Samplitude: Best sounding Daw?

[jsp1979]

There are a number of reasons (other than appearance) why someone would think that a mix sounds different/better when in fact it does not.

--Investment (If you spend $2,000 on a DAW, then there are strong psychological forces at work needed to justify it.)
--History with the DAW (Most will defend their choice as better...just check the "which host is best" threads)
--Differing Pan Law settings (has fooled people in the past)
--Other differing initial settings

There are other reasons, but when someone says, "A sounds better than B" then there should be some way to demonstrate it scientifically. I've seen no one do this (and any completed test I've seen showed that audio was identical). Not a surprise.

Pretty much all you see about any DAW sounding better or worse than the others are words spouted by people "trusting their ears" and having no idea what they're talking about. I also suggest that a few of the comments for or against certain DAWs are on the payroll of some of the companies.....at least, it wouldn't surprise me.

Of course, this ignores the fact that the reason our tracks suck have to do with bad lyrics, bad arrangements, poor composition, bad mixes, etc. and nothing to do the sound engine of the DAW.

[Trakstar]

I use sonar X1 and reason 6 as my main DAW. After trying the EQs and dynamics on mixbus I had to buy it. I bought reason 6 for the SSL mixer emulation and it lives up to its name. I bought X1 for the ease of use with the pro channel and the same with the FX and EQ, I can get extreme quality of sound from either,a little different in color and tone no doubt due to the unique nature of the effects character. The same can be said of any DAW. But, when I got into mixbus the sound quality is all I could notice about it. Ive been loading countless warming plugins such as warmifier, TB reelbus, and Ferox to name but a few and I have many differing EQs that are all brilliant to say the least to instill the analog character into my DAW. However, the Eqs and dynamics as well as the saturation are built into the Mixbus as part of its whole architecture and it achieves what Ive been trying to do with plugins flawlessly. The Eqs and tone add so much depth and warmth to the audio I couldnt believe it at first. Im not Lying for the sake of sounding better than everyone else nor trying to do the "Mines better than your's routine", I gave that up at primary school. The harrison Eqs and dynamics are immaculate and none of my others can match the standard, but again they are limited in features compared to others and so also have their flaws. To use mixbus as a full on DAW would be impossible because it lacks any midi features as yet, but for Mixing and recording its won me over. Its hard to take in that Ive spent so much on FX that now Ive now finally found the ones that I wanted, i will probably never use the others anymore which is a complete waste of money for me. I havent used reason 6 since, because I got it for the mixer aspect but this one is better for the sound and dynamics. The thread was titled "Best sounding DAW", so this in my humble opinion is the "best sounding DAW" for me anyway and probably a few others. Everyone has their favorites and so threads like this are destined to cause friction, especially among the biased ones who dictate that theirs is the best even though they probably haven't used any others. I didnt write this to cause arguments rather to give anyone reading an idea of why I took this route and no other.

[Burillo]

yes, but Harrison Mixbus has actual analog modeled stuff throughout all of its signal chain (that you can't turn off). Sonar X1 has builtin analog emulated FX in every channel. that has nothing to do with their summing engines. you can opt not to use X1's FX and get a nulling waveform. if you like those plugins - great, but it's not Sonar X1 you're liking, it's those plugins.

AC222, i don't believe the subjective testimonials about either Samplitude or SAW studio, or any other DAW for that matter. they can be made to produce identical waveforms given identical input and identical settings. whether it's 1 plugin in the chain or 1000 plugins in the chain, doesn't really matter. computer doesn't care whether it has to add up 2 numbers or 1000 numbers.

as we have determined in the thread and as is shown by the null tests, if there is something driving people to think Samplitude, or SAW studio, or Pro Tools, or Sonar X1, or whatever, have the "best sounding" summing engines - the sound itself is not one of them.

(i am leaving out Harrison Mixbus because as i said before, all things being equal, Mixbus still adds its own "magic" which you may or may not like, but which taints the null test and therefore renders it invalid, because Mixbus, unlike other DAW's, actually produces a different output given the same input. you can claim it sounds better or worse, but the reason is because it actually does sound different)

[lotus2035]

.....

Paragraphs dude, paragraphs. Christ Almighty.

[jazzimprov]

"You'd better start believing because that's pretty much established fact in a number of other contexts"

Sorry , No Go

You can't force the issue either...

You can't convince me of this. I could care less about the way it looks.
If anything Samp looks more out of date than the others to me and yet....

Telling me I better start believing it is is not a very persuasive argument and neither is the visual argument.

Jim

[kbaccki]

Color and form affect human psychology. What's refutable about that? There have been decades upon decades upon decades of formal study. And if you want to include the oldest of engineering/artistic pursuits, you can go all the way back to the earliest of humanity's architects. The Greeks, the Romans, etc. They knew how to elicit a response. And the wise UI designers today, whether it's the color and layout of a computer app, or the color and shape of a car, key into what turns people's brains on.

