villalobos about ableton

[Opuswerk]

Learn to use it correctly.

This, although I'm really struggling to make things sound really clear with the EQ8. Still need to check how the Hi-Quality mode makes a difference though.

[4am]

I'm more worried about stability than sound quality with ableton live... Lots of tests have been done at abl forums and from ableeton devs, if you dont warp it (use the pitch algorythm) and dont put any fx on it and you do the phase test the result is zero, same sound as in logic or cubase. It's no magic it's math, there is no analaog stuff in there, just numbers... Learn to use it correctly.

exactly!
all these wonderful features (pitch and timestretch algorithms) that give you freedom in ableton live have a price: sond quality. the more you use them the more you degrade the original sound!
if you use it "plain" it sounds like any other DAW
the effects of ableton live are very characteristic and easily recognizable also...

[tone-def]

i think what the problem is most people in our scene use Ableton Live and most of the music is complete sh!t so people put 2 and 2 together and end up with Ableton sounds sh!t.

been a poor producer has a bigger impact on the sound.
home made mastering is bad
using low quality vengeance samples is bad
using low quality virtual instruments and effects is bad.

[coldfuture]

I'm more worried about stability than sound quality with ableton live... Lots of tests have been done at abl forums and from ableeton devs, if you dont warp it (use the pitch algorythm) and dont put any fx on it and you do the phase test the result is zero, same sound as in logic or cubase. It's no magic it's math, there is no analaog stuff in there, just numbers... Learn to use it correctly.

This is absolutely true in one sense, but I have personal experience with monitoring something in ableton while mixing, and then doing a render and having it sound different when its done.

Now that render may be exactly the same as an equivalent bounce in Logic from a phase standpoint... but what it doesnt resolve is the problem of hearing something and making decisions in the mix, only to have the rendered file sound different than what you concocted while mixing.

I have nothing against ableton at all, and really enjoy using it, but the amount of math and bitcrushing that its doing warping stuff, etc., is affecting the live monitor of any song I am working on.

A solution I have come up with (since I now mix on a zed R16) is to split the channels and mix analog. This resolves it about 99%, but then its pretty sad that it takes a $2500 mixer to deal with this.

I can also hear Logics color very easily, but whats great about Logic is that once you are done tracking and are mixing, the bounce always sounds like what you were monitoring when mixing.

I still mix analog with Logic as well, but I never had any trouble with a bounce sounding different when I was mixing all ITB.

So... all this being said: its very easy to see how a guy who tracks actual gear for all his songs and is used to monitoring that gear via the board live while working on a song (Villalobos), can hear the color of various DAWs.

Its just a fact that sound will change at the different stages in most cases.

At one point you are hearing your synths via your nice analog desk. Then, once you track them, even at 24 bit your sound changes a bit, and in some cases loses something.

Then when you reverse your i/o to return to the desk for mixing, you can very clearly hear how the sounds you tracked are different from what you were at one point hearing in real time right off your synths/drum machine's outputs.

I, for one, have no doubt at all that via this type of exposure, its very very easy for an obsessed audiophile like RV to have "learned" the tracking sound of any DAW and even be able to call out what it does.

I mean I am by no means a top professional, and yet having used Logic for so many years I am willing to bet that under an oscilloscope Logic will show some alteration in a tracked sound compared to a live sound playing back alternately from say a sampler or back the recorded track in Logic.

All these phase inverted null tests really show is that a wav file is a wav file.

What they don't take into account is that when you are producing a song from the ground up, even if you used the same sample set in 2 different DAWs all the exact same 3rd party plugins and the same midi file, there is simply no way in heck you will get the same sound.

[Phase Ghost]

I think I'm going to stop bouncing tunes period. I use Logic and have always bounced out tracks (in realtime), but I've always been weary of rendering a tune as opposed to recording it. I have extra inputs on my audio interface so I think I might just run the master out and record it back in.

Honestly, I wish I knew a bit more about Logic's "bounce" process. Maybe it is recording.

[tone-def]

so when you bounce in ableton is it done quickly (like Reason) or do you have to sit there while the track plays in real time?

[Cheaper]

Ableton's summing algorythm is sh!t. that's its real problem. try to patch all the channels you have through an analog mixer and you'll have a much better quality.

[mlexicon]

Ableton's summing algorythm is sh!t. that's its real problem. try to patch all the channels you have through an analog mixer and you'll have a much better quality.

This is something i was curious about, if i sent every channel through an analog mixer, what exactly is the benefit? I know i would be leaving the strictly digital world, but would i just be recording back to digital?

Better yet, let me put it like this..

If i am a strictly digital producer, but want to record through analog means, what would be my best options?



Could I just send the signals through an analog mixer, and possibly incorporate an analog effects box like a moogerfooger, and achieve some great results? What would I record onto? back to my computer?