Imo

ABC sounds more compressed though not sure if that's what I'm hearing
123 sounds slightly louder more open

I have only listened on headphones and to me ABC sounds less harsh at the higher frequencies in mono.

I wish I had the project file to rid off that cowbell and to smear the delay a bit on the bass lol (just taking a piss mate good job is that a real Juno?).

Voting for 123 here.

I prefer 123 (listening on consumer headphones). I enjoyed the music more in that one, had a better groove to me.

Listening on MacBook speakers. 123 sounds wider, the tails are clearer, and it grooves better.

Listening on earbuds, going to stick my neck out and say ABC Is the oversampled,
Can you PM the results?

Well bro, I guess I’m going down with you

My perception is that Stikkers did do the gain-match I requested, even though I don’t want him to confirm one way or the other until he reveals the answers, and that the oversampling bought him more headroom plugin to plugin to push into the chain for a louder sound at the same volume… which is the key difference you will all find if you try this yourself, and why I am constantly saying to just try this on your own work.

So I am team ABC… RIP

I say that the 123 is the clean version.

What did I miss my brother.

Has anyone tested any Soundtoys plugins lately?

In all my tests, Decapitator and Devil-loc Deluxe show great results at 96kHz and only require 2x OS through Metaplugin when they're really cranked up. That clears up any aliasing.

I don't quite understand the various anti-aliasing measures that developers implement. However, looking at the analyzers, harmonics that bounce off Nyquist seems to get promptly filtered out, becoming inaudible (actually -100dBfs) before returning to the 20kHz point.

I have read posts that severely criticize Soundtoys' handling of aliasing. I'm hoping this might dispel some possible misconceptions.

Does anyone care to corroborate or disprove these analyses?

Aliasing can’t be “filtered out”. Some aliasing can be low for a single sine/harmonic, but most sounds are not a single harmonic, so aliased harmonics will combine with other harmonics in the sound at the same frequency and create artificial EQ bumps within the sound.

For example, play a virtual instrument subtractive synth which has no oversampled components in a 44.1kHz project. Play notes from C5 up to C7 paying attention to their tonal integrity. It should be easy to notice the slow destruction of harmonic tone quality to, in some cases, having the fundamental of the harmonic of the highest notes be undermined by a much lower frequency harmonic.

If anyone has ever had that experience while playing a digital softsynth in its high registers where all of a sudden the note pitches stop matching the key being played, or start slowly accumulating an annoying high frequency buildup, this is the type of damage that removing aliasing from occurring avoids.

Compare that to u-He Diva in divine mode, or any other synth which internally oversamples necessary components.

The main issue that I think people don’t truly understand well enough is that audio in the computer is not sound but numbers, and those numbers are all perfectly added together from plugin to plugin, so what may be inaudible to us as an effect on a single sine is not going to go undetected by the computer.

So, if your method is to listen for chirping of a sine sweep through a plugin like you mentioned was your method a couple pages ago, then that’s not going to give you an accurate picture of the effects of that plugin’s aliasing on a complex source through a computer.

Instead, if wanting to do an audio test, it’s better to use the plugin on a source with and without oversampling, gain-match the results, and study the difference using traditional null tests.

I no longer have Soundtoys installed after my own testing and then fresh install of Big Sur (happily i-lok free atm), but post some screenshots and hopefully someone who does can do some comparisons.

It probably was the best at some time a very, very long time ago, and the word of mouth is still traveling from that distant star.

Logic instruments are well suited to EDM and for anything rhythmic even with the current aliasing situation. It’s just annoying having practically every Logic instrument locked into the aliasing of the current project sample rate.

I just wish they’d let them be universal AUs when installed so I could oversample them and have more control in realtime of their sound for different situations.

The effect plugins though are just indefensible in the current situation. I could definitely imagine a top mixing engineer simply deleting the entire effect chain in favor of analog and getting an amazing result. And if only they also let the effects be universal AUs which could then be oversampled, they’d almost all be salvagable.

