SAMPLITUDE RULES (DAW Summing)

[peejunk]

The reason Samp sounds so good is that it comes with an array of Waves-quality phase linear effects in the box as standard. This compares to a certain host whose reverb units are the worst reverbs in public distribution anywhere, including freeware, and whose inbuilt EQs are legendary for their sucksomeness. This is not something subtle, it’s a special case of the bleeding obvious and is partly why Samp is about 50% more expensive than the baseline DAW price.

Classic. Every weirdo ever talking this summing bullshit has always backed down to this after such a discussion.

Justifying the price of Samplitude with it's bundled plugins just shows how you lot swallow the PR bull. Am I the only one that remembers what was Magix all about 7-8 years ago when the whole DAW thing started to expand beyond Cubase Audio XT? They made toy sequencers and marketed them in eJay style. Then they figure out to pack their shit in a PT-like package and charge big money for it.. And there you have it, new SAW is born.. all of the sudden you have Vestmans of the world claiming Sequoia and Samplitude sound superior to anything.. I mean it must be, why else would they cost as much as they do?

On the other side there are very cheap hosts like Fruity and Tracktion etc whose internal EQs and Reverbs certainly piss all over Cubase's. Shouldn't they, by extention, be more expensive than Cubase? Must be the summing engine, right? It couldn't be that prices are actually formed based on what the market is willing to give, and not what the product is really worth, right?

[stag]

The price on SX as to do a lot with funcionalities, like score, MP3 export, offline processing, send MIDI data to automation lanes, etc.
but who doesn´t need such functions SL or SE are pretty good packages, i should know cause i used SL1 and only upgrade to SX on acccount of offline processing to 3rd party plugs, as much as i know the single host offering such function.

I used to think SX esport was shitty until i learn to keep an eye on my master fader.

[Kingston]

I've actually been wondering about the cubase EQ. Why is it still included in the package? It's a sound relic from the ancient history of digital (like '98 ), sounds terribly awful, and the GUI (even in nuendo!!) forces the ancient EQ (or at least the icon buttons) on your face everywhere.

'brainfart' is the word that's springs to mind.

Urgh.

[Kraznet]

peejunk wrote

Justifying the price of Samplitude with it's bundled plugins just shows how you lot swallow the PR bull. Am I the only one that remembers what was Magix all about 7-8 years ago when the whole DAW thing started to expand beyond Cubase Audio XT? They made toy sequencers and marketed them in eJay style. Then they figure out to pack their shit in a PT-like package and charge big money for it.. And there you have it, new SAW is born.. all of the sudden you have Vestmans of the world claiming Sequoia and Samplitude sound superior to anything.. I mean it must be, why else would they cost as much as they do?

You need to get your facts straight peejunk Samplitude has been going a lot longer than your think .The company was originally called SEKD.

This was posted on the sam-seq NG by Martin Hruschka . It was done around the time when Sequoia was about to be released to its not current , but it still gives a good insight into the history of the software .

Regards
Kraznet

A Discussion With Tilman Herberger
Author : Sean Diggins



The following interview was conducted with Tilman Herberger, one of the
founders of SEKD and Samplitude. As a continual user of Samplitude since
1996, I was fascinated with the origins of this enigmatic company and
it's originators - I am a regular at the SEKD newsgroup and also beta
test Samplitude, so I asked Tilman if he'd be interested in doing an
interview expressly for the members of the newsgroup. He graciously
agreed and we proceeded to trade questions and answers on a range of
topics which should be of interest to anyone who uses or is considering
using SEKD products.

The timing of the interview seems particularly appropriate given that
SEKD is currently going through some changes ( SEKD GbR - the software
development team - has moved to new premises with MAGIX and formed a new
development company MAGIX Development GmbH ) and the company has also
recently announced the forthcoming release of a new product called
Sequoia. Naturally these and other interesting topics are covered
within....so read on.


+Samplitude was originally a project conceived by you and Titus Tost.
When did you and Titus meet?

-We met in 1985 when starting our studies at the Technical University in
Dresden. From1985 until 1990 Titus and I studied at the university. From
1990 until 1993 we worked in the Studio for Electronic Sound Processing
at the musical conservatory in Dresden, hence the name SEKD -"Studio
für elektronische Klangerzeugung Dresden"


+When was SEKD formed?

-SEKD was formed at the electronics studio of the conservatory in 1990
by Friedbert Wissmann.
But this was not the SEKD that you see today! The real beginning was in
1993 when starting as our own company. We could use the name because the
conservatory had no interest in it...


