Ableton Live Sound Quality

[Hardtoe]

Well - another bored troll with hours to post and little to say.


Did you type this post on your analog computer?


Maybe if you did your message would've had better sound quality.


Just sounds flat and two dimensional to me.


dfegad

[rhizomeman]

Yep - no need for a discussion. From now on ANYONE claiming Live (without warping stuff on) sounds worse than Logic, PT, etc MUST post samples.

Post some samples so we can all believe you!!! This is the second thread I have asked for samples, and the second thread where none have appeared.

[timlloyd]

I would also love to hear some samples ...

[Rimby]

Originally Posted by nms

in my experience the extra pro level of sound comes from not using live's SRC and opting for one of the best instead, and recording and staying in 88.2khz til it's mastered then downsampled. AFAIK tht's how deadmau5 works for eg and whether or not you like his tracks he's got some of the best sounding production in dance music.

Nevermind..

[ology]

I Find this to be quite the OPPOSITE. I have Live 8 and Pro Tools HD3 Accell. I have good converters and top notchclocking but, while mixing in AL, I find that the entire mix is much clearer, wider.., tighter Highs.... I never lose the constinants and things on vocals that I do in Ptools.. Never lose impact on drums etc... its MUCH BETTER WAAAAAAAY better to be exact. And I have been mixing top notch pro records in P Tools for 10 years... and while P Tools sounds great, live just has that OOOMPF needed for dance music... use it right and you won't be sorry...

[Yuri]

I am a huge fan of Ableton Live, but there seems to be a sound quality related in some situations.

There is a thread at ableton.com discussing an issue (confirmed by Ableton on page 9 of the thread). Interesting read, imo.

It is not an audio engine/summing issue, but rather related to plug-in delay compensation (or lack thereof). Seems like once there are many tracks, with some 3rd party time synced effects, automation, etc. the mix starts to get muddy.

Ableton Forum • View topic - Live + 3rd party plugins = FAIL

[JohnBeat]

Originally Posted by Yuri

I am a huge fan of Ableton Live, but there seems to be a sound quality related in some situations.

There is a thread at ableton.com discussing an issue (confirmed by Ableton on page 9 of the thread). Interesting read, imo.

It is not an audio engine/summing issue, but rather related to plug-in delay compensation (or lack thereof). Seems like once there are many tracks, with some 3rd party time synced effects, automation, etc. the mix starts to get muddy.

Ableton Forum • View topic - Live + 3rd party plugins = FAIL

Thanks man for the link.
I still can't believe how some people say Ableton sounds OK.
... and btw, Robert Henke produces in PT.

[JohnBeat]

Quote from another forum:

"i dont post on here very often and although i just had just spent the last hour writing a HUGE thread about this only to get logged out and lose it... i can say that there ARE definite measurable and factual differences in DAW applications but most people look for it in the wrong places and the myths keep spiraling out of control cause no one really knows what they are talking about.

Summing and audio engines and null tests have nothing to do with it. Any DAW can sum audio and it will null/sound the same, this is scientific fact. although contrary to popular belief the DAW's do in fact use different methods to calculate this sum, 99.9% of the time it will be identical and null to infinity which is irrefutable

the issues that cause real audible differences in DAW's has to do with the PDC (Plugin Delay Compensation), Real-Time Sample Rate Conversion, Pan Laws, etc... The automatic delay compensation found in most DAW's are all subject to fail (and WILL) under certain conditions but how well it's implemented will vary among all DAW's and this is where people are hearing alot of the differences. What this means in audible terms is that unreported latency will cause uncompensated shifts in audio data which can cause comb filtering, phasing, and basically overall lack of tightness, punch and clarity in a mixdown

