Do the DAW's sound diffrent?

[admin]

You seem to be completely right,i know those arguments ,read some tests already etc that seemed to proovve that daws do sound the same,but actually they sound diffrent to me,and i think i can say it as onlystuff on main buss in reaper recently was oxford dynamics with ssl emu preset,same in sonar,and i thought that the diffrence was really noticeable to me,but i will try maybe test it harder,loading same loops ,or i will import same midi files to reaper and sonar,with same vst instruments and i will export it as wav files to compare

I think it's worth your time to just set aside a few hours over a few days to do this kind of thing. Once you see they sound the same it will clear your mind and you can get back to mixing.

But it's not something you can just say 'hmm that sounded different I think Ill go with this DAW now.." Once you get that thought you must spend the time (hours probably) testing it as exact and unbiased as you can. You can even send me the files and I'll rename then for you so you dont know which is which.

In fact there is a website for this, split a/b tester that lets you load in files. It then randomly serves them to you and you try to figure out which is which. This way you have no idea which one you're listening to and have less bias in your desicions. It's the only way to really know.

The easier way is to just do the bounces, line them up and invert the phase of one of them. If they are the same you'll get silence. Funny thing is some people even claim to hear a difference in these files when there is no way they could be as they are exactly the same data. But it goes to show the power of biasing.

[admin]

As far as the tests proving it doesnt exist verse what you hear. Think of it this way, if there were differences someone would have made a test to show it by now and prove it. No one has, as it doesn't exist. This debate has gone on for years. There's no test to show with same plugs and settings that there is a significant difference. All the evidence for the differences is anecdotal and of course this doesn't count as it's all skewed by the individual listener.

[przechuy]

great,thats a really good explanation,surely worth to read.

[admin]

I really harp on about this subject but I think it's a key thing to understand. The world itself progresses through this type of thinking and applying it to your quest for audio helps a lot as well so you can focus on the things that matter.

[sven hauck]

With Ableton it's more of a special case as the warping can affect quality.

Must be the warping differences that are causing us to say one version doesn't sound the same as the next, even though they should be the same.

[sven hauck]

I think that's a major concept a lot of people forget when it comes to audio. There isn't always a 1:1 connect between what is coming out the speakers and what the mind hears. I do it all the time myself when I turn a knob, hear a change only to realize the plugin was off. In a sense I 'heard' the change and even say 'ok this sounds better now' only to realize it wasn't doing anything.

I must have done that about dozens of times.

[admin]

Must be the warping differences that are causing us to say one version doesn't sound the same as the next, even though they should be the same.

If anything the warping algos are the things that get noticeably upgraded. They have a lot more room to add quality there. The new complex pro in 8 is quite a bit better at retaining transients over full mixes.

[przechuy]

on reaper forum there was a great discussion about DAWs quality with also nice explanation,i just read it.

It was regarding new upcoming version,i have the beta version of reaper 3.0 and i must say it looks superb .Surely best looking and not cluttered,most easy to use DAW .I will trust arguments that DAWs sound same and stick to it,because it is most "fluent" DAW i ever seen.




http://www.landoleet.org/


here you can get probably final beta versions of reaper 3.0...

it is a m a z i n g ...

[Waylo]

Thanks everyone for a great discussion. Good stuff.

How about adding this to the fire:

I swear that when I am doing my mix in Logic is sounds fantastic, but when I bounce it down to 16bit wav file-- it loses a little bit of the brilliance and character.

Is this possible? Would my mix sound different when its playing through the DAW vs when I bounce it down and play it back?

[Edel]

If you're working in 24/32bit before bounce to 16bit, im quite sure you will lose a little bit of something. Have a look at the dithering options in Logic as well as i've had slightly diff results with them if you're bouncing to CD straight.

Other than that, i dont see how it would lose anything if your working in 16bit and just bounce to disk at once. In theory, you should have the same data file as the one you are listening to.

If you're still certain that you're losing that little bit of brilliance or character you (think/or) are experiencing. Just send a copy to Jesse and im sure he'll add those missing elements to your Final mix, maybe even some additional sparkle over the top .. Hehehe