Tracktion Software

chriss · Post by **chriss** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 1:37 pm

I actually did a shoot out about a year ago on mix down quality and summing with Logic, Samplitude, Nuendo, Tracktion, Cubase and Sonar. had two loops mixed them at the the same volume in each program then put the results in to wavelab and looked for differences. I was very surprised. Samplitude won hands down Nuendo/cubase and Tracktion for the most part tied, with Sonar was VERY close and logic last. I could actually hear the difference with logic. I used to use Nuendo every day in the studio and its very powerfull in fact I would NEVER use Pro tools over Nuendo. But I have been using Tracktion for any radio spots and TV work I have done in the last year and it just inspires me. Its so fun to work with and thats what really counts. Now about OMF...

zeoy · Post by **zeoy** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 1:42 pm

What do you mean "won". How did you do the ranking?

.jon · Post by **.jon** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 1:54 pm

I find Samplitude to have much more clarity in the higher registers. The difference is approximately 2% better than other audio apps, reminds me of the effect that lego pieces when you place them under speaker cables.

nuffink · Post by **nuffink** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 1:56 pm

chriss wrote:I actually did a shoot out about a year ago on mix down quality and summing with Logic, Samplitude, Nuendo, Tracktion, Cubase and Sonar. had two loops mixed them at the the same volume in each program then put the results in to wavelab and looked for differences. I was very surprised. Samplitude won hands down Nuendo/cubase and Tracktion for the most part tied, with Sonar was VERY close and logic last. I could actually hear the difference with logic. I used to use Nuendo every day in the studio and its very powerfull in fact I would NEVER use Pro tools over Nuendo. But I have been using Tracktion for any radio spots and TV work I have done in the last year and it just inspires me. Its so fun to work with and thats what really counts. Now about OMF...

Absolute gibberish.

valley · Post by **valley** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 2:03 pm

pakana wrote:I find Samplitude to have much more clarity in the higher registers. The difference is approximately 2% better than other audio apps, reminds me of the effect that lego pieces when you place them under speaker cables.

valley · Post by **valley** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 2:09 pm

headquest wrote:"In this business, we don't care what a program says it does, we care about how it sounds - and let me tell you, Sonar 4 sounds great. One example that I'm absolutely floored woth is the MPEX Time Scaling for correcting vocal tracks. It's as if the vocalist just nailed the take, you can't hear the processing and I couldn't find any artefacts."

See, that I'll take on face value as an opinion. Time scaling *can* be done in many different ways, and different algorithms give different results. I dunno whether MPEX sounds better or worse than any other half-decent time stretch code, and I'm sure depending on the type of material in question your mileage will vary with all of them. At least in this case though, this isn't a straight claim that adding 24 FPs together and diving by 24 will give you different answers depending on how much you spent on the software.

GYang · Post by **GYang** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 2:43 pm

chriss wrote: I was very surprised. Samplitude won hands down Nuendo/cubase and Tracktion for the most part tied, with Sonar was VERY close and logic last. I could actually hear the difference with logic.

Samplitude has more clarity over all other 32-bit mixing engines. Could be subjective impression, not backed up by hard facts or lab tests, but same files with no processing at all are more transparent there, specially if 20+ tracks. Mixes are more pleasant, vocals and acoustic instruments clearly sounds better. Who can't hear it is almost deaf.
The point wheteher is such clarity and smoothness in high end is necessary or not for electronic music and various synthetic styles prefered by younger and poorer VST-oriented musicians nowdays.
In 64-bit domain things are really in improved in terms of definition, no doubt.
I am sure very soon all mixers will be 64-bit.

GYang

semiquaver · Post by **semiquaver** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 2:45 pm

My guess is that summing will be the same bit for bit all round - as in: reverse-phase-add-and-get-silence the same - maybe I'll try some later today...

jmacimmedia · Post by **jmacimmedia** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 2:47 pm

I don't know if this is relevant but all these hosts handle the panning of mono signals in different ways which changes the way a mix sounds. There's an article here: http://www.eqmag.com/story.asp?sectionc ... ycode=7672

Just a thought.

voidar · Post by **voidar** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 3:04 pm

semiquaver wrote:My guess is that summing will be the same bit for bit all round - as in: reverse-phase-add-and-get-silence the same - maybe I'll try some later today...

Is Tracktion really sample-accurate? I had some experiences with T1 when trying to cancel out sines. Results would lean towards the completely random.

I tried reversing the waves as well as phase reversal plugins.

In SAW studio it would all work as expected though.

semiquaver · Post by **semiquaver** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 3:05 pm

jmac - panning law will change how a mix sounds when transferred between DAWs but wont change the quality of *your* mix if you get my drift. they can change how you work though...

the only thing I can imagine that could be different between the various systems would be dither schemes on the way back to 24 bits or differences in the internal data structure.

would love to hear from the T gods about this just to tamp out paranoia!

stephengardner · Post by **stephengardner** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 3:06 pm

I can believe you all don't know Chuck Ainlay ..he is on the cutting edge of computer recording.. has anyone matched Nuendo to T2 for sound quality? can t2 automate on and off{mutes} of tracks or filters... How?

valley · Post by **valley** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 3:09 pm

stephengardner wrote:I can believe you all don't know Chuck Ainlay ..he is on the cutting edge of computer recording.[/wuote]

So why is he saying that 32bit is cutting edge?

can t2 automate on and off{mutes} of tracks or filters... How?

What the hell does that have to do with anything? Did you actually read any of this thread?

nuffink · Post by **nuffink** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 3:10 pm

semiquaver wrote:My guess is that summing will be the same bit for bit all round - as in: reverse-phase-add-and-get-silence the same - maybe I'll try some later today...

It's been done at least four times (that I remember) on this forum. Each time the cancellation was in the order of -150dB.
Unsurprisingly, those who claimed to hear a difference went very quiet (for a while). Strangely I've never seen one of them apologise or admit their ears may have been fooled.

pw · Post by pw » Thu Apr 07, 2005 3:13 pm

Valley,
When Robert Randolph did those summing tests many many months ago when he was all over this forum, didn't you also confirm that his tests showed that audio summing in tracktion was 'muddy', or problematic, or clearly audibly different, or some such thing, from other hosts?

Where is he these days anyway, I liked his posts and his...enthusiasm.

Tracktion Software

KVR Audio

T2 doesn't sound as good as Nuendo?