In the case of Ableton live, since optimized for Live performance, you may have noticed that it utilizes a separate BUFFER setting for vsts that is unrelated to the audio buffer. By default this is set to "as audio buffer" which is essentially doubling the overall latency, this is because Ableton is designed to provide uninterrupted audio no matter how hard you push the application. It is widely known and documented on the Ableton forum that the Automatic Delay Compensation is quite buggy and there's a backlog of threads about this going back years. As stated earlier the separate VST buffering (which makes sense for playing live from a stability standpoint) adds unwanted additional latency where as other DAW's like cubase use a single ASIO buffer setting for the entire project. From my personal experience cubase has superior PDC to most other DAW's but even it is not 100% fail proof, no DAW is. 3rd party plugins can report incorrect latencies to the DAW and in this case manual compensation is the only way to maintain sample-accurate sync. However, Ableton specifically has more exaggerated issues with this when users try and treat it like a traditional DAW and pile on the tracks, plugins, and routing/sidechaining only to wonder why their tight groove has suddenly fallen apart and the sound has lost all clarity and punch. Of course this can be avoided by being careful when adding processing and making use of the freeze/flatten options to reduce latency and real-time processing, however this is not an ideal situation and kind of defeats the merits of Live's creative workflow in some ways. Everytime a new vst is added the overall PDC has to be recalculated and even then the previously reported latencies of certain plugins can change depending on a number of circumstances. The order and type of processing also matters, nonlinear things like compression, especially when dealing with side-chain routing or lookahead functions can make the PDC much more likely to fail depending on the types and amounts of processing going on in the rest of the chain and overall project. This is true for any DAW but they are certainly not created equal in this sense, not even close actually

Another issue in Ableton Live is that automation data is not and never has been delay compensated. there is a lengthy thread over on ableton.com right now where the company has actually come out and "apologized" for not making this more clear in the manual and they admit this is not an ideal situation for using LIVE as a studio DAW. The whole program is built around being able to play to an audience and have the knobs you turn and keys you play be heard by you and the audience in as tight of relationship to what you are doing in real-time. this comes at the expense of numerous other issues i wont get into but you can read the apologies of and explanations of the company here for yourself:
xxx

As stated before, PDC can fail in other programs, maybe not just as easily, but certain conditions make it much more likely and obviously moreso in Ableton. Things really get tricky when you are dealing with routing, ESPECIALLY to nonlinear processes like sidechain compression and even more when the lookahead functions are enabled. People think they can just pile on as much as their computer can take, sidechain and all and have it play perfectly which is not a rational way of thinking. The Fl Studio manual is perhaps the best reference to these issues as they have only implemented Automatic PDC in version 9.1 and they clearly tell you how and why the PDC can fail and why they suggest manual compensation to maintain sample accurate sync in a project. Of course Ableton has always provided very academic and generalized information in their manuals and the result is years of continuing myths and opinions about the software which have nothing to do with the real issues and the factual realities of why programs DO sound different. Of course 60% of their market are teenagers who just want to DJ with it so it doesnt really matter. However im just sick of people getting flamed for honestly HEARING audible differences in the programs only to get bashed on the forums with unrelated information like null tests by computer geeks who dont know shit about digital audio

Of course there are other issues like aliasing and real time sample rate conversion (abletons is one of the worst). If you are serious about production it's best to test your tools and know their limitations, if you do this then you should be able to pull a great product out of any DAW software but it is unrealistic to think that they all operate the same. The point is to always trust your ears, even if it has gone out of style in the age of the internet and false myths. You dont need to know about this shit, there are plenty of artistic people i know who will swear Logic sounds better than Ableton to their death even if they dont really know the real issues and that's fine because their music still sounds amazing and most likely better the people who troll the internet with null tests while in the meantime not making any music!!!"

Well done.

Time to use your ears.

[mpod]

Originally Posted by JohnBeat

Quote from another forum:

"i dont post on here very often and although i just had just spent the last hour writing a HUGE thread about this only to get logged out and lose it... i can say that there ARE definite measurable and factual differences in DAW applications but most people look for it in the wrong places and the myths keep spiraling out of control cause no one really knows what they are talking about.

Summing and audio engines and null tests have nothing to do with it. Any DAW can sum audio and it will null/sound the same, this is scientific fact. although contrary to popular belief the DAW's do in fact use different methods to calculate this sum, 99.9% of the time it will be identical and null to infinity which is irrefutable

the issues that cause real audible differences in DAW's has to do with the PDC (Plugin Delay Compensation), Real-Time Sample Rate Conversion, Pan Laws, etc... The automatic delay compensation found in most DAW's are all subject to fail (and WILL) under certain conditions but how well it's implemented will vary among all DAW's and this is where people are hearing alot of the differences. What this means in audible terms is that unreported latency will cause uncompensated shifts in audio data which can cause comb filtering, phasing, and basically overall lack of tightness, punch and clarity in a mixdown

