Magix Samplitude - Just jumped ship from Cubase 8

[Coxy]

Good insight there Terry, thanks!

I believe I posted this earlier but it outlines points better than I can express (or understand from a development point of view)

The two founders of Samplitude who still head up development state:

Herberger is sceptical about the notion that there are no sonic differences between audio programs.

"I think the big thing about the sound quality is to make no mistakes. You must not do mistakes in the DSP. It's a big goal, and a lot of errors and not-clever routines are done by a lot of parties on the market, and people who are trained to hear audio will discover these immediately. Six or seven years ago, we had a patch for a new Samplitude version, and one day an American guy called us and said 'Hey, you did something wrong in your program. It sounds bad now.' We measured, and did tests, and after a long time we found out that in the 24th bit of the audio in going from floating-point arithmetic that we do internally down to the sample level through a 24-bit converter, we forgot the dithering. I personally could not hear this, to be honest — but you can measure it, and in a program as huge as Samplitude, you have a thousand points where you can make a mistake of this sort.”

From the very beginning, two hallmarks have defined the philosophy behind Samplitude: the 'object oriented' approach to editing and processing, and an obsessive commitment to purity of sound quality.

"Especially with small waves in the area of the zero crossing,” adds Titus Tost. "As you switch from negative to positive, there are some problems with rounding. It takes a lot of experience to put this together so that it sounds good.”

This is not something that was written back in the early 90's when development was still ropey, this was written a year or two ago.

I'd like to think this kind of commitment, dedication and experience in programming for such focus on purity of sound quality should have tangible results in audible output. My ears agree with me and the above statements (even before I had read them.)

[tbritton]

I cannot help but agree with you wholeheartedly, Coxy. I've been with these folks since the SekD 2496 product line, and their dedication to quality audio programming has been unflagging all these years.

Terry

[clonewar]

How does Sam X2 handle external hardware inserts? Does it let you insert them as a plugin (like Pipeline in S1, I/O plugin in Logic, external FX in Cubendo, etc)?

[tbritton]

How does Sam X2 handle external hardware inserts? Does it let you insert them as a plugin (like Pipeline in S1, I/O plugin in Logic, external FX in Cubendo, etc)?

Here is a post over at Gearslutz: https://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-c ... sed-3.html

According to that, it does not implement them as a plugin.

[clonewar]

Here is a post over at Gearslutz: https://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-c ... sed-3.html

According to that, it does not implement them as a plugin.

Thanks, I just read through that thread. So it looks like there are external FX, but you can't insert them along with plugins directly on a track, they have to be put on an Aux track and have their input monitored separately? I can't seem to find a step by step explanation for how external FX are used.

[tbritton]

Over at the Samplitude forum there are a few posts. You may need to be logged in to see them, though:

http://support2.magix.net/boards/sampli ... =0&start=0
http://support2.magix.net/boards/sampli ... opic=12479

It seems part of the secret sauce is to use pre-fader sends.

Please write if you come up with a workable solution. I have two devices I've been using in likely the wrong way (just sending out a bus output and bringing in the output of those as an input each on its own track), but have not used the inserts and sends as of yet myself.

[clonewar]

Thanks again, I just went through that first thread (I have access to the forum from an old magware copy of Sam that I forgot I had at some point) and it pretty much contained the info that I was looking for.

Even though that thread was started in 2007 it doesn't look like much has changed with external inserts. You have to use two tracks, setting the output of track one to the hardware send, and input of track two to the return, and the 'external fx' setting automatically compensates for the delay. Besides the extra tracks, this also means that you can't easily insert the hardware between plugins, or reorder where the insert would be in the plugin chain. It's seriously limited and cumbersome compared to what you can do with a proper hardware insert plugin like most other DAWs provide now.

Unless I have the process wrong? You mentioned pre-fader sends, but that wouldn't get around still having to use two tracks.

[tbritton]

Thanks again, I just went through that first thread (I have access to the forum from an old magware copy of Sam that I forgot I had at some point) and it pretty much contained the info that I was looking for.

Even though that thread was started in 2007 it doesn't look like much has changed with external inserts. You have to use two tracks, setting the output of track one to the hardware send, and input of track two to the return, and the 'external fx' setting automatically compensates for the delay. Besides the extra tracks, this also means that you can't easily insert the hardware between plugins, or reorder where the insert would be in the plugin chain. It's seriously limited and cumbersome compared to what you can do with a proper hardware insert plugin like most other DAWs provide now.

Unless I have the process wrong? You mentioned pre-fader sends, but that wouldn't get around still having to use two tracks.

