KVR Audio

zthomas · Post by **zthomas** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 2:47 am

I've got no proof of this, but I feel like the summing in Live isn't real great either. It sounds less clear to me, compared to my usual DAW. I'm torn, becuase both have features I really like. I'd ReWire, but for some reason VST's are not available when ReWired. Is their a work around for this?

bluedad · Post by **bluedad** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 2:51 am

zthomas wrote:I've got no proof of this, but I feel like the summing in Live isn't real great either. It sounds less clear to me, compared to my usual DAW.

I'm not clear about your point here. what do you mean?

zthomas · Post by **zthomas** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 2:58 am

Well, like how all the tracks sum together and feed out my stereo outs. It sounds different than I'm used to, and to my ears worse. Not that it's bad, per se, just not as good as my Pro Tools LE (which, I hear, is not as good at internal summing as other software out there.)

Get what I mean? I consider Live great for writing, but wouldn't want to mix my tracks in it.

kuniklo · Post by **kuniklo** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 5:21 am

People have actually done cancellation tests on the major hosts, including Live, and found *no* difference in the summing engines. There might be other things in Live that can give a murky sound, like perhaps the built in plugs, but it's not the summing bus.

scam_artist · Post by **scam_artist** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 5:41 am

i can agree, Live 5 does sound slightly muddier to me than my normal host... even if no clips use timestretching. I love Live 5 anyway, and for a live situation it makes no difference... even for studio situation, most listeners wouldn't even be aware of it

Kraku · Post by **Kraku** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 6:02 am

If there is any difference, I'm pretty sure it's not the mixdown "engine", as every host uses the same CPU on the same system to do summing of tracks together. Mixdown is just pure maths, done on FPU: volume1*track1 + volume2*track2 + ... + volumeN*trackN. Just pure and simple maths. If someone blows that up, I'm quite surpriced.

kuniklo · Post by **kuniklo** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 6:26 am

I've experienced the same muddiness myself, so I know what you're talking about, but it's not something intrinsic to Live's audio engine.

scam_artist · Post by **scam_artist** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 6:53 am

Yeh, other hosts suffer as well, but I won't mention any more names for fear of flaming...
Live is still killer though, for what it's worth

headquest · Post by **headquest** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 8:25 am

zthomas wrote:I've got no proof of this, but I feel like the summing in Live isn't real great either. It sounds less clear to me, compared to my usual DAW. I'm torn, becuase both have features I really like.

THere's two major points I'd like to make about that...

FIRSTLY, I used to think that Adobe Audition gave me a better, more transparent audio recording/mixing/summing quality. But as I became more experiened in using both programs, I realised that my previous comparisson was flawed, because my working methods between the two differed dramatically...

In Audition, for example, the effects bussing implementation is weak, so I tend to use effects on an insert rather than auxiliary basis. This meant though that I was tailoring effects more precisely to the sonic requirements of each track. In Ableton the bussing is fantastic and so easy.... but this in turn had made me a bit lazy, and I was applying auxiliary effects without enough close listening. The addition of the freeze functionality in Lie 5 means that I now use effects as inserts in Live more than I used to, in any case. And for example, I now have three different reverbs set up on sends so that I can mix and tailor the reverb on each track according to taste more effectively.

The quality of the effects in Audition vs. Live was in fact another significant point. The best effects in Ableton imho are the creative effects, such as the delays and stuff like Beat Repeat, Saturator, and the new modulation effects. Audition is not so well equiped with these types of effects, but has some stunning convolution based reverbs, precision EQs, etc. The compression, EQ and reverb in Live ARE pretty good (certainly better to my ears than the native effects in some of the other sequencers I have used

), but need to be used with more attention to detail than I originally thought in order to get the best results from them.

Another point to remember in Ableton Live is that all clips are automatically warped. So if you are recording stuff that does not need warping then it is a good idea to manually switch off the warping on that clip. This ensures that the audio quality cannot be compromised by any side effects of warping.