In the case of Ableton live, since optimized for Live performance, you may have noticed that it utilizes a separate BUFFER setting for vsts that is unrelated to the audio buffer. By default this is set to "as audio buffer" which is essentially doubling the overall latency, this is because Ableton is designed to provide uninterrupted audio no matter how hard you push the application. It is widely known and documented on the Ableton forum that the Automatic Delay Compensation is quite buggy and there's a backlog of threads about this going back years. As stated earlier the separate VST buffering (which makes sense for playing live from a stability standpoint) adds unwanted additional latency where as other DAW's like cubase use a single ASIO buffer setting for the entire project. From my personal experience cubase has superior PDC to most other DAW's but even it is not 100% fail proof, no DAW is. 3rd party plugins can report incorrect latencies to the DAW and in this case manual compensation is the only way to maintain sample-accurate sync. However, Ableton specifically has more exaggerated issues with this when users try and treat it like a traditional DAW and pile on the tracks, plugins, and routing/sidechaining only to wonder why their tight groove has suddenly fallen apart and the sound has lost all clarity and punch. Of course this can be avoided by being careful when adding processing and making use of the freeze/flatten options to reduce latency and real-time processing, however this is not an ideal situation and kind of defeats the merits of Live's creative workflow in some ways. Everytime a new vst is added the overall PDC has to be recalculated and even then the previously reported latencies of certain plugins can change depending on a number of circumstances. The order and type of processing also matters, nonlinear things like compression, especially when dealing with side-chain routing or lookahead functions can make the PDC much more likely to fail depending on the types and amounts of processing going on in the rest of the chain and overall project. This is true for any DAW but they are certainly not created equal in this sense, not even close actually

Another issue in Ableton Live is that automation data is not and never has been delay compensated. there is a lengthy thread over on ableton.com right now where the company has actually come out and "apologized" for not making this more clear in the manual and they admit this is not an ideal situation for using LIVE as a studio DAW. The whole program is built around being able to play to an audience and have the knobs you turn and keys you play be heard by you and the audience in as tight of relationship to what you are doing in real-time. this comes at the expense of numerous other issues i wont get into but you can read the apologies of and explanations of the company here for yourself:
xxx

As stated before, PDC can fail in other programs, maybe not just as easily, but certain conditions make it much more likely and obviously moreso in Ableton. Things really get tricky when you are dealing with routing, ESPECIALLY to nonlinear processes like sidechain compression and even more when the lookahead functions are enabled. People think they can just pile on as much as their computer can take, sidechain and all and have it play perfectly which is not a rational way of thinking. The Fl Studio manual is perhaps the best reference to these issues as they have only implemented Automatic PDC in version 9.1 and they clearly tell you how and why the PDC can fail and why they suggest manual compensation to maintain sample accurate sync in a project. Of course Ableton has always provided very academic and generalized information in their manuals and the result is years of continuing myths and opinions about the software which have nothing to do with the real issues and the factual realities of why programs DO sound different. Of course 60% of their market are teenagers who just want to DJ with it so it doesnt really matter. However im just sick of people getting flamed for honestly HEARING audible differences in the programs only to get bashed on the forums with unrelated information like null tests by computer geeks who dont know shit about digital audio

Of course there are other issues like aliasing and real time sample rate conversion (abletons is one of the worst). If you are serious about production it's best to test your tools and know their limitations, if you do this then you should be able to pull a great product out of any DAW software but it is unrealistic to think that they all operate the same. The point is to always trust your ears, even if it has gone out of style in the age of the internet and false myths. You dont need to know about this shit, there are plenty of artistic people i know who will swear Logic sounds better than Ableton to their death even if they dont really know the real issues and that's fine because their music still sounds amazing and most likely better the people who troll the internet with null tests while in the meantime not making any music!!!"

Well done.

Time to use your ears.

With all due respect it's a pile of nonsense. Not well done. I use Cubase and FL Studio and Ableton (yes all three of them).

There is nothing wrong or "mysterious" or "better vs other" with PDC in all three programs. You can PDC any plugin in 100% phase correct alignment as long as this same plugin is reporting latency correctly to the host. And of course you can prove this by phase cancel test. If in some case plugin is reporting bad/wrong latency it will cause phase shift, comb filtering or whatever in ANY host.

