Ableton Forum

Hi I have a question on rendering to wav and then importing back the wav into a live set. Initially i had a problem with this because i never made an extra copy of my live set, If i changed the settings and saved them i'd be stuck with them. Although i since learnt to make a copy if i ever needed to revert back to an old setting the problem still comes up as sometimes i forget to save the set in the right folder and then delete the folder to create room, Also ableton has crashed on occasions( Running out of memory) leading to more samples lost. I usually always save the wav's though. This brings me to my question: What audio quality loss is there in exporting wav's back into a set i usually render in 24 bit not 32 or 16, There are many reasons why having the set With samples not just the wav is important and i don't think i need to go through them but how much quality is lost is it just the stereo spacing or a real loss of audio quality? One track i'd worked on was rendered not once but twice. Any help would be greatly appreciated

Providing you export the .wav at the original bit depth and samplerate, there should be no detectable loss. Make sure any samples and recordings you use are exported are their original samplerate and perhaps more importantly that dither is OFF.

Thanks Ryder17, I sometimes think i can hear a difference, That the re rendered version sounds a bit muddy compared to the original. So summing up if i introduce a 24 bit wav into a live set then export at 16 bit (For CDBaby etc) a difference will show?

If your master is not clipping and you render to 16bit or higher then load it into a live set that matches the original tempo you would need magic ears to hear a difference from the original content.

Keep in mind that if you have a compressor on the master of the original and then load it into a new live set that also has a compressor on the master then you are going to squash the crap out of your audio.

Also, your ears change day to day depending on all sorts of things like caffeine intake, hydration, whether you got a good night sleep and you what were doing just before you started listening. At the same time, just cause you think it sounds different doesn't necessarily mean it does.

Reverse polarity and see if they null.

marcoskohler wrote:Reverse polarity and see if they null.

With the original track? The odds are there are effects and modulations that will not be the same moment to moment, you could resample the audio inside the set and then try your phase trick and it wouldnt work.

Johnisfaster wrote:

marcoskohler wrote:Reverse polarity and see if they null.

With the original track? The odds are there are effects and modulations that will not be the same moment to moment, you could resample the audio inside the set and then try your phase trick and it wouldnt work.

Freeze + Export :]

Krizen wrote:Thanks Ryder17, I sometimes think i can hear a difference, That the re rendered version sounds a bit muddy compared to the original. So summing up if i introduce a 24 bit wav into a live set then export at 16 bit (For CDBaby etc) a difference will show?

You would probably have to repeat that process before problems become audible. Down sampling with dither then up sampling again is a more likely cause

Thanks guy's for your help, I tend to agree with the comment that you'd have to re render a few times before you can hear the difference but as it's only one track that has to be rendered to 16 bit for digital disto it's not a huge drama and thanks for the tip on Dither i'll make sure to disable it, All the best.