I only use Logic Space Designer, and Chromaverb.
Are these two ok?

Yes, he has tested them before and they are safe to use. In fact Space Designer is one of the 'secret' sauces of Logic when used it for convolution purposes rather than reverb.

Yes they both have quality modes. The highest setting in both doesn’t have added artifacts.

Interesting to read that 5 people prefer ABC and 6 people prefer 123.

So it seems to be a real 50-50 thing when it comes to mastering. Of course the difference would be bigger if also in mixing oversampled vs. non-oversampled plugins were used. Maybe we'll test that later.

So, what was what?

ABC = non-oversampled, dirtier sound
123 = oversampled, cleaner sound

ABC… RIP

Very cool.

My curiosity is still if you gain-matched/gain-staged each plugin in the mastering chain.

I've made 4 screenshots of SPAN to display the amount of aliasing that a sine wave would generate purely from the mastering plugins.

Of course, not real world scenario's: 10kHz sine wave and 16,5 kHz sine wave, both @ -14db.

The 16.5kHz sine wave through the clean plugins still generates a lot of aliasing at 2kHz.

Now I hear it, too!

Joking aside, I still hear bigger differences between "shaker" and ohht in ABC.

I cannot officially call myself an audiophile anymore..

Thanks for the test anyway. I was kind of hoping that you would be fooling everyone and ABC and 123 is the same lol.

For those who want to try with synths rather than drum samples...

Same mastering plugins...

Yea! Aliasing effects must be removed if ITB ever will sound better than analog. After this tests I do really understand why hot shots do use hybrid. You can work ITB, but it requires technical knowledge that should not be needed for non software engineers. And it would be good if the software engineers did have the knowledge, but it seems like most of the big plugin vendors does not have it!

I'm glad 123 was non-aliased, I thought I was losing my mind/ears with people preferring ABC.

ABC however sounds like most modern recordings, so I understand why people liked it.

I think it's been mentioned before, but hearing some kind of acoustic (or anything recorded with microphones with or without voice) comparison would probably be easier to differentiate. This style of music frequently has purposeful aliasing so judging just at the mastering stage can make the aliasing sound "correct" or even preferred.

No one dares to share his opinion?
Ok, then here are my 2 ct:

This time I even used my headphones and I cannot say which one is less aliased.
I hear clear differences, but I cannot say, which one is due to aliasing (similar to the previous example, where aliasing created bigger differences between sounds).
In general I try to avoid judgements based on feelings, as long as I can hear differences.

Here I like the clarity of the attack of the bass in APPLE more. Judging from the consistently nice attack sound of the bass, I'd say this version is less aliased.

BUT: there are parts in JUICE, where the leadsynth is brighter, has more grit, sounds better, while the clarity of the bass suffers.

Therefore I conclude, that this test is not suited to judge the aliasing problem: because there is no ability to tweak the settings and listen to the impact it has on the different instruments.

To make judgements about aliasing, the effect must be strong enough, it affects the entire mix negatively.
In the case of a sawtooth, like in this case, aliasing can add more grit which could be very nice. Or it could also smoothen the differences, between similar sounds (here differences between the sawtooth-pad and the sawtooth-lead).

I also think, it would be more educational, to use examples where aliasing really matters: in the production and mixing stage, where softsynths and/or distortion is used heavily.

Glad to be no mastering engineer.

Juice = much nicer sound to me
Apple = metallic like gloss over the sound

Hmm. It is hard.
Apple is the "clean".

If it’s so hard to hear aliasing in these blind tests, then maybe, maybe aliasing isn’t such a show stopper? Just saying...

You dont use safety belt when you drive your car either?

Juice sounds cleaner, Apple sounds more congested in the upper mids with inharmonic hair floating around. Again though, Apple sounds like modern productions to me and that upper mid AM distortion probably sounds "better" through earbuds. Guessing Juice is the less aliased.

What do you say to the transient of the bassound in Apple?