Pan Law is just that. Pan law. Nothing to be afraid of. Sure there are different ones but essentially they are pan laws. I hope you do realize that it's just a gain shift in panorama. As such this is nothing you can't compensate with automation for if you are not satisifed with your host solution.

About FL Studio manual credibility regarding PDC...In case you didn't know (and i am sure you didn't) i was if not the first one then one from early users asking about automatic PDC in FL Studio. Few years back in old forum. Did you know that FL Studio main devleoper told me back then that plugin which introduce latency in a signal path is "broken" and "badly coded" plugin. Yes you are reading this correctly. I pointed back then to UAD and TC Powercore telling them that these plugins are not broken but they introduce latency. I mentioned limiters with look a head and oversampling. You know what they did? They laughed at me and they told me that if that is situation that i shouldn't use DSP and that there is just fine native replacement without adding latency.

Few years later main developer yes that same developer then developed Maximus. A Mastering plugin which introduce latency in a signal path

He finally and slowly started to add first manual compensation (still laughing at me and telling me that automatic PDC as such does not exist, back at that time he also told me that multicore CPU is waste of resources and that he will not support multithreaded FX and generators), then slowly semi automatic and now fully automatic PDC. He is no laughing anymore.

I would say that forcing "manual alignment" is his last try for forcing personal nonsense agendas. Surely manual is written by great scott.

But as i said if plugin is reporting correctly PDC will work correctly. And FL Studio has very same quality as any other host. Ableton too. Too bad that on internet you can find all kind of nonsense about these great applications. Luckily anyone can test things on their own.

[h4nc0]

Originally Posted by mpod

But as i said if plugin is reporting correctly PDC will work correctly. And FL Studio has very same quality as any other host. Ableton too. Too bad that on internet you can find all kind of nonsense about these great applications. Luckily anyone can test things on their own.

LOL. that is a funny story. However, lack of automatic sync of automation in Ableton does suck big time and I hope they fix the issue in Live 9.

[systematika]

Originally Posted by skygod

Is the THREAD question about the overall sound engine of the DAW or the sound quality of its instruments?

1. In reference to the first, all DAWs sound the same: DIGITAL -- 1s and 0s modeling a real audio audible and tactile analog universe. They all sound crappy at any sample rate. Yes and even at 192. It is still digital. It might sound ok and sound real, but it is contrived and doesn't penetrate your bones and body sitting in front of an audiophile system like a scratchy old analog 33 rpm vinyl record or 1/4 inch or 1/2 inch reel blasting thru will. And all the brainwashed engineers who have been indoctrinated and to believe this by a stubborn and greedy industry that sold itself short at 24/44.1 in all of its commercial consumer glory that applies to everything by every digital software and hardware MFG.

Maybe some sound better than others because of whatever floating point bullshit in the guts of the app where mathematical conversions occur, but at the end of the day its all digital. Notwithstanding, running digital audio through analog devices OTB does somewhat ameliorate the problem, but it is still the shake-and-bake solution to overcome the cost of building an analog studio at the onset.

The other offset that most probably (99.9999 percent of the digital DAW users on the planet?) will argue their case based on workflow speed and the digitization and ergonomic miniaturization and capability of rapid repetition and duplication cloning of the process to wit: tracking, mixing and mastering process via automation. Their third argument is their investiture in their individual and many woeful and tearful digital audio architectures. And of course investment also means denial of reality to rationalize their individual faaked up realities.

2. In reference to the latter, Ableton's sound library is very low end compared to what is on the sample market now. Ableton's strengths are obviously the drag and drop workflow that lends itself to looped music composition and production. Although one can multi track a band in real-time Ableton was not designed for this. Any serious novice to pro engineer who 'multi'-tracks music will use an external recording MDM be it an HD24XR, an iZ RADAR Nyquist or S-Nyquist, or have a dedicated PCIe dedicated 64 Bit WIN or MAC system set up on AES or MADI workflow tracking and mixing 24-96 tracks in real-time to and from whatever 'CPU' of choice to an analog mixer or if they like the sound of digital will remain in the box and fatten it later with outboard analog gear back to the point of paragraph one.

