Audio Engine?

[skybax]

personally, I strongly believe that the reasons why people seem to hear difference in hosts sound "quality" or whatever is firstly due to maybe different kind of technical settings, used drivers and their settings (something like what Gol described) ... And secondly, the GUI and how the app looks.

I really want to hear an actual difference in a blind test with several hosts using identical settings.

Other than settings or whatever, I am positive that for most people the difference they notice in hosts sound quality is completely in their heads, for example because other hosts' knobs look better than others or some use nicer colours in their level meters.

[dj terror]

a preset style scroling like orion you know now where the preset name is scrollable above the synth

that's legitimate. I have my own reasons to avoid doing that (btw the name is shown as a hint in FL), but at least it's a valid request.

2 an improvement in the audio engine would be awsome

i know im just one person gol but i think my ideas are very impottant

I'm afraid that 'improvement in the audio engine' is still not a valid request nor an idea. WHAT should be improved in the audio engine exactly?

i am glad you think its a valid request gol you have your own reasons thats understandable are these reasons that because they exist the scrolling preset window will NEVER be done ? or is it just going to be a matter of time .cause i can tell you now that a scrolling window would increases fruity sales by quite alot . and would bring it closer to bigboy status .getting back to your question about the audio engine .imo synths and drums sound very muddled when i compare them to orion or cubase whereas orion is bright loud crisp and clean fruity is a much lowered volume things put through it sound very muddled and unclean thats what i thinkis wrong what can be done ?improved ? a brighter crisper much louder more poweful sound .thatswhen you use fruity give you the feeling like you actuly using hardware thats what can be done . do all that and your two steps ahead of the game .

[Robert Randolph]

Wanna see some differences? Load 128 tracks of uncorrelated bandlimited white noise. 1-1000hz then do the same with 15000 to 22000, then 20000 to nyquist.

The results will almost all be different at some point. Some hosts will be similiar, but not all.

Now, set the gain on every track to -1.0 and redo it. This seperates the hosts even more.

Now do the inversion test. exact same file, first... 64 tracks Inverted, then 64 tracks natural. Then interlace them. 1 natural, 1 inverted, 1 natural, 1 inverted etc...

Wanna play more? Use a Dirac impulse and you're favorite reverb (that responds). You'll be surprised at what hosts change it.

Now toy with dither a bit....

Have at it Dex. This was near the intro of what's going to be a long thread. I wouldnt say people have no idea what they're speaking after they offer you proof and you're too lazy to look at it.

-R bert

[Robert Randolph]

Tests not done correctly, they obviously will provide equivalent results. There is a threshold up to where no (or very little) error will exist.

It is "fishing" for a problem, as I've said it's a minor portion, but it is there.

And posting my results of a test dont mean jack Ive done it (and constantly find new ways to do it). Go try it yourself.

-R bert

So, in short, this is what you've just said "I'm blowing steam and really can't prove anything"

Cool. I was just going to say it myself, but a little baiting and I got you to say it instead.


Good day.

You're 11 right? Lets turn this into a name calling contest, that helps prove a point! If you're too lazy to do it, it's your choice to live in ignorance. I do not like to read published tests myself so I do not like to publish my own tests. They are easily botched, manipulated or plain out lies. Case in point: Mac g5, fastest personal computer on earth.

As to why you care what the host sounds like with 128 tracks of white noise, I think you need to study up. It would get even more fun with pink noise in some hosts....

This is really frustrating. Ill host a test eventually that will be done by people here (not myself), but right now I dont have the many hours it takes to properly setup the experiment.

-R bert

[pough]

but right now I dont have the many hours it takes to properly setup the experiment.

Robert, are you kidding? Almost 1000 posts in 5 months, man! Less talk, more rock! Stop blabbing and started testing!

[pough]

cause i can tell you now that a scrolling window would increases fruity sales by quite alot . and would bring it closer to bigboy status

Fl Studio will reach bigboy status and increase sales with that feature? That's just bizarre. Say, did you ever go back to that other thread you started where you were asking for this? The one where I posted that you can select patches by right-clicking on the arrows to get a drop-down list of all the patches?



So you don't have to look up at the hints!

BTW, if FL were to "improve" their audio engine, it would essentially mean having a special EQ unit in the signal path that you can't get rid of, which is NOT an idea that appeals to this customer. The main difference between FL and its competitors is the included sounds and generators.

[Robert Randolph]

but right now I dont have the many hours it takes to properly setup the experiment.

Robert, are you kidding? Almost 1000 posts in 5 months, man! Less talk, more rock! Stop blabbing and started testing!

Was speaking about the last few days... Give me a week or so, it will take a decent sized period of uninterupted time and I only have a little bits and peices here and there for a while. My first night of sleep in 3 days was last night, gah.

-R bert

[nuffink]

This is really frustrating. Ill host a test eventually that will be done by people here (not myself), but right now I dont have the many hours it takes to properly setup the experiment.
-R bert

Robert,
You've been making these claims of audio engine differences for a while now, often alluding to test evidence generally unavailable. Up till now very few have challenged you on it. Well I am now.

