KVR Audio

kev2525 · Post by **kev2525** » Mon Mar 12, 2012 10:48 am

It's great to finally read an unbiased review for a change. I never thought I'd see the day the audio community is agreeing in unison about one thing. Hallelujah!

wkundrus · Post by **wkundrus** » Mon Mar 12, 2012 10:59 am

We have just taken the article offline. The statement made is a personal one and does not represent the opinion of the team behind Studio One. We do our best to give it the best sound quality we can, but anything else is subjective and should be left to users to make an assessment.

Wolfgang Kundrus
PreSonus Software

tony tony chopper · Post by **tony tony chopper** » Mon Mar 12, 2012 11:16 am

Sonar, cubase, and live have all made blurbs in the past that their host sound better

Indeed for Sonar, which was sad
http://www.cakewalk.com/Products/SONAR/ ... ion-Engine

I'd have said, for Sonar's defense, they keep it a vague "better" & don't say "clearer".
..but then they add "Your chances of clipping will be significantly reduced.", which is more or less at the same level of BS.

I haven't read others write that kind of thing yet, though.
Normally they say "the result is more accurate", which is only a lie by omitting to say that it's in no way audible, but doesn't really hurt.

Better, you could beat that lie to its own game, and claim that today's "64bit audio" is inferior to yesterday's "80bit audio" when everyone was using the FPU exclusively. And while 32bit compilers can use either FPU or SSE (generally FPU for best compatibility), 64bit compilers use SSE1 & 2 exlusively, so unless there's hardcoded asm using the (still existing) FPU, 64bit compiles are generally 64bit precision at best, inferior to the 80bit precision that the FPU can offer. Which generally doesn't matter at all.. but if one wanted to lie about audio quality, he'd better brag about using an old 32bit compiler then.

4damind · Post by **4damind** » Mon Mar 12, 2012 11:28 am

Studio One is a good Cubase clone (ok, not on the same level but not bad at all). But all the other stuff like "sounding better than other DAWs" is nonsense.

trimph1 · Post by **trimph1** » Mon Mar 12, 2012 11:33 am

Image-Line wrote:
tony tony chopper wrote:wow that's bad marketing to write such a thing on an official page

...

& I'd be the Studio one programmers I'd be pissed reading that.
I cringed as I imagined having to face up to you if I had written something like that

Fortunately I wasn't tempted as I had already written this...

http://www.image-line.com/support/FLHel ... _audio.htm

Regards Scott

On Cakewalk's forum there is a wonderful 15 page thread wherein someone thought he heard a difference in X1...the whole 15 page thing took off from someone else's comment about the differences...turns out that there was a toggle issue between stereo and mono in the OP's recording...

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=2507939

BTW...Scott, Y U No post that article sooner?!

I had to go looking for the article in another thread...way back when...

tony tony chopper · Post by **tony tony chopper** » Mon Mar 12, 2012 11:40 am

I've myself concluded that something wasn't sounding right, through the same headphones (which matters a lot), using the same soundcard. The thing is, soundcards have their own enhancers, sometimes well hidden, and Windows has its own as well (well hidden and I even bumped on an invisible one, probably only set somewhere in the registry). Those things can change the sound quite noticably, and that's what can make ASIO/MME/DirectSound/whatever sound different.
If I wasn't a programmer I'd say it'd have been easy for me to conclude "it sounds better" for the wrong reasons in a lot of cases.
& of course, the good old volume vs perceived quality problem.. It's normal that the average consumer can be easily fooled, not necessarily by his ears.

Richard_Synapse · Post by **Richard_Synapse** » Mon Mar 12, 2012 12:39 pm

When reading the blog comments, it is clear that people don't like this kind of advertising, even when they like the DAW.

The transparency argument is actually the most convincing. It does not even require any debate to begin with - you simply don't want a DAW to color your sound, without giving you the option to turn off that coloration. Some day I might implement a tube-emulation mixer in Orion, but then it would be optional, not a forced choice. Even a very subtle coloration can be a deal breaker in some situations, e.g. when doing test recordings or measurements.

DAW software made for professionals should never fiddle with the audio. Just imagine Photoshop would automatically turn yellow into white, because it "looks better"...obviously that is silly and not going to happen.

Richard

tony tony chopper · Post by **tony tony chopper** » Mon Mar 12, 2012 1:27 pm

Just imagine Photoshop would automatically turn yellow into white, because it "looks better"...obviously that is silly and not going to happen.

actually, Photoshop does have a color settings/management/profile thing that does mess with the output to screen. It's evil, it doesn't install with it off, and it's hard to understand/bypass (as the options aren't explicit & you're never sure everything is off). I believe that I haven't been able to make black & white mode output correctly, and I have years of experience with it. It should have a simple "don't touch my pixels" checkbox..