I'll play with it during the week, and if I find anything truly useful, I'll make a video.

I agree that there really needs to be a way to control the order of effects and to pass a VST effect to an outboard one and back to a different VST or outboard effect. I had missed how the delay compensation was a product of using these inserts, which already makes it better than the method I was using (where manual delay compensation was needed, of course).

Terry

[Vanta007]

- I'm able to hear audio details in ProX 2 I didn't even notice in S1. In other words: The quality of the audio engine is superior. (Coxy, record the same piece of audio first in Cubase then in ProX 2 to know what I'm talking about).

I read this over and over, and simply don't buy it.
Just to clarify: You are stating that if you record the exact same sound first in Cubase, then in Samplitude (without changing anything else), the sound quality of the recorded áudio is better in Samplitude?
And what about if you try exchanging the recorded áudio (play the áudio recorded in Cubase in Samplitude and vice-versa) does it still sound better in Samplitude, or is now Cubase sounding better?
And if the first hipothesis is still the one you observed (Samplitude plays the áudio recorded in Cubase, and still sounds better) can it be there are some settings in Samplitude that simply make it seem sounding better than others?

Summing Algorithms must be unique to each program, with varying results. Samplitude is Amazing.
.
I started out with PT9 , and it simply didn't work on my PC, so I swapped it out for Cubase.
Cubase was fun to work with and solid on my system, so I immediately started tracking like crazy.
Everything I did with 2 to 8 tracks sounded great, but there was a certain Cubase sound to it, as I believe All DAWs have their own sound to them. Then I recorded an arrangement with 23 acoustic African drum tracks, layered one by one. Each track sounded clear, but the mix took a lot of tweaking and plugin stacking madness to get me closer to where I wanted to hear . . . Yet the "cumulative digital artifacts" (as I have heard referenced), or whatever . . . the mix seemed incurably noisy, to a degree. I was still happy with the mix. So, I started looking for mastering options and solutions. Of course, I was guided to Wave Lab, which is also an amazing program. On the WaveLab forums, I kept seeing Samplitude being mentioned, with rave reviews. I tried them both.

When I transferred my 23 track acoustic OMF from Cubase to Samplitude, I immediately noticed that I had entered an entirely different audio environment. I quickly got to work on the remix. After adding and subtracting plugins, I ended up stripping it all back down to raw mixing with subtle EQing . . . WOW . . .
Now the natural harmonics of the drums are blending, breathing, singing, and dancing. This is Real.
Working with acoustic audio, the audio engine is as important to me as the room, mic selection, and mic placement. The difference is real. At the very least, I will be mixing and mastering in Samplitude from now on. I also find myself opening my other DAWs less and less, and studying Samplitude more and more.

[prene]

Ahhhhh even in 2017 it's nice to still see the debate that samplitude is still summing engine KING! And people thought I was crazy in 2007 when I said Samplitude does something to the sound.

I just wish they could streamline the interface a bit more.

[HanafiH]

There's a disconnect between what people can test by summing to a file, and what an application does when summing in real time. The VST specification allows for plugs to have two distinct modalities, real-time rendering and offline rendering. All (effectively all) DAWs offline render to a file identically. It's the ability to realtime render that affects what you hear, when you're mixing and making crucial creative choices.

My experience around 2002, was that Samplitude 7 sounded astonishingly better than Cubase SX 1. It was only later understood that in that particular version of Cubase, if the ASIO didn't offer a 24bit interface (using a 32 bit interface instead, for example the then RME converters), that version of Cubase would silently downgrade your 24bit audio card and run it using 16bit conversion without dither.

[Coxy]

- I'm able to hear audio details in ProX 2 I didn't even notice in S1. In other words: The quality of the audio engine is superior. (Coxy, record the same piece of audio first in Cubase then in ProX 2 to know what I'm talking about).

I read this over and over, and simply don't buy it.
Just to clarify: You are stating that if you record the exact same sound first in Cubase, then in Samplitude (without changing anything else), the sound quality of the recorded áudio is better in Samplitude?
And what about if you try exchanging the recorded áudio (play the áudio recorded in Cubase in Samplitude and vice-versa) does it still sound better in Samplitude, or is now Cubase sounding better?
And if the first hipothesis is still the one you observed (Samplitude plays the áudio recorded in Cubase, and still sounds better) can it be there are some settings in Samplitude that simply make it seem sounding better than others?