PUT UP OR SHUT UP.

Extrordinary claims require extrordinary evidence, and when you're arguing with the developer of a major sequencer you're making extrordinary claims.
Now, please don't take this post as a straight out flame, you could be right, but until you're ready to prove it the assumption has to be that you're bullshitting.

Regards

nuffink

[smart]

WHAT should be improved in the audio engine exactly?

"Added - New Realtime 64 Sinc Interpolation Engine. (Optional)"

It'll look better on these tests that are all the rage these days.

[smart]

fruity is a much lowered volume

When you load a sample into FL, The sampler channel automatically gets set to 78% so that it doesn't clip, and gives you some room for mixing up or down rather than only being able to lower the volume.

[monsterbeetle]

The way audio summing is handled is indeed a real problem,

for instance to add two 24bit words you need in the extreme case a 25bit word to represent the results see the problem? So the guys used 32 bits float, where you have 1 sign bit , 23 bits of mantissa, and 8 bytes for the exponent. So okay, the dynamic range is greater thanks to the exponentiation, but the mantissa is smaller... see the problem again? with a decent number of tracks you can exhibit an alterations on the sum, because when using floating point numbers, the quantifications noise level is correlated with the amplitude of the signal, whereas it's not with fixed point numbers.

the other factor is that sound cards can't output 32bit flows, so the signal is dithered, and differently from app to app. for reproductibility, export the mix as 32bit floating point, and listen to it in the same host, with the same dithering, to be able to isolate the impact of the summing.

The floating point numbers do not behave as their perfect mathematical counterpart in R do. However there have been some tryouts at implementing real numbers packages, using another representation of the numbers, different from the mantissa+exponent way (this time a real number is a size varying list of its integer part plus irreductible fractions) arithmetic operations have been defined on these numbers, and those numbers behave in a mathematically correct way. But the computations such as multiplication, division, and even additions take just ages to complete. However with these numbers, you have no rounding error at all, no noise induced by truncatures, etc... they are genuine real numbers

Would be nice to have a "High quality export" module based on this implementation of real numbers. but it would take for instance a week to export and dither a 40 tracks project.

For those interested in Comp-Sci, just take a look at that:

http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/375625.html

and stop dickin' around. The audio summing problem is REAL.

[Igor 4000]

I really want to hear an actual difference in a blind test with several hosts using identical settings.

Seriously, this is the only way to ever get any difinitive answers on this topic. Same settings, same files, same monitors, same listening environment. Otherwise this is just people cheerleading their favorite host.

[CornerWolf]

and stop dickin' around. The audio summing problem is REAL.

as far as i know it doesn't relate to apps vs apps but the general way of doing in computer language.

Good, you've shown you know a lot, but it's not of our very interest here, apart if you want devs to provide each one their own *.wav format.

[arguru]

The way audio summing is handled is indeed a real problem,

for instance to add two 24bit words you need in the extreme case a 25bit word to represent the results see the problem? So the guys used 32 bits float, where you have 1 sign bit , 23 bits of mantissa, and 8 bytes for the exponent. So okay, the dynamic range is greater thanks to the exponentiation, but the mantissa is smaller... see the problem again? with a decent number of tracks you can exhibit an alterations on the sum, because when using floating point numbers, the quantifications noise level is correlated with the amplitude of the signal, whereas it's not with fixed point numbers.

the other factor is that sound cards can't output 32bit flows, so the signal is dithered, and differently from app to app. for reproductibility, export the mix as 32bit floating point, and listen to it in the same host, with the same dithering, to be able to isolate the impact of the summing.

The floating point numbers do not behave as their perfect mathematical counterpart in R do. However there have been some tryouts at implementing real numbers packages, using another representation of the numbers, different from the mantissa+exponent way (this time a real number is a size varying list of its integer part plus irreductible fractions) arithmetic operations have been defined on these numbers, and those numbers behave in a mathematically correct way. But the computations such as multiplication, division, and even additions take just ages to complete. However with these numbers, you have no rounding error at all, no noise induced by truncatures, etc... they are genuine real numbers

Would be nice to have a "High quality export" module based on this implementation of real numbers. but it would take for instance a week to export and dither a 40 tracks project.

For those interested in Comp-Sci, just take a look at that:

http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/375625.html

and stop dickin' around. The audio summing problem is REAL.

Using 64-bit doubles for mixing and problem gone.

Dumbest thread ever

I cant agree more.

[whyterabbyt]

monsterbeetle quoth The way audio summing is handled is indeed a real problem

It's provably a cause of mathematical innacuracies, yes.

But is it the cause of an appreciable and significant loss of 'quality' on typical as well as unusual source material given normal usage patterns, to the extent where it is a primary factor in the degradation of audio quality compared to other facts, eg recording signal path, playback equipment, sample rate, bit depth, media damage, earwax et.c. et.c. Thats the actual question, methinks.