Music DAW Sound Engines & Summing?

musicx · 5th March 2006

First question.

Does anyone or has anyone ever heard a difference between say SX and Nuendo or any of STEINBERG vs SONAR, Logic, Pro-Tools or is that a bunch of phooey?
I ask as I see or rather read that some that use 32 bit effects have noticed a difference in sound or when using 32 bit float vs 24 bit etc.

2nd.

When adding tracks in audio or vst instruments, the total output of course increases, what waves plug in or any for that matter (software) helps in the output bussing to keep everything smooth.?

I'll also add this since I just read about it - I've read that when instruments sound "not so good" seperate that this sometimes means you are on the right track for mixing, how true is this? Would appreaciate any links on mixing, especially spectral mixing or another name I've seen is "slot" (frequency) mixing.

thanks!

Darcazian · 18th March 2006

Quote:

Does anyone or has anyone ever heard a difference between say SX and Nuendo or any of STEINBERG vs SONAR, Logic, Pro-Tools or is that a bunch of phooey?

I am curious to hear others' opinions on this as well.
I'm using both Nuendo 3.2 and Sonar 5 and haven't done any comparison of audio quality during mixdown of the two . However, I hear an audible difference between their results when I export the same 24/96 stereo wav to a 16/44.1 mp3. The Sonar export has audible "flaws" in it that aren't found in the Nuendo one. I don't know if this is due solely to Cakewalk's mp3 converter or caused by an accumulative effect.

gainreduction · 18th March 2006

Me and a collegue did a very unscientific test recently comparing Logic and PTHD. Our intention was not to compare soundquality but we kind of got that at the same time.

What we wanted to check was timing issues when bouncing down tracks to move between different daws. We did all kinds of tests, playing midifiles from the same softsynths in both Logic and PT, bounced down to audio, imported to the other etc etc... All this to check if there will occur any timing problems. We did pretty much every variation we could think of.

Our reference was always phase shifting and lining up against the original and whatever we did it always nulled, completely. Everything was sampleaccurate-identical.

Both the native Logic rig and the PTHD rig are well clocked and well "cared for".

Note that we did this only with one track at a time so this test does not cover any summing issues at all.

gainreduction · 18th March 2006

Oh, and no AD-DA conversion either. Everything was internal.

jupiter8 · 18th March 2006

We did a test on this over at KVR a couple of months ago. We summed 16 files of noise together in differnet hosts and they all canceled out to at least -150 dB.

You could argue that the test is "flawed" in some ways. Only 16 files and the noise wasn't full level. But full level summing would have created other problems.
In this test all faders were at 0.

I don't remember all hosts in the test but Cubase and Samplitude plus some cheaper host were tested.

And after that test i am convinced that this summing and audio engine buisness is just an urban myth. There is no difference as long as you're testing the same thing.

PTHD would be a whole other matter of course as it has different bitdepth. We were testing 32 bit float hosts.

My 2 cents.

5th March 2006	#1
musicx Gear interested Joined: Feb 2006 Posts: 20 Thread Starter	Music DAW Sound Engines & Summing? First question. Does anyone or has anyone ever heard a difference between say SX and Nuendo or any of STEINBERG vs SONAR, Logic, Pro-Tools or is that a bunch of phooey? I ask as I see or rather read that some that use 32 bit effects have noticed a difference in sound or when using 32 bit float vs 24 bit etc. 2nd. When adding tracks in audio or vst instruments, the total output of course increases, what waves plug in or any for that matter (software) helps in the output bussing to keep everything smooth.? I'll also add this since I just read about it - I've read that when instruments sound "not so good" seperate that this sometimes means you are on the right track for mixing, how true is this? Would appreaciate any links on mixing, especially spectral mixing or another name I've seen is "slot" (frequency) mixing. thanks! __________________ Having so many choices makes me crazy that I get nothing done. ..

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18th March 2006	#3
gainreduction Lives for gear Joined: May 2005 Posts: 2,377	Me and a collegue did a very unscientific test recently comparing Logic and PTHD. Our intention was not to compare soundquality but we kind of got that at the same time. What we wanted to check was timing issues when bouncing down tracks to move between different daws. We did all kinds of tests, playing midifiles from the same softsynths in both Logic and PT, bounced down to audio, imported to the other etc etc... All this to check if there will occur any timing problems. We did pretty much every variation we could think of. Our reference was always phase shifting and lining up against the original and whatever we did it always nulled, completely. Everything was sampleaccurate-identical. Both the native Logic rig and the PTHD rig are well clocked and well "cared for". Note that we did this only with one track at a time so this test does not cover any summing issues at all.

18th March 2006	#5
jupiter8 Lives for gear Joined: Feb 2006 Posts: 1,114	We did a test on this over at KVR a couple of months ago. We summed 16 files of noise together in differnet hosts and they all canceled out to at least -150 dB. You could argue that the test is "flawed" in some ways. Only 16 files and the noise wasn't full level. But full level summing would have created other problems. In this test all faders were at 0. I don't remember all hosts in the test but Cubase and Samplitude plus some cheaper host were tested. And after that test i am convinced that this summing and audio engine buisness is just an urban myth. There is no difference as long as you're testing the same thing. PTHD would be a whole other matter of course as it has different bitdepth. We were testing 32 bit float hosts. My 2 cents.