sound quality difference btw. logic and ptle?

[yayogaak]

i've heard logic has a far more dificult learning curve than PT. fine. others say once you get used to it, it's great to work with. fine. I'm not a complete idiot when it comes to software so I think I could manage to learn logic. now here's my question. IS THE SOUND QUALITY IN PT REALLY THAT MUCH BETTER THAN LOGIC. IF SO, HOW!? AND WHY!? Logic just looks far to atractive to pass up. Other than its steep learning curve, there has to be something wrong with it. right?

YAYO

ps. this DUC is a godsent

[Kickin.da.speaker]

Sound quality of 0 and 1 s?

[ThomCat]

Sound quality can be affected by many things, but the recording/editing software generally isn't one of them. The software can set parameters, such as bit depth and sampling frequency, but as long as PTLE and Logic both allow the parameters you want (and I'm sure they do) the quality of the recordings should be identical.

The software is just a tool to allow the audio to print to your DAT or hard drive, but the actual digital recording process is handled by the A/D converters and recording media, in terms of what can affect the quality.

If you are into loops and that sort of thing you might like the editing/manipulation capabilities of PT a little better than Logic, as that is Logic's weakest area (someday to be corrected, we hope). But as a sequencer Logic can't be beat and it integrates MIDI and audio very well.

Reading between the lines it seems like you are just about to jump off the fence into the Logic camp and are waiting for a little push. Let me assure you, the steep learning curve in Logic is worth the effort. I tried using PTLE when I got my 001 but quickly reverted to Logic and never looked back. Going to PT was like trading in your circa 2000 Mac on a 1987 IBM XT running MS-DOS. Well, that's a little harsh, I guess. I didn't really work with PT for more than a couple weeks. I just wish Logic had a decent forum like the DUC.

[zavijah]

As I understand it, PTLE disallows dropped samples or errors of any kind in the audio stream -- it stops playback and reports errors, rather than allowing them and moving on -- and I've heard it said that it's unique among host-based audio apps for this reason. Does anyone know whether this is true? I certainly believe it in the case of Vision DSP, which I found to be horribly unstable and unreliable. But I've never used Logic or DP.

[yayogaak]

thanks thomcat!!

I appreciate your input. I will not be working with MIDI too much. Just for pad or string arangements and drum machines (for now). But I'm sure I'll need more powerful MIDI if for clients that require it for a particular project. I'm kinda scared of the audio editing in Logic. Once PT is learned, its commands and moves come automatically to the user. In Logic, will the same be true, or will I forever say "damn, should I go back to PT" just for the audio editing? I sometimes need the higher track count, and pluging count that (they say) Logic has. Your thoughts?

yayo

[Bob Olhsson]

I'd just like to comment that the ONLY case where software makes no difference in sound quality is a file copy/clone.

If it's performing any math at all, the precision of the math and the treatment of exponents can make all the difference in the world. There is always a tradeoff between audio quality, features and performance. Every programmer and marketing department makes their own choices in this area. Just because it's digital does not mean its high quality.

[lwilliam]

I definitely agree with Bob O (who has more experience in high-end pro audio than most any three of us combined).

Anytime you take an audio file and do as little as change it's gain, you'd be applying some math to the file. Maybe a gain change is simple enough not to use different math in different software, but other DSP functions would definitely have their own alterations of those 0's and 1's.

The algorithms of the various plugins would (and definitely DO) seriously affect the sound. I'm sure that something even as simple as the master fader or an aux channel could sound different on different systems.

Buss summing would be a good example of how software might sound different.

For instance, there has been a lot of debate on how Paris sounds different than ProTools - even if you use the same audio files.

How MUCH different, and whether it's at all measurable might be an interesting question, tho'.



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LW

[yayogaak]

indeed.... and that IS my question. How different, and how measurable is the difference. I was more or less sure there WAS a difference, but I just didn't know why and how exactly. As lwilliam said, the answer should be interesting (and I'm afraid, complicated as well).
I'm still open for anwers, don't be afraid to get technical.

yayo

[ThomCat]

Yayo...

