Live's resampling quality aka Sample Rate Conversion

forge · Post by **forge** » Sat Mar 22, 2008 3:02 pm

I havent followed this thread at all - but sorry to say Timur I find it virtually impossible to follow any of your threads because there is simply too much writing
I just can't help wondering what you are doing with your time??? seriously, you write a full essay on everything you write - I cant criticise posting a lot here, but those essays must taking you a fucking long time to write, and there are so many of them

personally, I think if there is any truth in your posts then it is a very valuable contribution, no matter how low the volume of the noise you are discussing - you've taken the bother of testing and writing a thesis on the forum, so if it is truth then it is good for reference

I have actually used 8k waveforms on a daily basis for a few years some years ago - any one who provides audio for phone systems will, but if you are working with those kind of sampling rates you tend to deal with the audio in a pretty brutal brick-wall kind of way and are certainly not going to be worried about -60 db or aliasing

Machinesworking · Post by **Machinesworking** » Sat Mar 22, 2008 4:21 pm

Hey Tone sorry about that, but I was getting ready for a show, follow the Barbabach link in my first post or Henkes last post and there are the tests in a bunch of different DAWs, these are the tests I was mentioning, but my posts didn't make that clear.

Timur · Post by **Timur** » Sat Mar 22, 2008 4:30 pm

forge wrote:I havent followed this thread at all - but sorry to say Timur I find it virtually impossible to follow any of your threads because there is simply too much writing

Sorry, another long post coming your way!

I could strip them down to simple "truths", but since I am mostly talking about complex matters and like to motivate more educated answers instead of bla this seems to be the right way of doing it. If people ain't interested in reading the details then it's absolutely ok for me. Writing things down in an ordered manner helps me understand my own thoughts at least, so there's always a winner. Don't forget that I provided videos for those who don't want to read!

(Please keep in mind that english is non-native for me, so sometimes it's just difficult to get to the point with a limited choice of words and phrases.)

I just can't help wondering what you are doing with your time??? seriously, you write a full essay on everything you write - I cant criticise posting a lot here, but those essays must taking you a fucking long time to write, and there are so many of them

This is what I am doing with my time, I am learning to master music-production on my own. Besides that I'm a computer-professional who serves his own customers. I quit two of my biggest customers in order to have more time for the audio stuff (which atm is all work little fun for me, but interesting work). And still I've got plenty of time to meet with friends, go out alot or just spend the evening on the couch with my lady, heck I'm even playing some Eve Online atm. Nope, we don't own much money, but we ain't struggling either. Right now I'm waiting for some gear to arrive (recording mic, Fireface) and meanwhile I'm preparing my room with some additional curtains for better accoustics (I have access to other rooms once I bought me Notebook and thus get mobile with the recording equipment, but that wont happen before summer).

Writing these essays does become problem though (it took me two days to decide wether to spend more time on answering Robert's post or not), because in contrast to common folklore here I am not doing synthetic test-runs of Live all day long just to find some flaws. Whenever I conducted an in-deep test it was because either I encountered an issue with my normal workflow (aka trying out some production technic and found Live to be misbehaving) or because I need to find out how hard I can push some plugin/Live to its limits for future Live performances. Alot of my thinking still evolves around playing live or at least improvising. Unfortunately Live lacks the reliability for the time being to trust running all my sounds/plugs through it.

I do have past time experiences from studio-work and on-stage work and I have always been interested in how things like compressors and mixing works, but only upto the point that was needed for my band-work. We mainly recorded our own ideas either via a room-mic or via a 4-track Boss recorder and whenever something serious was to be recorded we saved some money to pay a professional studio with professional engineers, but our emphasize was on playing live. I'm still a vocalist mainly and training my voice to get back and past its former glory takes another good chunk of my time.

Last but not least, one of the reasons why the current state of Live keeps me from working on material simply is the fact that analysing problems whereever I encounter them has become a second nature for me, it's a challenge. I want to understand the links and traps to master my system instead of being mastered. That means, Live keeps challenging me and asking me to put my nose into its intestines.

For the sake of my creative workflow I'd prefer it to stay invisible for some time and not to distract me so much with its (flawed) functioning again and again.

I have actually used 8k waveforms on a daily basis for a few years some years ago - any one who provides audio for phone systems will, but if you are working with those kind of sampling rates you tend to deal with the audio in a pretty brutal brick-wall kind of way and are certainly not going to be worried about -60 db or aliasing

Yes, the quality of those 8k samples is pretty bad, especially when recording them a mobile phone's mic (which is optimized for the human voice mainly) and recording into a lossy format like AMR. But if you record under these circumstance then you surely don't want further deterioration from bad SRC with further distortion and aliasing.