+Was the company just you and Titus in the beginning?

-Yes. And some students as part time programmers.


+Tell me a bit about the audio software programming culture in Germany.
It is very interesting that so much good audio software comes from
Germany, yet many of us from other countries don't know why or how this
came about.

-I´m also wondering about this ! Maybe because Germans are patient and
persevering. Starting such a project is not the way to make fast money.
It needs a lot of time to get bigger and better - but I think it is
worth this time!


+Did you and Titus know the people from other audio software companies
in Germany?

-Not in the beginning. Now of course we know each other and have good
relations with most of them.


+When did you first develop the concept of Samplitude? ( Is it true it
was a project for University ? )

-Titus had the idea for Samplitude in 1990. At this time (shortly after
finishing our studies) we worked at the conservatory. We had an Emax II
12 bit sampler in the studio and no software to edit its sounds in high
quality. All software development in this time was done on AMIGA
computers because it was a great multimedia operating system. So Titus
decided to write Samplitude as sound edit software for AMIGA for 8,16
and 24 bit samples.


+Was it conceived by just you and Titus?

-The first version was mainly conceived by Titus - I did work on other
projects in the same studio - e.g. an interactive MIDI system, a
Masterkeyboard controller software, a graphics to MIDI converter etc.


+Where does the name "Samplitude" come from?

-The name was an idea of Titus' in 1990 - something between Sample and
Amplitude...


+How much did you know about audio when you first started Samplitude?

-We had a lot of experience working with Synths like Emax II, Ensoniq
Mirage, DX7 and others, so we had a pretty good idea about audio in
general. Also our studies contained lessons about digital signal
processing. We had studied carefully the various AMIGA audio programs -
Audiomaster, Sonic, Dr. Ts sequencers...


+How much did you know about writing applications?

-Titus and I finished our studies as Dipl. Engineer of Informatics -so
we should know something about writing software. However, our studies
took place "behind the iron wall" - most computers in the university
were old Russian mainframes.
But we had C64s on private base and the first AMIGAs were sent by
relatives from Western Germany instead of parcels with chocolate.


+I heard you wrote Samp because you couldn't find an application which
did justice to classical music. Is this correct?

-Yes - the conservatory was not a pop studio at this time.


+How long did it take to write the first released version?

-The first version needed about 1 year - but it was a very
non-commercial version - only a few pieces were sold for AMIGA.


+Did you know right away that you had a commercial product on your hands?

-Not in the first year. But the moment we started hard disk recording on
the AMIGA it became more and more commercial - this was probably in
1992. The first digital audio interface "Maestro Pro" came out and a lot
of video companies used Samplitude to do audio for video with
it. In this time a lot of companies used the AMIGA as a video machine
-and we had an audio solution for them!


+When did you port Samp to Windows?

-Samp was developed for AMIGA only until 1993. At the end of 1993 we
left the musical conservatory and founded SEKD as our own company. Our
first job was to port the software to a platform which had a larger user
base than the AMIGA - So we started in 94 with Samplitude Pro 1.0 on PC
Windows 3.11.


+Did the first release of Samplitude do well in the market?

-Compared with the non-existing marketing and support - yes! We good a
lot of good response and many more ideas and wishes from our users.


+How much coffee did you drink in those days?

-Oh - I believe it was a great amount. Did you know that in the time
before the wall came down in Eastern Germany coffee was a rare product?
It had to be imported from western countries and value was
rare...Sometimes there was only a 50/50 mix available - 50% real
coffee and 50% substitute - made from wheat. You really needed a lot of
this mix to stay awake!


+At that time, PC's were not as fast as now - was it frustrating to know
the only thing holding Samp back was the limitations of the hardware?

-Yes - in the first years we had to do deep optimizations to get just 4
or 8 mono tracks from a 486 machine. To achieve this we needed to learn
and implement Intel assembly language programming - we still do this
today for important parts. This is the key for superior performance in
some areas!


+Even in the early days, people were saying Samp sounded better than
it's competitors. What do you think was the reason for this? ( what was
your secret programming weapon? )

-OK - our secret weapon is: #%$/ äölkölizzt0987äökllkä
We always used the best possible accuracy for all calculations - even
the V1.00 for AMIGA in 1990 had 24 bit sample resolution and did
internal processing with 32 bit float. This was non standard in
those days!