Summing Algorithms must be unique to each program, with varying results. Samplitude is Amazing.
.
I started out with PT9 , and it simply didn't work on my PC, so I swapped it out for Cubase.
Cubase was fun to work with and solid on my system, so I immediately started tracking like crazy.
Everything I did with 2 to 8 tracks sounded great, but there was a certain Cubase sound to it, as I believe All DAWs have their own sound to them. Then I recorded an arrangement with 23 acoustic African drum tracks, layered one by one. Each track sounded clear, but the mix took a lot of tweaking and plugin stacking madness to get me closer to where I wanted to hear . . . Yet the "cumulative digital artifacts" (as I have heard referenced), or whatever . . . the mix seemed incurably noisy, to a degree. I was still happy with the mix. So, I started looking for mastering options and solutions. Of course, I was guided to Wave Lab, which is also an amazing program. On the WaveLab forums, I kept seeing Samplitude being mentioned, with rave reviews. I tried them both.

When I transferred my 23 track acoustic OMF from Cubase to Samplitude, I immediately noticed that I had entered an entirely different audio environment. I quickly got to work on the remix. After adding and subtracting plugins, I ended up stripping it all back down to raw mixing with subtle EQing . . . WOW . . .
Now the natural harmonics of the drums are blending, breathing, singing, and dancing. This is Real.
Working with acoustic audio, the audio engine is as important to me as the room, mic selection, and mic placement. The difference is real. At the very least, I will be mixing and mastering in Samplitude from now on. I also find myself opening my other DAWs less and less, and studying Samplitude more and more.

Positive experience and definitely echoes my thoughts and feelings and results with it.

I'm still using it now with absolute success, sometimes it's annoying, it crashes a bit but after more select plugin choice I seemed to have narrowed this down quite a bit and to be clear I also had crashing with Ableton and Cubase previously. I run VERY plugin heavy projects.

Sound quality wise, yeah it surely does something and as you say this is most apparent when tracks and tracks are loaded up. It really starts to "Sing" on playback, like really.

[Skorpius]

@Vanta007, @prene, @Coxy

Thanks for confirming what I've been trying to convey for a long time, and what others here at KVR either smiled about ignorantly or were reluctant to believe.

[lfm]

If to talk about daw sounding better - you could mention Sonar - which has built in upsampling of synths if you want that.

What that does to a full mix with many synths is awesome, aliasing is not as audible anymore if running project at 48k and synths in 96k.

This is my view of things - good and bad sounding.

But remember threads where people go for the aliasing thingy and want that harder sound.

Again looking at sound generation, like in synths. I like unison of oscillators a lot, it becomes warmer and phatter. I often work to create a patch without it, but in the end when saved often turn unison on.

So you could even consider that one daw creating phase differences because it does not handle plugin delay compensation correctly - and it sounds to ear better - but is a pure error in itself. There could be phasing and even chorusing effects that you like better.

You aim to compare daws - but forget about pan lawes, so both level is down -3dB or -6dB in center, and you think settings are the same for compared daws having fader at 0 dB. And when panning hard left and right on some tracks - will also create major differences in how it sounds since levels are in fact different even if fader says the same.

And talking about differences in realtime listening and what comes out rendered on disc - is equally bad if that is the case. It's like listening to a mix with enhancer like tube power amps making it sound warmer and this is never what listener will have access to in the end.

Some daws have built in effects on master - so using these that daw may sound better and presumably thinking no effects were used. Does this mean that daw is sounding better?

How were audio entered into the daw. I know for a fact that Samplitude use general time stretch algos to do SRC when imported by drag-n-drop. So you have to say No to that when dropping a file on a track, and do separate high quality SRC which is there in Samp as well. You probably don't hear a differene first hand, but start mixing and do plugins and processing effects and these artifacts floating around from SR will interfere at one stage or another.

Reaper as an example, do no conversions at import, and resamples in realtime with normal stretching algos - no high quality SRC.

Cakewalk refuse to tell what Sonar is using. Cubase is very poor SRC according to this article:
http://www.soundonsound.com/sound-advic ... downsample

I suspect the normal stretching stuff is used in Cubase, and don't use it at all for Cubase.
At least Samp provide a range of quality algos for that - so this is in favour of Samp having that at hand.

The only test that matters is real test patterns through a system and see what comes out in harmonic distortion, intermodulation and others. I've seen some analyzing sample rate conversions and not taking notice may appear as artifacts in final mix.

Anyway, some things I nerded into at some time.

[Hink]

A recent review of pro x3, not really much of a review tbh but he does nail my number one point about samp. You got everything you need right in one DAW, I really do not use a lot of the vsti's the fx are fantastic. I wont get into the whole sounding better thing, I just really love working with samp

https://ask.audio/articles/review-samplitude-pro-x3