Timur · Post by **Timur** » Sat Mar 22, 2008 4:34 pm

By the way, thanks to those people who support me with warm words from time to time.

dj superflat · Post by **dj superflat** » Sat Mar 22, 2008 5:44 pm

see, that's all fine, you like digging into issues you find/perceive. but for the people who are actually making music with live, and not running into any real issues/problems, it just seems like you're (a) being difficult or (b) not that interested in making music. that is, there are people waaaaaaaaaaaaay more successful, committed, professional than you using live to make great music. if they can use live with all it's faults/vices, why can't you? put another way, you appeal to your ears, but there are many folk on this forum with far better reason to trust their own ears -- based on years of experience, success, whatever metric you want to use -- and they don't hear any real problems with live's audio when used various different ways (yes, there are some well-known issues, etc.).

by contrast, if you're just trying to be helpful by pointing out issues ableton might want to address at some point, i don't think anyone would object. but, instead, it generally comes across as "live is broken, it's inhibiting my ability to get any quality work done." and that just can't be true, based on all the folk who get along just fine with live.

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Sat Mar 22, 2008 7:09 pm

Timur at this point you're nothing more than a loquacious attention whoring drama queen. every post blah blah blah blah you're not that interesting to read all that crap.

TL;DR - skimmed over your posts, you are incredibly self absorbed. this thread is about you, not audio. all talk, little substance.

btw all this over some half baked test done with an 8k cell phone sample?? you want the answer? USER ERROR.

I keep replying to you only because you post the most half baked observations ever posted on the web. this is a GREAT example of a little knowledge is dangerous (emphasis on little.) in reality none of us really know what you're going on about, I don't need to quality check your work, you've made a mockery of yourself, no cred. it's safe to say that 'Timurism' is an understood term, very much like 'Bushism'.

'brevity is the soul of wit' - makes you the moron you are. seriously, if you can't explain something briefly, you don't get it... but you don't get that, this is futile. I read a sig recently, something about arguing with your breakfast cereal... yeah, dismiss Einstein, ya pompous twit. NOBODY on any forum I've ever read has posted more incorrect bullshit than you. it's futile to communicate with you, the only person you listen to is yourself.

I look forward to your next 8,000 word mentally retarded Chicken Little thread.

I'm disappointed we couldn't get a good discussion going on audio, this is only about you, isn't it?

MW - I started looking at that site, it's Mac only, it was Friday night... I failed, does it matter? this thread is pure Timurism, which is not musical or sane, it's just Timur the blathering attention whore.

dcease · Post by **dcease** » Sat Mar 22, 2008 7:16 pm

tone, that shit is 400 bucks! i was gonna comment on it last night, but he left...

i mean, is it THAT serious?

Timur · Post by **Timur** » Sat Mar 22, 2008 7:22 pm

dj superflat wrote:if they can use live with all it's faults/vices, why can't you?

- I cannot fall back to version 6 when version 7 crashes.

- I seemingly use way more Midi/Plugins/Controller combinations than most other people using Live leading to a combination of issues. Generally I'm driving my system way more to the edge because I cannot afford outboard equipment. All vocals, keys, guitars, loops and whatever has to pass through Live.

- I'm not a DJ, if my onstage-system fails me then I cannot make it look as if it was on purpose. I will just look stupid with me singing and playing guitar while no sound is being heard. Also I cannot just put a CD in while the computer reboots.

put another way, you appeal to your ears, but there are many folk on this forum with far better reason to trust their own ears -- based on years of experience, success, whatever metric you want to use -- and they don't hear any real problems with live's audio when used various different ways (yes, there are some well-known issues, etc.).

You are discrediting me without evidence. What about my own years of experience, success or whatever other metric we want to use? If I can hear aliasing and distortion of SRC compared to the original that others cannot hear, which options is more probable: A) I am hallucinating (never took drugs and don't drink alcohol). B) My ears are more experienced or my monitoring is better than the ones of the person claiming not to hear anything.

I prefer A, but surely I can be all wrong.

by contrast, if you're just trying to be helpful by pointing out issues ableton might want to address at some point, i don't think anyone would object. but, instead, it generally comes across as "live is broken, it's inhibiting my ability to get any quality work done." and that just can't be true, based on all the folk who get along just fine with live.

You beg to differenciate. Towards the userbase I want to be helpful by pointing to possible pitfalls and providing guidelines to as much of an extend as my knowledge/experience allows. Towards Ableton I want to be helpful by providing evidence and data that should help them getting hands on possible issues or supporting me by telling me what I am doing wrong.

But additionally I expect Ableton to patch any broken parts of their software (which I paid for) once it is identified, or at least I can expect them to letting me know when they don't want to fix it anytime soon so that I can look for alternatives instead of waiting my *ss off. The latter will lead to periodic requests from my side when until satisfied, it's my right as a customer.

In theory it doesn't even matter if I am making actual use of a broken function now or only plan to use it in the future, if it's broken it needs to be repaired! Just think of what you would do with a broken car jack on a new car? Would you ask the dealer to replace/repair it at once or would you wait until a tire blows up and you really need to use that thing? In practice I am well aware of priorities, but unless Ableton decides to publish a "Known Issues" list themself I see nothing wrong in publishing those issues I find myself and keep other users/customers from running into the same troubles before that tire blows up and makes them crashing into the wall!

dcease · Post by **dcease** » Sat Mar 22, 2008 7:30 pm

Timur · Post by **Timur** » Sat Mar 22, 2008 7:32 pm

Tone Deft wrote:TL;DR - skimmed over your posts, you are incredibly self absorbed. this thread is about you, not audio. all talk, little substance.

