Ableton Live is a 16-bit DAW

[LivingParadox]

at what level does Dithering normally sit?

It's certainly not forensic grade software, though, kudos to any forensics expert who brings Ableton into court testimony

[noiseresearch]

Nothing new tbh ... as a workaround this is functioning: adding the following line to the options.txt file:

Code: Select all

-_AudioOffTimeInSamples=691200000

works for me at least (and yes should be an option in the Preferences menu ...

[mcbpete]

Interesting workaround - That looks like it'll wait for exactly 2 hours (at 96khz) before sending an 'audio off' flag. But if it works, it works

Out of interest have you ran Ableton for over a couple of hours in one session to see what happens after that time - I wonder what happens if set to something like -1 (in the same way you can set the PluginAutoPopulateThreshold to -1 to change the 32 mappable parameter 'limit' to 128)

EDIT: Looks like it might be addressed in an update

(from the Ableton Forum admin - https://forum.ableton.com/posting.php?m ... &p=1800253

Yes Ableton is investigating the issue, and I know because I work for Ableton. .... It’s already been acknowledged and is being looked into peeps. We’ll let you know if we hear anything about this.

[noiseresearch]

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[Guenon]

Thanks for linking the undocumented options.txt setting

I remember trying this on a Win10 machine a couple of years ago or so, and recall it didn't quite work consistently - but I just tried it fresh, and hey, it does work. Just set it long enough and ensure that the signal goes over the threshold first (which is usually the case anyway), otherwise it seems not to initialize the timer. So when you need it, this enables Live to work in contexts like the one I posted about, like other DAWs, and that's cool.

It's a pretty obscure setting, in fact googling it only gives you five hits, total, most of them related to the ongoing discussion now in 2022 - and it isn't usually listed even in extensive options.txt "hidden settings" lists. It would naturally be better if this was a preference you could set inside Live, yeah, and all in all if there was a way to turn this "really" off, too (instead of relying on an arbitrary timer). Also, when it's on, maybe even set the threshold manually as well.

[arkmabat]

I'm not sure I could even tell the difference between 16 and 32.

[The Chase]

I'm not sure I could even tell the difference between 16 and 32.

In a delivery format, no one can. Especially properly dithered.

But when getting goofy with questionable sample sources in heavily compressed genres, it's possible for such low amplitudes are pulled into audible amplitudes. It's notoriously noticeable with 16-bit fixed samples, especially reverb tails in the sample before heavy compression. But Live is much more dynamic than that.

Also putting a thorn in the paw of "doom compression" people is funny to me.

[Logga]

It looks like Ableton is doubling down on this and extending it to AU plugins as well. From the 11.2 beta release notes:

AU plug-ins are now informed about silent inputs so that they can release CPU resources and report output silence if possible.

[pottering]

People should ask Valhalla Sean and other devs if their reverbs and plugins really sound different when their plugin's tail/release reaches under -120 dBFS compared to the SAME PLUGIN's audible tail/release (in fact very same tail/release too, only earlier in time).

I doubt it, I bet it sounds the same as earlier in the release phase, making the whole process of rising the gain of a inaudible tail worthless compared with just using the audible part.

EDIT: Maybe it does sound different and we will find out something interesting regarding how plugin devs lower CPU usage on their plugins? Gain-based CPU reduction (which is what Ableton does, ironically)? Yet another reason to ask.

[ahmadfarihan]

In my opinion, this is a textbook example of an issue that inspires people who aren't personally affected by it, to comment in the style of "it's a non-issue", "no real producer or anyone sane already complained about it", "a completely nonsense issue which never affected anyone to this date", "probably not something significant in electronic music production" and so on

Even when this completely rules out certain sound design workflows inside Live.

If you never work like that, and don't know anyone who might like to work like that with any material - cool, you are probably in the majority, hah.

However, the knowing tone of "therefore, it's insane if someone needs it" comes so easily with that observation. And it's unfortunate.

Sooo, yep, an example: I work in the games industry, yeah yeah. We like textures and drones and so forth , and occasionally I love "zooming in" on what happens to a signal at the quiet end, to get interesting evolving and gritty textures and whatnot. You can't do that in Live like in Reaper, for instance. It's great finding those hiding colors and then using them as layers in something else.

