Ex Adobe Audition and Sony Vegas User

[headquest]

I have noticed some interesting things with audio/seq sound quality.

Upon various listening equipment I have listend to the same wav files on Tracktion, Live 4, Audition, Cubase SX and Logic 7 over a period of time. Onmy own personal listening and a few others, we had these conclusions:

Live 4 has an almost mettalic sound to it.

Agreed. To start with I thought it was Live's native effects causing that, so I brought on board the Kjaerhus Golden Compressor and EQ to add warmth, and replaced Live's reverb with the wonderful Ambience... this helped, but didn't ultimately mask Live's distinctive sound. There's no doubt that Live has a tone-quality all it's own, and I'm not inteligent enough a programmer to hazzard a guess as to where the "metalic" edge is coming from... but as a pro musician I have no reservations in drawing attention to it. And I've pretty much stopped using Live for the time being.

Audition has a fairly transparent sound,
with a slightly raised mid-high range.
Logic has a warmer, rounder more hushed sound.
cubase SX is more like Logic, but a tad less.

Tracktion 1.6 also seems to have a slightly clangy sound to it, more like Live 4.

Now there I don't agree. I think that Tracktion's sound is clean and fairly transparent (though not AS transparent as Audition, which I think is best of all those I have tried. [/quote]

[headquest]

Yep, I've gotten by just fine. But there are some things like cleaning up unwanted noise that would've been a lot nicer and easier with Audition. Also, if my understanding is correct, the modules that come with it are pretty nice, too, and would come in handy for adding polish to a final mix.

For straight-up recording, I'd have no need for Audition. But for specialty tasks, preparing samples, or authoring a CD, it'd be nice to have instead of the mixed bag of freeware that I'm currently using.

Greg

Yes, that's it Greg.

As an external wave editor Audition is a tremendous piece of software to use in conjunction with Tracktion, and I think there are many Tracktion users who also have Audition.

To confirm your point about modules, the effects in Audition are far better than most of the plug-ins I have used, including the paid-for ones. The Reverb is fantastic (convolution based).

Also, though, I absolutely NEED the noise reduction features in Tracktion. Probably my microphone technique sucks, or something

[audiobot202]

Lunch Money,

Why do you want Audition so much? It's a great editor, but can't you get by with Tracktion?

Audition is a fully fledged editor. Tracktion contains rudimentary editing features. There's no comparison.

[Tracktion-Drey]

I also trust audition's mixing engine more than tracktion, seems tracktion has more oompf, whereas audition is more transparent

Why do you trust Audition's mixing engine more than Tracktion's? From a straight numbers point of view the two apps mix the same. The summing sounds the same -- I know this because I tested it out tonight. A multitrack mix with no eq, filters, effects, etc., just volume level adjustment at the tracks to keep it under 0dBfs produced identical mixes in Tracktion, Vegas, and Audition. The mixes from each app nulls when you invert the phase of one of the other mixes.

I even randomly spliced the mixes from each app such that every 2 seconds I was hearing one of the different mixes (blind), but I could not hear any difference whatsoever, whether on the monitors or via the cans.

Upon various listening equipment I have listend to the same wav files on Tracktion, Live 4, Audition, Cubase SX and Logic 7 over a period of time. Onmy own personal listening and a few others, we had these conclusions:

Live 4 has an almost mettalic sound to it.
Audition has a fairly transparent sound, with a slightly raised mid-high range.
Logic has a warmer, rounder more hushed sound.
cubase SX is more like Logic, but a tad less.
Tracktion 1.6 also seems to have a slightly clangy sound to it, more like Live 4.

You will most certainly hear differences between the apps when you start using plug-ins, eq, effects, etc. This is where user preference kicks in and you get one person favouring one app and another favouring the next. You can use any of these to track and produce your songs, and to make a killer mix when finished.

As stated at the beginning of this thread I'm putting all my eggs in one basket for now -- Tracktion. The audio quality stands up 100% to the other apps, and I just prefer the interface and workflow much better in Tracktion.

[rpc9943]

you then should probably sell audition to someone on here who would benefit from it

RoNC

[valley]

Why do you trust Audition's mixing engine more than Tracktion's? From a straight numbers point of view the two apps mix the same. The summing sounds the same -- I know this because I tested it out tonight. A multitrack mix with no eq, filters, effects, etc., just volume level adjustment at the tracks to keep it under 0dBfs produced identical mixes in Tracktion, Vegas, and Audition. The mixes from each app nulls when you invert the phase of one of the other mixes.

Good luck trying to convince people of this. You'd be amazed how resistant people are to the idea that 2+2=4 in any audio application you care to throw at them.

I've seen some pretty silly reasons given for why four sounds better out of one host than another, too.

[Lunch Money]

For the right price, I'll consider buying Audition from you. <laff>

On the other hand, I'm not buying ANYTHING until I see all that T2 has to offer.

[edelweiss]

So, ...Valley...let me see if I have this straight...
What you are saying is...
a "4" from a $500 DAW app ISN"T any better than a "4" from a "4" from a $80 DAW app...???
How bizarre...

LOL

[rpc9943]

lol

[Tracktion-Drey]

Ya. The price of the software has nothing to do with it. If the math is done right it's done right.

Did I say I wasn't going to use Audition anymore? What I said is that I will be using Tracktion to track and mix from now on.

The point I've been trying to make is that Tracktion will get me from start to finish without taking a hit in the quality department.

Hmmm..., I think the right price for my copy of Audition would be... 1 million dollars! Mwahaha!!

[jens]

So, ...Valley...let me see if I have this straight...
What you are saying is...
a "4" from a $500 DAW app ISN"T any better than a "4" from a "4" from a $80 DAW app...???
How bizarre...

LOL

I'd say it's rather bizarre that you seem to deny that 4 is always 4

[Montana]

yeah I guess the Agopee dithering in SX is just a gimmick, right?

[valley]

yeah I guess the Agopee dithering in SX is just a gimmick, right?

No. It's a process, and it has bugger all to do with adding two numbers together. That'd be like saying Tracktion's summing engine is better than FL's 'cos Tracktion comes with FinalMix.

For the money saved by buying Tracktion over SX, buy a decent dirthering plugin. Or better still, a high quality wave editor with a good inbuilt ditherer.

[jens]

For the money saved by buying Tracktion over SX, buy a decent dirthering plugin. Or better still, a high quality wave editor with a good inbuilt ditherer.

or simply use finalmix...

[nuisance sonore]

For the money saved by buying Tracktion over SX, buy a decent dirthering plugin. Or better still, a high quality wave editor with a good inbuilt ditherer.

or simply use finalmix...

Yeah, and add free Voxengo r8brain and use the money saved for a few months worth of payments on a new car...or something...