Photoshop is made for the printing industry (thus needs this kind of calibration), it sadly shows when you're doing GUI work with it..

lightsfadelow · Post by **lightsfadelow** » Mon Mar 12, 2012 1:35 pm

wkundrus wrote:We have just taken the article offline. The statement made is a personal one and does not represent the opinion of the team behind Studio One. We do our best to give it the best sound quality we can, but anything else is subjective and should be left to users to make an assessment.

Wolfgang Kundrus
PreSonus Software

Wolfgang:

Can you confirm for the masses that the digital summing done in Studio One is identical to all of the other DAWs? I'm not saying you don't have great sounding stock plugins. But when it comes to simply taking the audio from all of the tracks in a project and mixing them into a single, stereo WAV track, Studio One does *EXACTLY* bit-for-bit identically what every other DAW does and there is nothing "special" it does that would make the output any different at all? And that a simple null test against Cubase, Sonar, or any other DAW would result in a completely silent result?

Just want to make sure there are no shenanigans going on here

efluon · Post by **efluon** » Mon Mar 12, 2012 3:09 pm

lightsfadelow wrote: Wolfgang:

Can you confirm for the masses that the digital summing done in Studio One is identical to all of the other DAWs?

how could he? all we did know is the steinberg audio engine and as that was last seen about 5 years ago, nothing is known.

there may be daws out there that still use the fpu for floating point math. that may possibly result in measurably different results.
(and i differ, even though the calculation on fpu is temporarily in 80bit, the results are only more precise than even 32bit sse if fpu-mode precise is chosen, which it not generally true.)

i CAN assure you though that there is no "sonic optimizer" signal processing in studio ones audio engine. there is "automatic" dithering for outputting to lower depth integer formats. but that can be switched off.

about null-tests: to make these meaningfully is quite time-consuming. and i've yet to encounter a meaningful one.

personally i don't give a fish about null-tests for quality considerations. i know that differences in possible sound (i.e. with comparable settings) these days are microscopic if existent (i.e. the difference between 48bit integer and 32bit float does exist, but in the end the most important difference is that in protools-non-native you need to take care not go over +12 dB in-channel, something that could be deemed bad practise anyway).

i do know that my commitment to studio one is bound to being able to make (electronic) music without having to think too much inbetween. not related to how the software sounds, apart from me getting my sound faster.. i also do know that the sound of a lot of guys i know has improved much since they changed. but that is probably mostly caused by them getting some decent monitors/converters/better developed mixing skills. (perhaps having good control ranges for the fx knobs did help a little).

tony tony chopper · Post by **tony tony chopper** » Mon Mar 12, 2012 3:16 pm

the results are only more precise than even 32bit sse if fpu-mode precise is chosen, which it not generally true

But it's generally true, for the reason that the FPU precision is hardly affecting processing speed for a long time now (& is only there for compatibility), so there's no reason to set it low.

But it's not even related, let's agree that a null test will be ok with <-140dB differences, it's music we're talking of.
And if a superhuman could hear the noise, it would still be just that, noise, and nothing like "clarity".

hibidy · Post by **hibidy** » Mon Mar 12, 2012 3:19 pm

lightsfadelow wrote:
Just want to make sure there are no shenanigans going on here

That's not escaping easily

SJ_Digriz · Post by **SJ_Digriz** » Mon Mar 12, 2012 3:21 pm

wkundrus wrote:We have just taken the article offline. The statement made is a personal one and does not represent the opinion of the team behind Studio One. We do our best to give it the best sound quality we can, but anything else is subjective and should be left to users to make an assessment.

Wolfgang Kundrus
PreSonus Software

It is not subjective ...

hibidy · Post by **hibidy** » Mon Mar 12, 2012 3:23 pm

tony tony chopper wrote:
the results are only more precise than even 32bit sse if fpu-mode precise is chosen, which it not generally true
But it's generally true, for the reason that the FPU precision is hardly affecting processing speed for a long time now (& is only there for compatibility), so there's no reason to set it low.

But it's not even related, let's agree that a null test will be ok with <-140dB differences, it's music we're talking of.
And if a superhuman could hear the noise, it would still be just that, noise, and nothing like "clarity".

But I HATE that. Maybe for you super coders there is an inside thing but to the consumer it reads as "null test will null BUT........" and then you lose me. Forget about what can be heard or not, if it doesn't null, it doesn't null.

And AGAIN, I'm not saying they sound different so to all who bother to actually read what I'm saying, please don't go there

efluon · Post by **efluon** » Mon Mar 12, 2012 3:33 pm

tony tony chopper wrote: But it's not even related, let's agree that a null test will be ok with <-140dB differences, it's music we're talking of.
And if a superhuman could hear the noise, it would still be just that, noise, and nothing like "clarity".

agreed.

Studio One sounds better, thanks to... It just does.