+When did the concept of non destructive editing first occur to you ?

-I think this was in 1992 - when we decided to make a real hard disk
recording system. We created the VIP structure with 8 tracks, the RAPs
and HDPs...


+Was it hard to design the first audio "non destructive editing "
interface ( ie VIP's ) ?

-All this was planned and developed logically, step by step - there was
no hard design time once the concept was sorted out. We went simply step
by step. Of course this sometimes resulted in non standard user
interface solutions...


+Why did you stay away from sequencing / midi ?

-We had our own MIDI sequencer for AMIGA - MIGNON. Not bad! But when
starting on PC in 1993 we saw a lot of good sequencers already there -
that's why we decided to concentrate on digital audio.


+Right from the start, Samp was host based. Why did you take this approach?

-We always had the picture in mind to let the friendly people of Intel
and Microsoft work for us. They are fighting hard to build better and
better processors and software architectures - and our Samplitude
uses it for no extra expense!

-As a two person company in the beginning we did not have the resources
to design and build large DSP systems.
And we always wanted to be affordable for a lot of people - so the host
based principle seems to be the best for us. Today we see the
confirmation of this idea - there are very few reasons to buy DSP
systems - for people who do actually need DSP systems, I believe we will
provide a solution with the Sequoia system with DSP based sync and
monitoring.


+Will true SMP multi thread support for multiple CPU's under NT and
Win2000 ever be supported, or do you think single CPU's will be so fast
it doesn't matter.?

-We see that more than 95% of all PCs are single CPU. Only 5% is Dual
Processor. So I see no need to include an architecture for massive
parallel processing - 4 or more CPUs.
And Samplitude actually supports 2 processors effectively through the
use of trackspeed.
In a mastering situation the dual CPU support can be improved....


+Who designed the brilliant FFT draw filter?

-This was Georg - our expert for DSP processing. His first job was to
create the noise reduction algorithm for Red Roaster, later we developed
the FFT filter, the room simulator, the multi band dynamics and stereo
enhancer.
Actually he is working on new time stretching and beat recognition
algorithms....


+How does a small audio software company get it's product around the
world? Was that a big learning experience for you?

-This was only possible with the help of experienced marketing and
distribution people - like Martin from SEKD America and Dirk from SEKD
Vertrieb (the distribution company in Schwabbach, South Germany ) and a
lot of other friendly people. We learned a lot in this process but our
point was to delegate these tasks to other people so we could
concentrate on programming and not so much on distribution.


+When did SEKD expand ( ie internally - Dirk etc..and externally - SEKD
America ) ?

-We already had international distribution in the AMIGA area- but with
SEKD Vertrieb (Dirk) we started in 1994. In the same year we achieved a
good contact with Jurgen Beck in Dallas as our first representative in
the USA. Jurgen did a good job in preparing Samplitude to be sold in the
US. We are still working together with Jurgen Beck - he is now creating
a demo AVI for the new Sequoia crossfade editor. I hope you can see it soon!


+Are you able to give any indication of the number of Samplitude users
worldwide?

-Not really - I only know that the Samplitude serial number for Europe
and Asia in the last month reached 20000. This does not include the US
sales...


+Do you think many of the users are pro studio users, as opposed to
project studio or home users?

-We know that most users are project and home studio users. Of course we
are happy that a lot of professional users are also satisfied with our
software. I'm sure that project studio and home studio users realize
that they are working with a "professional tool".


+At one time, Skywalker Sound were mentioned as using Samp. Do you know
if this is still the case?

-As far as I know - yes!


+Do you know of any other high profile users?

-Yes we know of some of them - but of course not all! Rob Arbittier
(Noisy Neighbors - Steve Wonder producer), Andrew Scheps, Jeff Sheridan
(Disney), Mick Baumeister (German film music composer), Thomas Sandmann
(German audio engineer and composer)...the list is longer...and growing.


+Is SEKD now owned by MAGIX ?

-I simply see MAGIX Development as a larger development team, also
containing Titus and I, plus all the Samplitude developers. The SEKD
brand is held and maintained by SEKD Vertrieb in Germany and SEKD
America . I consider it makes little difference what the development
company is named.