If MFGs would stop screwing with the Boss BRs and the Zoom R16/24s and the rest of the bundled junk around and just build AFFORDABLE HD24XR quality dedicated 24-88.2/96 stand alone 8-16-24-32-64 track recorders that just do what the DR680 does and just ‘RECORD’ and nothing else to class 6-10 SDHC or Glyph USB w/o having to pay $19500 for a bulky iZ S-Nyquist bundled system. The technology is there, they just refuse to give up their precious consumer 24/44.1-48 insanity domain of the market. TASCAM is on the right track with their contractor ‘field recorders series’. And what is it about these companies refusing to say these can be used in the studio and have to be categorized and labeled as field recorders for live work only? WTF? Did everybody forget that a decade ago we were all tracking to tape? So what’s the difference now? Are companies afraid of offending DAW MFG’s like digidesign and others and who gives a shit if they are offended? Buld the goddamned things and sell the same device for dual use you morons:

1. Live recording.
2. Studio recording.

See how easy that was? And wasn’t that easy you faaking morons! Jesus H. Christ. It’s like I’m doing business with infants all playing merrily in a kindergarden palybox.

Same applies to mixers. The amazing quality built Yamaha MG series are only good for sound reinforcement? Really? Allen and Heath GL only good for sound reinforcement? Really then? Why because they have no USB or firewire dongeloid capability? Huh? Remember when we used to track to tape and mix to an analog mixer? I mean what has happened to everybody on the planet? Has everybody totally lost their faaking minds? The MG mixers sound great as a stand alone mixer to any stand alone multitrack recording device MDM. Sounds better than many high end digital thru PCIe to DAW tracking tracks whether AES or MADI based flow. Same with lower end MixWizard, Spirit M12 etc. These sound great as well. But noooo, these are labeled and sold as live sound reinfolrcement mixers only. It’s mental illness at its zenith and the ‘Sacks 5th Asvenue’ industry geniuses who set the rules for everybody to follow need to be collected up and lined up and summarily executed via (you have choices here): Beheading (Islamic style with a Koranic reading and an AlQuaida youtube vid of course) or Guillotine (French style), Old fashioned impalement on the city walls (Old Testament style), Hanging (old Western and US military tribunal style), Firing Squad (Military funeral), and of course Seppuku (self-induced suicide if they had the balls and intestinal fortitude to kill themselves and we can all be done with their insane bullshit), Jumping off the GWB, NYC (during rush hour of course), and many other tasteful option available. Google this at your convenience.

And Alesis should get back in the game and reinvent the HD24XR as a smaller and slimmer Class 10 capable SDHC device where the BBR Blackbox is at now, and so on and so forth. When JoeCo fixes the ‘punch in’ ‘punch out’ discrepancy of their balanced analog box, I’ll buy two for studio and live use. In the meantime its useless for me w/o punch-in/out capability w the current 1-3 second delay. Are they nuts?. Apparently so. Is that why Sadie disappeared off the planet. Its called a permanent brain aneurism … nuff said.

Secondly Ableton is a very late game player in the 64 bit arena. Slow poke is the term that eluded me.

Third, anybody who composes for film, or other artist(s), or self-composition for commercial sale or their own bands is a total numbskull not to just buy a MOTIF XF or Kronos and be done with it. These are one stop composition and performance sound engine solutions. Yes they are digital but a different species and class of digital. These are dedicated and are not processed thru a computer OS layers and its layers of mathematical algorithms to get the sound out. Same applies to Lexicon and Eventide and TCE rack units. Ok you disagree, so keep using your AU VST RTAS TDM plugins and be happy. But stop complaining that your mixes suck at the end of the day and crying on forums about which tube preamp or comp or limiter to run your 2 bus signal thru to make it glue and sound real and professional.

I like the XF and now the amazing Kronos and Kurzweil high end and also the rack unit modules by Roland and Yamaha, and will always track analog out and not use ITB sound engines. Yes they are digital and not analog but a different beast altogether as stand alone dedicated units with very powerful dedicated processors.

The same applies to guitar modeling. They all sound like crap until the GDEC3 and Fender Mustang series. But I still run these out thru high output speakers and capture the sound in the air. This will not make a lot of sense to folks who have never worked with analog gear but oh well so is life.

