Ableton Forum

Okay first off, I'm a big Live fan and this is not a "Slate Ableton" post.

Okay, I have recently downloaded a trial version of Cakewalk's Sonic 5 as I am considering getting another program to compose tracks within as I find lives approach a little akward, although I realise that primarily it is a live instrument.

Anyway, Running the programs through the same sound card and monitors I found that the sound from Sonic seemed of much better quality than Ableton. I have take a percusion loop that I programmed in Live and exported it to sonic and used it there and is seems to sound far better.

Is there an accepted difference in sound quality between different packages and is ableton largely different? It just seems that sonic's sound is much fuller while remaining clearer unlike ableton which seems to be a little thinner.

I realise that the terms I have used are a little abstract so don't bite my head off, just wondered what you guys all thought.

Transfantastic wrote:Okay first off, I'm a big Live fan and this is not a "Slate Ableton" post.

Okay, I have recently downloaded a trial version of Cakewalk's Sonic 5 as I am considering getting another program to compose tracks within as I find lives approach a little akward, although I realise that primarily it is a live instrument.

Anyway, Running the programs through the same sound card and monitors I found that the sound from Sonic seemed of much better quality than Ableton. I have take a percusion loop that I programmed in Live and exported it to sonic and used it there and is seems to sound far better.

Is there an accepted difference in sound quality between different packages and is ableton largely different? It just seems that sonic's sound is much fuller while remaining clearer unlike ableton which seems to be a little thinner.

I realise that the terms I have used are a little abstract so don't bite my head off, just wondered what you guys all thought.

do you mean sonar 5?

sonar has a much higher volume output then ableton.
this could be why you are percieving better sound quality.
at least thats what i've noticed with sonar (all version)

there are small to big differences between the soundquality of the audio engines of different apps, what is better or not can lead to an endless discussions and is somehow often a matter of taste.

to me Logic is about as good as it gets.
i dislike everything ever made by steinberg, e.g., in terms of sound. but that is my personel taste...

There should be no difference is output, let alone and audible difference. Either on of the programs is fucked up BADLY or it's just placebo. And never under estimate the value of placebo, after all, we have people paying hundreds for cable speakers

Tony

Funkstar De Luxe wrote:after all, we have people paying hundreds for cable speakers

How about 9.000$ cables?

http://www.soundstage.com/revequip/mit_oracle_v21.htm

Not good enough?

How about 30.000$ cables

http://www.aurant.com/signaturefeature.php

SubFunk wrote:there are small to big differences between the soundquality of the audio engines of different apps, what is better or not can lead to an endless discussions and is somehow often a matter of taste.

to me Logic is about as good as it gets.
i dislike everything ever made by steinberg, e.g., in terms of sound. but that is my personel taste...

if audio engines design is standard there is no differences with audio and there is no daw with bad engine. It is plugins that make the sound good or bad and some plugins eq destroy the sounds be careful with free and cheap eq plugins they are not all same.

hey

i was a longtime SONAR user before LIVE hijacked my creation mode about 2 years ago. i'm not so sure about the higher volume output of SONAR accounting for the difference in sound quality. it could easily be tested anyway.. just play the same clip or track or project in each app at the same volume and see (hear) if there's an audible difference...

i have to say i haven't actually tested this, but my first impressions of LIVE (and i don't think they've changed) is that the sound is indeed "thinner" than that of SONAR. in fact, i decided to hold on (and update versions of SONAR) because i figured if i worked in LIVE, and then mixed down in SONAR, i'd get better finish quality.

as SONAR 5 can even operate in full 64bit mode (if you've got the machine and the 64bit OS), i've no doubt that it's capable of reproducing better sounding, more accurate audio than LIVE. I also have access to full 32bit Mastering EQ and Compressor in SONAR.

at any rate, i think both programs are terrific at what they do, and they both excel in different areas.

If the sound is indeed louder, then it will probably sound better. It is a common psycho-acoustic phenomena.

As for playing a single prerecorded loop, there is absolutely no reason why Sonar should sound better than Live (or Win Amp or Sound Forge or...).

Perhaps if the loop is in 24 bits resolution and you your soundcard is set to 16 bits, the dithering might be different.

If you really want to get to the bottom of this, render the audio from both program, normalize, trim the files to equal length and subtract them from each other (I think you can do that in most audio editors). The result will most likely be a flat line, ie no difference.

For the record. Diffrent software will wound diffrent while playing the same wav file. I dont feel like digging up links. But, who cares. Everything sounds diffrent, everyones ears are diffrent, every room is diffrent. Embrace the variables, some of the coolest computer music I have ever heard was written in octamed.

I'm guessing that the playnack algorithms of each sequencer/editor can be different, being that they have been programmed by different programmers with varying skills.

I was a cubase user before switching to live , and my first impression of live was that it played the sounds clearer.

i have never worked with sonar to give you a precise ansr , but my best guess is that there is a difference. That doesnt make it worse, just different.

to be honest i'm still not comfortable mixing in Live, but I use it to make my music, then export each channel then load it into cubase where i find it easier to mix more efficiently. But i guess thats because i'm used to Cubase and havent given Live a real shot to mix.

Another xample is that when recording vocals on Cubase i was happy. At work though when i started recordng vocals on Pro Tools there was a massive difference.(just a thought)

Inductive wrote:For the record. Diffrent software will wound diffrent while playing the same wav file. I dont feel like digging up links. But, who cares. Everything sounds diffrent, everyones ears are diffrent, every room is diffrent. Embrace the variables, some of the coolest computer music I have ever heard was written in octamed.

OctaMed! Crazy tracker bizness, was shocked to find out Venetian Snares uses OctaMed to compose most of his material, shhhesssh if you've got it you've got it doesn't matter what you use

i still have a 486 running amithlon with nothing but octamed and a HD full of samples. I use live in a fairly tracker like fashion. A natural progression or something.

I noticed that Live did not sound as good as Logic - on the same computer (iBook), same hardware, same output level. I think the difference I heard was due to the Warp engine. It was more of a time issue as Logic handles time diffrently than Live.

After I got used to using Live though, I found ways to make it sound good - probably just as good as anything else.

I'm guessing (hoping) Live 6 will sound better on a MacBook Pro due to processor speed and handling of time/timing.

Honestly guys this topic has been beaten to death. If you search the forum for "live sound quality" or various other permutations of this idea you'll get somewhere between 9 and 10 ba-zillion threads about it, and the vast majority of then go something like:

A - a few pages of back and forth about how there is/isn't an audible difference
B - someone posts examples from different hosts which all sound the same
C - a few people swear on their grandmothers they can hear a difference
D - name calling, etc
E - return to step A and repeat

Save your self the agony and go do something else like, oh I don't know, making music or something...

radeon wrote:

if audio engines design is standard there is no differences with audio and there is no daw with bad engine. It is plugins that make the sound good or bad and some plugins eq destroy the sounds be careful with free and cheap eq plugins they are not all same.

simply WRONG. sorry but you are entirely mistaken... programmed audio engines are NOT equal at all. absolut NO audio engine of any DAW behaves / sounds like another!

and yes of course you can / have to influence the sound with plugs but that's a different story and has NOTHING to do with the audio engine...
bu an audio engine of a programm can suck as much as a bad sounding plug or be as freakin' fantastic as a top notch sounding plug.

logic for example has an nicely improved audio engine in version 7.2 from 7.1.1 by far better stereo image and more accurate detail.

which one is more to you taste or which one you think sounds the *best* is another question, alltogether...

cheers[/quote]