There's no scentifically "correct answer" to what sounds good… it's all very personal. Moreover, what sounds good to you at any particular moment is colored by the state of your brain at that moment. Anybody who's mixed one of their own tunes to an inch from the state of madness can attest… at some point you're just stuck, angry, the thing sounds like total crap. You've convinced yourself -- this sounds like crap. Give it to somebody else for a listen, totally different experience for them.

If color and form affect the state of your brain -- and maybe some brains more than others, obviously… and if the state of your brain affects the "quality" of what you hear… then it would seem safe to assume that the quality of what we hear has the very real potential of being colored by form and color.

There are other switches in the brain too… like louder = better. A common mistake, but very easy to get sucked into.

[Hink]

"You'd better start believing because that's pretty much established fact in a number of other contexts"

Sorry , No Go

You can't force the issue either...

You can't convince me of this. I could care less about the way it looks.
If anything Samp looks more out of date than the others to me and yet....

Telling me I better start believing it is is not a very persuasive argument and neither is the visual argument.

Jim

but samp is skinable (as you are well aware of), though myself I would not spend much money on a skin. The choices with Pro X Suite suit me fine, fwiw I do not buy the visual argument either. That might be simply be because for many years the only visual things that mattered to me were the VU meters and it just so happens that samp pro x changed some of those visualizations for the better imo. So perhaps the whole visual argument is a generation thing, I know when I was younger I really liked a lot of knobs, buttons, lights and switches because they looked cool...then I grew up. Now I just want mellow, cool lighting to get me in the zone...when I say cool I do not mean either, I mean color temp

[Trakstar]

yes, but Harrison Mixbus has actual analog modeled stuff throughout all of its signal chain (that you can't turn off). Sonar X1 has builtin analog emulated FX in every channel. that has nothing to do with their summing engines. you can opt not to use X1's FX and get a nulling waveform. if you like those plugins - great, but it's not Sonar X1 you're liking, it's those plugins.

AC222, i don't believe the subjective testimonials about either Samplitude or SAW studio, or any other DAW for that matter. they can be made to produce identical waveforms given identical input and identical settings. whether it's 1 plugin in the chain or 1000 plugins in the chain, doesn't really matter. computer doesn't care whether it has to add up 2 numbers or 1000 numbers.

as we have determined in the thread and as is shown by the null tests, if there is something driving people to think Samplitude, or SAW studio, or Pro Tools, or Sonar X1, or whatever, have the "best sounding" summing engines - the sound itself is not one of them.

(i am leaving out Harrison Mixbus because as i said before, all things being equal, Mixbus still adds its own "magic" which you may or may not like, but which taints the null test and therefore renders it invalid, because Mixbus, unlike other DAW's, actually produces a different output given the same input. you can claim it sounds better or worse, but the reason is because it actually does sound different)

Good and fair points, and you would be right about the use of plugins. Concerning just the DAW sound engines alone, I would not know what to say. Some people used to complain that abletons sound engine wasnt up to the standard of others, but this subject is quite trivial thinking about it. If your end audio speaks for itself, then its Kudos to whatever chain of process it went through.

[Trakstar]

.....

Paragraphs dude, paragraphs. Christ Almighty.

Alright, Ill make sure of no more mistakes sir.....

[Hink]

Color and form affect human psychology. What's refutable about that? There have been decades upon decades upon decades of formal study. And if you want to include the oldest of engineering/artistic pursuits, you can go all the way back to the earliest of humanity's architects. The Greeks, the Romans, etc. They knew how to elicit a response. And the wise UI designers today, whether it's the color and layout of a computer app, or the color and shape of a car, key into what turns people's brains on.

There's no scentifically "correct answer" to what sounds good… it's all very personal. Moreover, what sounds good to you at any particular moment is colored by the state of your brain at that moment. Anybody who's mixed one of their own tunes to an inch from the state of madness can attest… at some point you're just stuck, angry, the thing sounds like total crap. You've convinced yourself -- this sounds like crap. Give it to somebody else for a listen, totally different experience for them.

If color and form affect the state of your brain -- and maybe some brains more than others, obviously… and if the state of your brain affects the "quality" of what you hear… then it would seem safe to assume that the quality of what we hear has the very real potential of being colored by form and color.

There are other switches in the brain too… like louder = better. A common mistake, but very easy to get sucked into.

when I play, I stare through things and the only colors that matter are the colors my mind sees and associates with tones and sound but that's all in my head (the same thing holds true for shapes and textures)...so of course color affects human psychology but that does not mean a GUI will affect how things sound to you. The visual aspect is a conditioned response, that's not set in tone and can change. An example would be how many authors refuse to change there work area because when they sit down to write their mind is conditioned to respond and the creativity begins. I am this way with my studio, but two years ago I moved...it didn't kill my creativity.

Another point is that sensory perception does vary depending on how many senses you are using, when I am listening to something I will close my eyes quite often. I can smell something out of place while driving and the first thing I do is turn down the stereo. But IMHO (take it or leave it, doesn't really matter) if you stare at your DAW so much it affects what you hear you need to address that and it's not changing any UI that will do it...it's that human psychology thing again. A sailor who stares at a compass will perceive they are on course but in fact they can be seeing an optical illusion and actually go way off course, the same thing happens with truckers and it's called whit line fever.

