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Jun 11, 2004 5:00 pm

Purple,

My man, no ones attacking you brother, and I'm sorry if I gave you that impression. It's just that it's so hard to argue with mathematics. Of course if you hear a difference that's the most important thing, and how you also enjoy your experience, not just the crowd. Please try to just feel the positive vibe from all the suggestions and the people trying to replicate your problem. Or course Robert and the Abelton's may take it a little bit more personally, since Live is their baby.

I, personally, am here to help and spread positivity. I tried to replicate your problem using live and Peak 4 on Mac OS 10.2.8, using the stock sound card 44.1 16 bit. I took a sample of a 909 kick from hollowsun.com. It was hard for me to hear the difference, but I know this is not what you want to hear. Although, perhaps this was due to lower sample and bit rates then you are using.

I hope you find a solution to your problem. Perhaps trying to replicate the problem with another sound editor like Wavelab? A/B Live and Wavelabe and A/B Sound Forge and Wave Lab?

Peace

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Jun 11, 2004 5:50 pm

Great thread.

I just wanted to chime in on being able to hear the difference between Live and SoundForge, although I arrived at that conclusion through a different avenue. A few years ago when I seemed to be equally using Live and Acid for their own strengths, I started to notice a 'muffled' type of sound from Live. Of ourse I was of the opinion at the time that it was theoretically not possible (sans pitch manipulation and DSP), but my ears told me something else. I stopped using Live for that one reason, but have continued to peruse this board waiting to see an 'audio engine' update announcement, although this conversation gives me the idea that im in the extreme minority.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Jun 11, 2004 7:34 pm

have you guys ever thought that maybe Acid has a filter which boosts
high frequencies in order to compensate for their timestrech problems ?
this could be an explanation...

enginner

gaspode · Post by **gaspode** » Fri Jun 11, 2004 8:00 pm

If some of these things being 'missed' are vinyl's soothing warming, warming glow... have you tried the vinyl plugin on any of your tracks? this isn't just some artsy fartsy toy, but quite an excellent plugin... and maybe you can dial in some parameters that suit your needs man...

another thought might be for you to try out www.antares-tech.com and look up tube

drumroll57 · Post by **drumroll57** » Sat Jun 12, 2004 7:27 am

Guesto wrote: Of course the sound quality is different to vinyl - but I don't care, its good enough...

I understand. In the end, I feel the same way, it's first about the gig and rocking people's worlds....

But I still care enough to record everything at 24-96 from a great cartridge/preamp combination, and extremely happy with the results.

The whole point of my raising a few of these points in previous posts was specifically trying to address some of Purple's concerns, and quite honestly to give him the reassurance that he isn't bugging out, but rather discovering for himself something that many others have before him.

That the state of today's digital audio is still not as good as it should be. Don't believe the hype. (rather, you should believe your ears)

It's workable, yes. But very, very far from being as good as it SHOULD be. Again, I am left with the nagging thought that while digital camera makers double their pixel counts yearly, we seem to be stuck with the same lame old standard that was invented 25 years when there were very severe limitations to DSP. Why? Why aren't there complaints from photographers when camera makers describe photos with ever greater detail, but those who strive for the same with sound are derided as geeks?

Could it be that those doing the mocking may yet have a thing or two to learn about perceptual acoustics, and the true art of sound reproduction? (lest we all fall victim to their dulled-out 'sonic antennas')

cmusicmaker · Post by **cmusicmaker** » Sat Jun 12, 2004 10:58 am

So is the quality of the sound from Live 3 worse than the Sonar, Cubase's and the Soundforges of this world or is the difference barely audible if any at all?

muthafunka · Post by **muthafunka** » Sat Jun 12, 2004 11:23 am

Just so I can clear something up, when peeps talk about comparing the sound in Live and Soundforge etc, we are always considering the playback of a single file, correct? Also are we concerned with playback from within Live etc or playback of a file exported from said software? I'm not a PC user and was under the impression that Soundforge is similar to Peak ie a single track audio editor, not a multitrack digital recorder/mixer. Not that it should really make any difference, although when mixing sounds as opposed to playing back single files there may be summing issues etc involved (I have next to no knowledge of this whatsoever but I am aware that such things exist).
Still looking forward to getting/sending some files for comparison

one more guest · Post by **one more guest** » Sat Jun 12, 2004 5:54 pm

Hi Purple !