So in summary two main points can be gleaned from this entire discussion:

1. Poland Spring Water tastes much better than water, and

2. Analog still sounds much much better than analog.

Cheers-

~skygod~

This whole post is complete BS.

1. There is no sound of digital. What you put in, is pretty much what you get out. In my view, that is a GOOD thing. You can always run through something, record it, and it will faithfully play back what you recorded within less than a .5 percent total frequency difference. Every time. Preamps, etc will always be ANALOG. You can have a crappy analog pre with ICs or you can have a better one with spaced out components. It doesn't matter if it's a Neumann connected to a avalon and then an apogee or a crappy 60 dollar USB mic. One is made of quality, one isn't.

2. I don't like the sound of vinyl on it's own. I didn't grow up with vinyl, I grew up with CDs and tapes. If you like the sound of vinyl, great but don't fool yourself it isn't better. I like vinyl sound as an effect, but would never listen to music with it unless I was feeling nostalgic that day.

3. You don't have to make looped music. Electronic dance music started off with loops, because the sequencers didn't have crap for memory. Now, it's just a matter of being lazy.

4. If you're really using outboard and analog equipment, then you don't need ableton's library anyways. They make a DAW. If you want libraries buy a copy of sampletank, reason, kontakt, or any of the other 25 samplers that already have multiple hundreds of gigs of libraries. Their in built devices are nice for creating your own libraries anyways if you happen do that.

5. I like the sound of A&H, etc too but I just call consoles, consoles. Some guys like sales people have to separate them because they need to explain the difference during a sale to someone who doesn't know, but they're all audio consoles to me. You have expensive audio consoles, decent-for-the-money audio consoles that are sufficient for the job if you're using outboard everywhere, and cheap consoles that sound bad no matter what you stick through them. There's a reason we talk model numbers and manufacturers, after all.

7. SDHC is dicey at some rates. Even JoeCo suggests using actual drives. I agree though for the most part.

6. Hardware dsp based effects are the same as effects on the PC. They're a quick-always on solution and that's why people use them. No opening software, finding the plugs, etc you just send it out and back in different ways depending on the application.

8. 64 bit is nice, if you use more than 4 gigs of ram. I don't so I don't need to use it yet, I'm happy with the way I am. There are no other benefits.

9. At least you know your boards. Yamaha, Kurz, and Korg are my type of boards too but F*** Roland, I don't even like their analog synths. I'll take an MS20 or a polysix (or a moog) before I ever take one of those juno jupiter whatevers.

10. Guitar modellers can sound good, your mileage may vary over different ones.

[mpod]

Originally Posted by h4nc0

LOL. that is a funny story. However, lack of automatic sync of automation in Ableton does suck big time and I hope they fix the issue in Live 9.

I totally agree about that! I hope for that in v9.

I was just trying to point out that visual automation sync does not have anything with technical stuff like audio quality, PDC alignment etc.

[systematika]

Originally Posted by mpod

I totally agree about that! I hope for that in v9.

I was just trying to point out that visual automation sync does not have anything with technical stuff like audio quality, PDC alignment etc.

I'd like automation clips. It would totally make my day!

I use sends for verbs and things and turn PDC off. If I freeze a track with modelling and it's recorded clean I'll turn it on before I freeze it. I have around 2 ms round trip anyways, so that works for me.

[mpod]

Originally Posted by systematika

I'd like automation clips. It would totally make my day!

How do you mean? You already have option to use clips which contain automation data.

[systematika]

Originally Posted by mpod

How do you mean? You already have option to use clips which contain automation data.

I mean when I record live automation, I want to put it in different places without doing a bunch of selecting, copying, and pasting such as sending out to an aux, or say a filter track. I may not want it attached to that clip, maybe I've recorded a different take of the same musical part for feel but I want to use the automation again because the timing is otherwise much the same. Currently I have to select the stuff from a down menu and copy it all manually.

That type of thing is a bummer to do in Live, especially when working on lots of tracks at once with a bunch of different automation. I'm a shift/control-click master!

It's a small gripe, not even PT has that either but I'm an efficient person. Best feature of FL amongst the tons of crap. Reason does something similar too. I'll personally take the clip fades/crossfades and other real DAW features like non sample based audio editing. :P