Here's the default preset of Zebra 2 going into Valhalla Vintage Verb, followed by extreme upward compression; after that, just a bog standard signal chain with EQ and a bit of pitch doubling and so on. The actual note that plays is just a very short one, and instead of Zebra, for most of the clip the actual sound source is just the tail of Valhalla Vintage Verb itself. No automation is used to create movement in the texture, it's all just the quiet movement happening in the VVV tail as is. The reverb length is set at eight seconds on the plugin GUI. You can't get the same colors just by dialing in a longer reverb; the point is raising the very quiet end-tail signal, with all the normally inaudible residual movement, to a loud listening level.

In Live 10, this is the extent of what you get until it cuts off:

https://soundcloud.com/guenooni/live10/s-XPYN3Ky8MgD

If you do the same in Reaper 6, you find this:

https://soundcloud.com/guenooni/reaper6/s-D0mlDl7i3fo

This is why I never use Live for things like this, hah. Even if you personally never use techniques of this sort (just imagine the extent of material one can use this for in creative sound design, when just a dull standard reverb tail gives you these colors), wouldn't it be just nice if any serious DAW could be used also for that, by those who do like doing it? Instead of calling it insane and whatnot. If something is insane here, it's the fact of not offering this as an option (imo imo).

This kind of answer makes me happy.

[pottering]

In my opinion, this is a textbook example of an issue that inspires people who aren't personally affected by it, to comment in the style of "it's a non-issue", "no real producer or anyone sane already complained about it", "a completely nonsense issue which never affected anyone to this date", "probably not something significant in electronic music production" and so on

Even when this completely rules out certain sound design workflows inside Live.

If you never work like that, and don't know anyone who might like to work like that with any material - cool, you are probably in the majority, hah.

However, the knowing tone of "therefore, it's insane if someone needs it" comes so easily with that observation. And it's unfortunate.

Sooo, yep, an example: I work in the games industry, yeah yeah. We like textures and drones and so forth , and occasionally I love "zooming in" on what happens to a signal at the quiet end, to get interesting evolving and gritty textures and whatnot. You can't do that in Live like in Reaper, for instance. It's great finding those hiding colors and then using them as layers in something else.

Here's the default preset of Zebra 2 going into Valhalla Vintage Verb, followed by extreme upward compression; after that, just a bog standard signal chain with EQ and a bit of pitch doubling and so on. The actual note that plays is just a very short one, and instead of Zebra, for most of the clip the actual sound source is just the tail of Valhalla Vintage Verb itself. No automation is used to create movement in the texture, it's all just the quiet movement happening in the VVV tail as is. The reverb length is set at eight seconds on the plugin GUI. You can't get the same colors just by dialing in a longer reverb; the point is raising the very quiet end-tail signal, with all the normally inaudible residual movement, to a loud listening level.

In Live 10, this is the extent of what you get until it cuts off:

https://soundcloud.com/guenooni/live10/s-XPYN3Ky8MgD

If you do the same in Reaper 6, you find this:

https://soundcloud.com/guenooni/reaper6/s-D0mlDl7i3fo

This is why I never use Live for things like this, hah. Even if you personally never use techniques of this sort (just imagine the extent of material one can use this for in creative sound design, when just a dull standard reverb tail gives you these colors), wouldn't it be just nice if any serious DAW could be used also for that, by those who do like doing it? Instead of calling it insane and whatnot. If something is insane here, it's the fact of not offering this as an option (imo imo).

This kind of answer makes me happy.

It sounds the same to me, except the tail is longer so the feedback gets more resonant as time goes on (which is the same as rising the feedback a little so it lasts longer)...

[pottering]

But I knew people would refuse to ask the actual plugin devs, despite the potential of learning new things about those plugins.

[Guenon]

If you can get a sound like that from a Valhalla Vintage Verb tail alone, without raising the level as described, please demonstrate

Other than that, naturally there are loads of effects that don't have built-in possibilities for conveniently doing that, and can yield interesting results from the perspective of sound design when used in this manner, bringing up the extremely quiet residue tail of their output.

[pottering]

I meant you could simply rise feedback (IMO, I could be wrong, but I don't see most plugin sounding that different in the inaudible phase of the tail) with that same "doom compression" and get that resonant sound earlier, before it cuts off, since the resonance will add up faster.

[Guenon]

Yeah, you might get something in this vein especially if including other subtle stuff in the feedback path, too. I don’t recall the plugin itself having an actual feedback parameter. However, I have demonstrated several feedback routing techniques incorporating this reverb back when I lectured on audio topics at the uni. I don’t think dialing in this sound using those methods quite happened, but as far as game/film sound design is concerned, methods like this are all often in use when generating raw material of this sort, yeah, and they can be in the same ballpark to be then processed further in production.