What a coincidence, I was going to write the same at first in my reply to Robert. You are right, for some kind of reason people keep falling back to me and my faults instead of concentrating on the content of my original post. No idea why that keeps happening, do you? I (notice how often I need to use that one char word?) am merely answering posts after my original post and these seem to force me into writing more about myself than writing about the content of what I originally was writing about. *shrug*

(I do feel that I should have answered Forge's post in a PM though.)

I don't need to quality check your work, you've made a mockery of yourself, no cred.

That's fine Tonedeft, I don't force you to, albeit I did most of after you questioning me to. It's unfortunate that repeatedly you get mad at me for posting supposedly wrong facts while denying me any explanation (or call it teaching) with useable evidence. So please stop posting to my threads in future, because it will only make me answer to you out of respect and true interest for in-deep discussions on the content. Unfortunately you cannot keep yourself from insulting me blatantly at one point of each discussion. So for the sake of both our wellbeing and for the sake of much shorter threads, just let it be.

dcease · Post by **dcease** » Sat Mar 22, 2008 7:35 pm

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Sat Mar 22, 2008 7:43 pm

Timur wrote:answering posts after my original post and these seem to force me into writing more about myself than writing about the content of what I originally was writing about. *shrug*

spot on. that happens a lot, when I see a thread with quotes inside quotes the thread's pretty much dead, but it's hard to avoid. again, brevity is the soul of wit, it's an art that I apprecia...

I really just want to cut to the chase, skip the bullshit and get into the audio shit. I'm really frustrated with that, feel me?

request - revisit your test without the funky cell phone recording. if you've done that, repost, I'm not reading those long posts.

maybe put commentary at the bottom and BRIEF facts/observations at the top of a post. this shit isn't working.

Machinesworking · Post by **Machinesworking** » Sat Mar 22, 2008 8:20 pm

Timur wrote:
But additionally I expect Ableton to patch any broken parts of their software (which I paid for) once it is identified, or at least I can expect them to letting me know when they don't want to fix it anytime soon so that I can look for alternatives instead of waiting my *ss off. The latter will lead to periodic requests from my side when until satisfied, it's my right as a customer.

In theory it doesn't even matter if I am making actual use of a broken function now or only plan to use it in the future, if it's broken it needs to be repaired!

OK in this section here. In essence you're asking Ableton to improve in house SR conversion, that's fine, but as I stated, and the tests from the "mac only" site show, Ableton is meeting the standard for in DAW SR conversion. One can assume that they would be on par with the average results form the Barbabatch test, ( or beat them, the new audio engine etc. ) so then in that case the software is not broken.

To get really good SR conversion out of software you need to spend the money, Barababatch is $400 as dcease pointed out, and I'm not sure what PC software uses the Izotope algorithm but I'm sure it's at least $200.

The point of saying this is to reiterate my points in this thread.

A: Ableton SR is not the best one out there, sure.

B: Almost every other native DAW is as guilty.

C: The non native stand alone applications do a better job, but license, or in house design, technology that drives the price up pretty high!

D: With that in mind it's a niche demand, and would add considerably to the cost of Live.

E: The thing is people keep brining this up, and I feel it's a half point, but if you want crystal clear highest standard possible, you have to pay for it. Live is a audio looping, and pretty dirty pitch/time stretching DAW with high quality recording capabilities, but the swiss army knife DAW it is not.

On point E:, honestly 90% of the features in all the DAWs I've ever tried that were there to fill a niche, (plug ins, SR conversion, audio editing etc.) simply aren't anything more than add ons that are almost as good.
Space Designer in Logic is OK, but Altiverb is still better sounding, the internal summing, and actual impulse responses are better, Chorus in Live is so so, the sampler in both Logic and Live has only one filter that you apply to all the keyboard and samples, unlike any VST/AU out there really, the list goes on....... all this stuff is added so people can work entirely in Live, but research and development of these features takes time away from other things.

So in conclusion, iI think it's safe to say that while I agree with you in that the SR conversion is not the best, it really is something you could easily deal with by getting a good SR device outside of Live, so although I agree with you, unless you can convince them to license Izotopes algorithm, I would rather see you solve this outside Live.

MIDI timing issues, pops and clicks in 7, stability etc., these are all more important to me than an above average SR algorithm in Live.

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Sat Mar 22, 2008 8:24 pm

EVERY DAW has this problem. define what's bad. show me how to SRC with Live to get a crap result.

dcease · Post by **dcease** » Sat Mar 22, 2008 8:28 pm

for everyone SELLING music currently, it does matter.

for everyone NOT selling music currently, it does NOT matter, unless you just have the money to blow.

if you can't make a decent tune with live, maybe you should check yourself.