The only tangible scientific reason why the sound quality might be better in Audition is the quality of the dithering algorithm. But I doubt this is the main factor. I really beieve that any supposed difference in sound quality is likely down to the experience of the user with this particular piece of software.

In another thread here at KVR currently, I've seen arguments that Sonar "sounds better" than Cubase. I suspect that the same issues I have discussed here may well apply to that example in just the same way.

To compare this as a final test, I have used raw audio files in both Audition and Live, without any effects. I was hard pressed to notice any difference at all, although the overall output level in Ableton seemed slightly lower. This of course is nothing to do with quality... but most people confuse loudness with quality unless they start to listen more critically. FOr my part, I tend to keep the Kjaerhus Master Limited strapped to my master channel in Ableton anyway, which helps boost the level nicely and allows me to mix quite hot.

I enjoy having both Live and Audition to choose from when working on a track, as they have different stregths that I can draw on (for example, I often create loops or longer audio files in Audition, including destructively applying effects) and then organise/arrange them with Live. But I really think that the idea that audio quality in Ableton is lacking is... simply a myth.

SECONDLY: in my experience the only thing which really HAS made a significant difference to audio quality is when I upgraded my Audio Interface. I had been using an Edirol UA20, the entry-level USB1 interface. I moved up to using the M-Audio Ozonic firewire interface the improvement in sound quality was so dramatic that non-musicians (i.e. other family and friends) spotted the improvement without me pointing it out!

It seems to me odd that some people spend such time trying to analyse the difference in quality based on the software they use - the mix summing for example - but in a few cases pay little attention to the quality of their hardware - which surely has a MUCH more significant impact!

I'd ReWire, but for some reason VST's are not available when ReWired. Is their a work around for this?

No, unfortunately not at present. I think that in Live 6 Ableton may further enhance the ReWire implementation, but at present, Live cannot function as a ReWire slave and a VST host simultaneously.

g_montel · Post by **g_montel** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 8:34 am

ModuLR wrote:
just to clearify this point... you can automate VST parameters 1 thru 128, however if your vst has more than 128 params (which a few I have do)... those params will NOT be available to automate. I was suprised when I dicovered this. I've reported it to Ableton. Fingers crossed they will resolve the issue.

beyond that, enjoy it!

It's fixed in Live 5

headquest · Post by **headquest** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 8:37 am

g_montel wrote:
ModuLR wrote: just to clearify this point... you can automate VST parameters 1 thru 128, however if your vst has more than 128 params (which a few I have do)... those params will NOT be available to automate. I was suprised when I dicovered this. I've reported it to Ableton. Fingers crossed they will resolve the issue.

beyond that, enjoy it!
It's fixed in Live 5

Ah! A couple of us were unable to help ModuLR with this on another thread...

Could you provide some simple instructions here?

Cheers!

ModuLR · Post by **ModuLR** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 5:15 pm

Sorry to break it to you, but it is not fixed in Live5. Trust me.

here is post over at the ableton forums

http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic. ... highlight=

ew · Post by ew » Fri Oct 14, 2005 5:26 pm

As to the muddiness, open up your preferences and make sure Live's set to the proper sample rate. I always have to reset my sample rate in the preferences after installing- it defaults to 22k for some reason on my machine...
ew

zthomas · Post by **zthomas** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 7:32 pm

Well, like I said, I have no tangible proof that Live sounds worse, just impressions. I'm running from an Mbox over USB, so I'd be interested to see if upgrading would make a difference. I feel like the "mud" becomes more apparent when more tracks are added, which led to my suspicion of the summing, but this could be down to how I tend to mix while writing. I admit that I'm a very new user, so what I'm hearing certainly could be my fault.

None the less, I'm really set on learning how to make this program sound good, because the workflow is great. I can write quick without messing around with midi assignments, aux tracks, plugin inserts, ect..

bluedad · Post by **bluedad** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 9:18 pm

zthomas wrote:Well, like I said, I have no tangible proof that Live sounds worse, just impressions. .

I think it sounds great..On the last tune I finished and posted here I received many comments on how clear the mix was.

Live 5!