Here is the history of our development :
1990 til 1993 - Studio for electronic sound processing of the musical
conservatory in Dresden
1993 til 2000 - SEKD GbR was the private company of Tilman and Titus
Beginning 2000- Samplitude development became legally a part of "MAGIX
Development GmbH", which was founded in 1998, first for the MAGIX
software products only.
Actually MAGIX development GmbH is the development team of such cool
software products like Samplitude, MAGIX music studio, MAGIX music
maker, MAGIX playR, MAGIX MP3 maker, MAGIX AV Office and others.
Tilman and Titus have been the heads of MAGIX development since 1998.


+So the MAGIX relationship is the reason MAGIX Sound Studio looks like Samp?

-Yes - we had the job to create the first consumer versions with very
limited resources - that's why they look much like Samplitude...


+How many people now work for SEKD?

-There are currently about 20 developers for Samplitude and the MAGIX
products. We (MAGIX Development) recently moved to another bigger
building - lots of new rooms!
The SEKD distribution companies of course have additional employees...


+It seems SEKD has developed good relations with a number of other
companies ( Point, RME, MAGIX, Algorithmix etc ). The Prodif cards are
not manufactured in house , but are rebranded This seems to be a popular
method of expanding in the new business world, but could potentially
result in problems if the other companies run into trouble. Has it been
good for SEKD to expand in this way?

-Yes, this is correct. We had some very good synergy effects with the
SEKD audio cards - hardware chase lock, input monitoring, synced start
of devices...
But our main focus was always the software development and I feel this
will apply in the future. This is our strength and I see no problem to
"outsource" other less integral parts to other companies.


+As an example, what happens to further work on the Declicker if
Algorithmix go out of business?

-Algorithmix will not go out of business - you will see the next
products of them together with Sequoia soon! !
But if unforeseen events occur, we will look for another company with
the necessary skills or technology.


+Some of the other audio software companies spend lots of money on
marketing. SEKD seems to take more of a "word of mouth" approach. In the
glossy magazines, we hardly ever see adverts for SEKD. Is this a
deliberate approach to marketing? What I mean is, are you happy for
things to grow slowly, by users telling other users how good the
software is?

-Of course I would like to see bigger advertisements sometimes, but I
think it's more important to run a solid business and to "stay on earth"
. We feel Samplitude is a long term solid product, so no big hype or
trendy ads are needed.


+Are you excited about Sequoia?

-Sure I'm excited! We get such a lot of positive feedback from the Pros
- we did not expect this when starting the project! And you can be sure
- most of the improvements will be found in the next Samplitude versions
- so everybody will have a benefit from this work.


+Is it true to say Sequoia is the replacement for Callisto?

-Not really - Callisto (a project from the former SEKD Vertrieb chief
Rainer) would have been a complete DSP driven system - but the hardware
development team did not reach the goal quickly enough. We in Dresden
always focused on the host based principle and so we are not so unhappy
with the current situation....Sequoia has the best of everything.

+Lots of the newsgroup people and some other commentators misunderstood
the initial Sequoia announcement, resulting in unfair criticism. The
price obviously includes some serious hardware - how did you feel about
the response to Sequoia?

-I could fully understand this response - but many people did miss the
point. The professional specialists who really need Sequoia still find
it very affordable! We have had nothing but positive responses from
these people.


+Do you see Sequoia being a serious competitor to applications such as
SADiE, PARIS, ProTools and Sonic Solutions??

-Yes- we want Sequoia to be a real competitor, especially to Sadie and
Sonic. These tools are mainly used for professional cutting and editing
- and this can now be done better in Sequoia!


+PARIS has been a very well received product - do you think Sequoia will
offer similar performance / features to PARIS??

-Our concept differs substantially from PARIS - Sequoia contains
specialist hardware which is needed for sync and monitoring. But of
course it is open to use any other hardware on the market - I see no
big need at the moment to create more specific Sequoia or even
Samplitude hardware devices.


+An interesting aspect of proprietory solutions is the company has more
control over the "total solution", resulting in an overall impression
that the entire system is from that company . By this I mean "the
ProTools sound" or "the SADiE sound". When everything in a system has
the same logo, the marketing impression is bigger. Do you think Sequoia
will have this effect?


-This is more a question for the marketing people. My dream system would
be Sequoia and the SEKD ADDA 2496 DSP converter - giving you the best
possible analog to digital and vice versa!


+You obviously care very deeply about sound quality. Do you have the
same commitment to Samp owners? By this I mean do you appreciate their
loyalty?

-Yes, we appreciate it very much! And we know that this is not always
easy - but we have managed to find acceptable solutions for most people
in the past...