I have to admit : I AGREE WITH YOU

I am both musician and DJ since I was 10 .. I am 34 now ... yeah 24 years of music ! So I think I can say I have some experience

1. Difference of sound between Live and the other progs ...
My test : just listening to one of my track in SX 2 and then Live.
With Live I loose a bit of spacial effect. I dont care about bits and
tests and 0010101 for testing. I just use my ears. I was so impressed by
that so I ask my wife to hear the same track 2 times and to tell me
if there is a difference between the 2 ... She prefers the track from
SX which was indeed the same track but running through 2 different
appli ..

Maybe the reason is that Live is making a conversion from the original
bits (16 in my case) to 32 and then back to 16 ...

The question (and I will do the test). Is SX adding some artefacts that makes the wav sounds better ? I read on a forum that SX was adding
some hidden EQ (for bass and trebble) ??? I should compare to the CD linked digitally to the PC ...

For me it is not a blocking point of using Live but I not use it to create my new songs ... just to perform them live. We are not loosing too much quality ... I dont think that these differences will make people stop dancing
For your info I have been performing DJ sets with Live with no probs and people were crazy ... so that "loss" of quality is really not too much important

2. The crowd in clubs
I agree that sound is important to the way people react. But as said before minor loss wont change the way ... What I can say is that with
mp3 (here we can talk about major loss

it is another debate !
For the joke I remember a set of DJ with Final Scratch and his mp3 were
encoded at 128 .. believe me or not but the sound was really missing something and the final result was that people stopped dancing. It was not a thing about volume ... more about definition of bass .. His tracks were good but people were waiting and they were dancing with the previous DJ (yes he was with vynils

In conclusion stay cool .. this "bug" is not too much important and you have got so many other features with live that it is a minor point ...

Last exp joke :
I have exactly the same problem about guitar
I play a set of Marshall with racks. The sound is excellent but when I have
a concert I have to rent a big car (to put everything inside) So I decided to buy a Boss GT-6 ... I spend days and nights to twick that effect and the result is near the "original" set but something is still missing ... I dont like that but when I will be playing large arenas I will have roadies to bring the marshall stuff

It is quite the same problem ... having to balance the + and the - and take decisions ..

Sorry I didnt wanted to be so long ... This thread took me so much time to read ... so yes now it is your turn

bye

Purple · Post by **Purple** » Sat Jun 12, 2004 8:22 pm

one more guest,

I am not surprised at all about people stop dancing listening to 128kbps MP3's.

And I do not think people will stop dancing if they will listen to my records through Live. I was just afraid they might loose just a little bit of the experience, just like I feel I loose a little bit of the experience standing in my studio, listening. And if it is true that bigger systems can magnify these differences, rather than minimize them, then it is important to address this problem.

As you said, it's a matter of "having to balance the + and the - and take decisions", and in the case of Live, I know it has loads of +'s compared to any other app. I just wish everything was perfect in the world..

Purple · Post by **Purple** » Sat Jun 12, 2004 8:25 pm

I just thought about another thing:

Maybe the reason some people hear the differences while others don't has to do with the platform. I use a PC, but maybe on the Mac those apps do sound identical?

A question for the people that don't hear a difference - What platform do you use?

noisetonepause · Post by **noisetonepause** » Sat Jun 12, 2004 11:25 pm

I''ve been told that Cubase's mixer includes some sort of analogue emulation code, meaning that it's not accurate but maybe sweeter sounding... anyone care to confirm?

-Paws

Moonburnt · Post by **Moonburnt** » Sun Jun 13, 2004 4:44 am

from my (limited) experience with Cubase, it has TrueTape, which is an analogue saturation emulator which you can activate for the actual recording, so that it colours the captured sound, but it's an option rather than automatic. I can't imagine any DAW would try to colour the sound deliberately behind your back, that would be pretty sneaky.

muthafunka · Post by **muthafunka** » Sun Jun 13, 2004 10:40 am

On Mac here, can't hear any difference. Have also heard rumour of some kind of built-in analog-type processing in Cubase SX's master outs, but this is only speculation.
Say it again, things would be a bit easier here if peeps put their setups in their signatures

Purple · Post by **Purple** » Sun Jun 13, 2004 11:06 am

And regarding the question maybe Sound Forge colour the sound in some way, my guess is that it doesn't, because when listening to the recording in an A/B test with the original vinyl it sounded closer to the original compared to the file playing through Live.

Lets talk about sound baby

Just a thought...