Ableton Forum

Hardcore Ableton user here but I've been running a series of non-scientific real world experiments to see if investing in PTHD is worth it.

Everything is exactly the same on all tracks except one of these was made in Ableton 9, the other in PTHD 11. Plugins used are

Phalanx
Nexus
East West Play
Loom
Oxford Dynamics
Vacuum Pro
Altiverb 7
Ozone 5

These we're chosen because they're available in both AU & AAX.

Some settings are exaggerated because I wanted to push the DAWS to test for latency in terms of parallel compression, depth of reverb, audio engine, midi timing etc so if it sounds over compressed or whatever that's on purpose.

Take a listen and let me know which you like better. At first I noticed some differences but after a while not so much so I'm curious to see what people think.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/113 ... 348793.aif

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/113 ... 523364.aif

I wouldn't get caught up in worrying about sound differences, workflow is the more important reason to choose a DAW and it's how you actually use it that will affect your results the most. The sound quality debate is really old now and in my opinion redundant.

If you are just recording MIDI based electronic music with external plugins (which I'm assuming from your list) then Ableton really excels in terms of workflow, but if you are recording a lot of 'real' instruments Pro Tools is a long way ahead in terms of recording takes and comping.

It's all about what you will be using it for and how comfortable you are with either.

Forge. wrote:I wouldn't get caught up in worrying about sound differences, workflow is the more important reason to choose a DAW and it's how you actually use it that will affect your results the most. The sound quality debate is really old now and in my opinion redundant.

If you are just recording MIDI based electronic music with external plugins (which I'm assuming from your list) then Ableton really excels in terms of workflow, but if you are recording a lot of 'real' instruments Pro Tools is a long way ahead in terms of recording takes and comping.

It's all about what you will be using it for and how comfortable you are with either.

Agreed.

There are some things I've noticed so I'm still curious to see what people say. To be honest though, you really have to dig in and listen A LOT and very closely to notice so I def agree sound quality is an issue. My concern was seeing how each DAW help up during the same type of usage and they've both been pretty awesome.