+Many Samp users feel they are almost part of the company, but sometimes
complain about the responses they receive from SEKD support. This is
always a difficult area of application development and sales - do you
think support is something SEKD could do better?

-Of course support can be done better...this is true of many software
companies.
But the good news is: Because of the bigger strength of MAGIX
development we now have an in-house support team of 4 people which can
also give much better Samplitude support than Titus and I on our own in
the past...


+The newsgroup is one of the best of all the audio newsgroups - do
people from SEKD read the posts to the newsgroup often? Why are Samp
users so well mannered? <grin>

-Oh - only the best and most well mannered people stay long enough with
Samplitude to find the newsgroup - so this is a very positive selection!
Some of the developers read the newsgroup daily - so most threads are
known by them - even if they do not post answers in every case. It is a
big help for us to get feedback - thank you all for this good job!!


+How do software manufacturers decide version numbers? ie when does 5.57
suddenly become 5.58 instead of 5.57b? Is it the result of a marketing
meeting or something? <grin>

-Very simple: 5.57 b means no big feature enhancements, only some bug
fixes. If no bugs appear in a user's system there is no need to update.
5.58 means there is something new - in every case check out the news and
upgrade if interesting enough!


+Why not port Samp to BeOS ?

-I see no solution of the audio, MIDI and sync driver problems.
And no real advantages against Windows...


+Will Samp ever support ASIO ?

-This is a SEKD resource problem - we want to include ASIO, but it will
take time to implement. I hope we can prioritise it sometime soon.


+Will we ever see a real time room simulator, or is it too hard to make
it work that way? It's a wonderful tool which would be incredible in
real time.

-It is technically possible to build a real time room simulator, but of
course it is a big task. And it would need a lot of CPU power, so we are
not sure if it would be top priority today.


+Some people have expressed disappointment that the screen shot of
Sequoia only shows two Aux is this likely to change?

-We will build a completely new mixing engine later this year, but the
first Sequoia release will keep the Samplitude mixer. Sequoia addresses
high end editing and cutting needs - that's why we built 4
point cut and the Crossfade editor. These features are ready now and
they should be available soon!
Samplitude 6.0 will have a completely new mixer with an unlimited number
of busses and AUXes and free routing possibilities. And of course new
design..


+Many people like Jim's manual a lot. Will there be a new manual or help
file for version 6 ?

-Definitely there will be a new version of manual and help - and I hope
we can further improve it! Maybe Jim can help us again ???


+There's now three big sequencer based host PC apps - Logic, Cubase and
Cake, plus four big multi track audio based host PC apps - Vegas, Samp,
SAW and CEP. Oh, and there's ACID out there on it's own..
Samp has many more features than the other audio based apps, and it also
doubles as an excellent mastering tool.
Nuendo is the new kid on the block - do you have any initial views on
Nuendo in relationship to Samp?

-Not at the moment - we have to study this carefully in the future...


+What sorts of music do you and Titus listen to ?

-I like good Jazz music very much, also Smooth Jazz, Pat Metheney, Al
Jarreau, Petrucciani. I have a 200 CD and a 300 CD Sony changer and both
are about full with Jazz CDs!
Titus more loves Rock music and..Abba!


+Do either of you make music regularly?

-I play daily on my keyboards (Roland A90, Yamaha SY 85, Korg MS10,
Oberheim organ module...) and the grand fathers grand piano - this is a
good relaxation after a long working day.
And we are thinking about founding a "MAGIX house band" - among the
developers we have several keyboardists, 2 brass players, a singer but
no drummer. Does anyone know a good programming drummer??


+Have your wives ever threatened to leave because of your devotion to SEKD?

-I've been married since 1988 - but we've known each other since 1980 -
so my wife Susi is also part of the SEKD story! She is also a computer
expert - but working for an industrial company - Thyssen elevators. So
we understand very well what we are doing and that it only
makes sense if we do it with 100% committment. So no decision between
Samplitude and Susi... !
I know that this is more difficult for Titus - not married yet - so
sometimes during hot release phases his girl friend has called SEKD in
the evening and her voice sounded not so happy...
Of course we also see Samp as part of our families - it is our baby and
I hope it will grow every year like my son Max - he is 11 now!


+What are your future hopes for SEKD / Samplitude and Sequoia?

-I hope it will continue its way to become a truly professional tool as
well as a tool for project studio and home studio users. I personally
hope to bridge the gap between the very successful MAGIX consumer
products and Samplitude. I see all this software as one family -
there is a huge potential in marketing all these software products as a
family...which will also benefit Samplitude and Sequoia users.