So if you ask me, if the looks of your DAW is affecting your music you need to look at something else that is not a computer monitor or maybe just shut your eyes

[IncarnateX]

To those really interested in scientific approaches to audio-visual integration, I will repost my link to a free and fair overview paper:

. http://ocw.xjtu.edu.cn:2009/NR/rdonlyre ... visual.pdf


Audio-visual integration is from a scientific point of view not something that can be rejected on basis of anecdotal evidence, opinions and sheer assertions. The only way to move forward in matters like this is designing tests and perform them. But that just science and that may suck in someone's opinion too, of course

In the same line of thinking, Winstontaneous provided an interesting link:

I haven't seen any mention of the Sample Rate Conversion (SRC) tests between different DAWs at http://src.infinitewave.ca/
They seem to indicate that there are visible differences regarding how the SRC of certain DAWs affects test signals. They (probably wisely) don't touch the question of whether the differences are audible..

He hasn' t got a response from anyone yet. Maybe someone (other than me, I have retired) should make a go for it? What do you think a test like this say?

Cheers

[jsp1979]

"You'd better start believing because that's pretty much established fact in a number of other contexts"

Sorry , No Go

You can't force the issue either...

You can't convince me of this. I could care less about the way it looks.
If anything Samp looks more out of date than the others to me and yet....

Telling me I better start believing it is is not a very persuasive argument and neither is the visual argument.

Jim

That's my quote by the way. I'm not forcing the issue. I'm not trying to persuade you either. I don't have any idea about Samplitude. We've just been through this discussion ad nauseum on this board (and others). No DAW sounds better than another. We go through 50 pages and someone finally does a null test which always checks out (meaning, the DAWs give identical ouputs). So,that means the difference is outside the realm of actual difference and in the realm of "made-up" difference. The question then is this: If the sound is shown to be identical, why would someone think one sounds better than another?

You said:

The better looking interface deceives someone into thinking it sounds better?
****Really****?

And I replied that, yes, in many contexts the visuals can affect someone's subjective opinion on something. That's been shown in any number of scientific studies. My claim is that your lack of belief in the concept does not make it untrue. It is at least *conceivable* that the visuals of the DAW make some perception difference. That is all that I'm trying to say.

As IncarnateX has pointed out, there are those studying the link between what we see and what we hear (or how we perceive).

[kbaccki]

I haven't seen any mention of the Sample Rate Conversion (SRC) tests between different DAWs at http://src.infinitewave.ca/
They seem to indicate that there are visible differences regarding how the SRC of certain DAWs affects test signals. They (probably wisely) don't touch the question of whether the differences are audible..

He hasn' t got a response from anyone yet. Maybe someone (other than me, I have retired) should make a go for it? What do you think a test like this say?

In the context of differing DAW outputs... good SRC is always better than bad SRC. So yes, SRC could affect, in an audible way, the output of one DAW vs. another. However, SRC differences would only account for comparisons specifically involving SRC... let's say: compare DAW outputs of a track containing a variety of sample rate sources -- 32kHz upsampled to 44.1kHz, 48kHz downsampled to 44.1kHz, etc. That's not typically a factor involved in basic DAW mixing comparisons. It's typically a separate and independent valuation done across DAW and related audio apps. Hence the infinitewave.ca website!

All things being equal -- that is, for the same set of inputs (i.e., source WAVs recorded or imported at exactly the project sample rate, or at least sourced from the same SRC process), and the same neutral mixing pipeline (i.e., not colored by mixbus emulation and other coloring DSP processes), does one DAW inherently produce better sounding output than another?

Null tests have been conducted and the general conclusion is "no". There are some very very very small differences when you start talking about 48-bit fixed point vs. 32-bit float vs. 64-bit float, etc., but those actual differences are so impercepably small as to not factor into a practical result. Though many absolutely swear by 64-bit double precision mix engines... The null tests on the final outputs show those imperceptable differences in the imperceptable range of perception.

Some more things to consider when comparing DAWs:

* If comparing output through plugins, make sure you're doing apples-to-apples comparisons at the plug level... e.g., oversampling will most definately make a difference when comparing the output of mix A and mix B using the same plug in different DAWs.

* A DAW with a bad PDC implementation (for example), could inadvertently color the output. Improperly shifted samples would most definately cause unintended filtering effects. I think the concept of PDC has been around long enough at this point that I'm sure those apps that implement it go through rigorous verification processes to make sure PDC is working properly.

* Default pan law differences, as mentioned previously...

[jancivil]

when I mix, I like to look away from the screen and rely on hearing. Know what I mean?

[todd_r]

...

You can't convince me of this. I could care less about the way it looks...

AaaaaaaarghCouldnt

Anyway Bitwig Studio is clearly the best sounding DAW