+Did you ever think when you started on the first Samplitude, that one
day you would be interviewed by email , by a guy in the remote south
west of Western Australia who has never physically met you or talked to
you on the phone?? <grin>

-Definitely no!
But our first interview was in 1988 in Dresden from a writer from a
western Germany AMIGA magazine (Ute Bahn from AMIGA Welt) - and this was
in the area of cold war..nearly the same as somebody from Western
Australia.

[stefancrs]

Would anyone mind hosting the test files and results? Someone at smartelectronix or something? Or here at KVR? Ben?

Btw, I had a vague memory of comparing Podium and Samplitude earlier on. So I checked the early pages of this thread, and indeed, we did do this comparison. Me and popsych. It was a meaner test though, including using bus sends and whatnot. But they cancelled out at about -160dB. If my mind serves me correctly, we set up the rules for the test via icq or msn, so I've lost that part of the test, which almost renders it useless. But I had the results kept on my gmail.

[nuisance sonore]

I wouldn't mind hosting if nobody else shows up, but somebody would need to write the html (I suck at it, I hate it and I'm awfully slow).

[jens]

U have had no time today (working on demo-songs) and am about to rush off to a band-rehearsal but I'll do it with a few other hosts tomorrow...

[jupiter8]

However, depending on the host used, native plugins sound different, too. There's a very audible difference between the old Logic PC and Samplitude for example...

I hate to see this nice thread going in to oblivion so i'll add some fuel to the fire.The quote is pasted from the TDM/RTAS wankery thread.

[HanafiH]

If so, how's the quality of for instance Podium? It has _no_ bundled effects. Does this mean that it sounds better or worse than Cubase? If Samplitude sounds better than Cubase because it has better bundled effects I mean...

No actually it's the other way round. In 2003 the 3D audio bulleting board did a fairly definitive test of a great many DAWs and hardware mixing desk. As a result of this test it was discovered that Samplitude 7.1 had a summing error at -133dbFS. As a consequence this error was removed in S7.11. The version of Samplitude used in my comparison with Cubase SX 1 is just about the only version of Samplitude in which it is certain summing is absolutely accurate.

http://www.3daudioinc.com/3db/archive/i ... /f-15.html

It's worth visiting the above web site, as the tests conducted then are in all probability definitve summing tests.

[HanafiH]

welcome to la-la-land...
keep reading your picture books and post pictures from those - it's what you do best

Should I call your home help and let her know you've wet yourself again?

[HanafiH]

Classic. Every weirdo ever talking this summing bullshit has always backed down to this after such a discussion.

Read the f**king thread you moron.

[hifiboom]

okay you are right samplitude does add soemthing to the sound.

I just did another test.

I didn`t even try to sum anything (lol we are talking about audio software).

So I just loaded one single wav file into Cubase SX and Samplitude and rendered this one to a wav file. If I mix these two ( one flipped in phase), there still is some sound at -83/-82 db...

okay than I did mix the original wav file with the Cubase render. and it perfectly cancels

then I did mix the original wav file with the one generated/rendered with Samplitude....
and finally there is some rest of sound ( noise and something from the original sound....
I did normalize this to hear it with my own ears....

So Samplitude does alter the sound or there is a bug.... there is also some noise.

So why do I and some other guys think to hear that Samplitude sounds better?

Perhaps the noise does give the analog feeling and help not sounding like in vakuum? or is this some kind of inbuild mastering fx?

PLZ only serious answers!!


PS: I can upload the files to my private webspaces, if you like.... maybe later, have to do some work now...

[bleebsen]

Some people do like the sound of aliasing f.e.

I'm not implying that samplitude produces such, but the fact that is does sound better to you does not mean it really is a higher signal quality.

[jupiter8]

I don't know.When i did the test with the latest Samplitude demo the 16 noise files and a phase inversed Cubase render of the same files canceled out to at least -100 dB. Probably a lot more (like at least -112 dB),but being a total Samplitude newbie i would'nt bet my life on it.

[jupiter8]

@hifiboom
You did'nt have dither on? That would account for the noise.If you think about it there is no reason for the added noise. And sines are'nt so good for testing 'cause if they are just 1 sample off timewise you will have a really low signal when trying to cancel out..If you use noise instead you would have full volume. So it is easier to hear if you made a mistake somewhere.