I have only worked with Logic and PTLE, and I did not get very far into audio editing with PT due to its other limitations. I can tell you that Logic has a reputation as being a little kludge-y in the editing department, and that may be true to some extent but I have never felt hampered by it and although I have checked out stand-alone editors I have never seriously considered getting one because Logic works just fine for me.

Now about that math question...

I have to agree that any time you manipulate a digital file (eq, plug-ins, level changes, etc.) math is the tool all algorithms use to do the job, and not all algorithms are created equal, but I think we may have strayed from Yayo's original question as to whether Logic or PTLE will create different quality recordings.

If you are talking about all the various manipulation involved in plug-ins, yes math is involved and there will be differences. What I have seen reported on the DUC is that the quality of the plug-ins provided with PT leaves a lot to be desired. On the other hand Logic's plug-ins generally are regarded as better, but not maybe as good as the best 3rd party plug-ins. It depends on the individual plug-in as the quality varies even within Logic. The reverbs are pretty cool (although I still feel more comfortable with a hardware unit), but the compressor plug-in pretty much blows. (The sheer number and variety of Logics plug-ins is pretty impressive.)

On the other hand, if you are making a straight digital recording I don't think there is any real mathmatical manipulation going on. The audio that is being recorded doesn't physically go through the software in any way. It goes through the hardware, where it is A/D'ed and the resultant digital data is simply passed through and printed to the recording medium as is. An algorithm by definition is a method to accomplish a task. Since there is no task, no need for any change to the data, no algorithm is used and no math is involved.

In a straight recording about the closest your HDR software can come to making a mathmatical manipulation would be when the analog input levels to the hardware are set using a software interface, but even then the software doesn't digitally attenuate the audio level, all the software does is tell the interface how much to attenuate the signal at its input, and the attenuation is handled by the hardware in analog. It has to be because the audio hasn't been converted yet.

THe HDR software may also set the routing, but again it is just turning ports on and off and telling the hardware which physical links to set. It may feel like the software is intimately involved but the A-to-D is done solely in the interface and the actual recording is done solely by the DAT or hard drive. The software just tells the hardware what to do and has no need to mathmatically manipulate the data during this process.

Of course the minute you add a plug-in or eq that changes. And when you play back a recorded digital track and change its level, well there's that math manipulation again. But the rounding errors from a simple level change are extremely small, probably far too small for different HDR programs to sound any different from each other, as opposed to the number of possible rounding errors created by a delay/reverb algorithm. The internal processing of most effects is handled at extremely high bit depth, usually 32 to 64 bit to minimize the effects of these rounding errors, while straight recording has no need for bit depths higher than 24 bit as little math is involved. The different amount of rounding errors that are a result of one person setting a slightly different analog input record level than another person might set are orders of magnitude greater than what identically set levels in different HDR software might generate and are still insignificant.

I have read many in-depth reviews on the various HDR platforms, some 15 to 20 pages long. While the question of quality of the included plug-ins is always discussed in depth, the question of how one HDR program "sounds" compared to the others never even comes up, because the differences are insignificant.

[yayogaak]

I was fooling around with my friends logic yesterday. After that I used his AudioLogic (sorry, baaad joke). I couldnt make heads or tails of the program at first (that's to be expected). But I believe I could get into it... I'm a sucker for lush intefaces and different ways to do things (like right mouse double clicking...never done it before last night). I'm sure sound quality will not differ significantly (it's probably so small that its not noticeable so it can be dismissed) and wise use of pluggins, carefull recording levels, and details like that should lead me in the right direction sound-wise with Logic. right? Now, I just gotta learn this freakin program. If i'm convinced I'll buy it as well. I've seen it once, first impression was good.... (like the first time you see that incredible woman and say "this is gonna be difficult"... but you welcome the challenge). Could this be an accurate analogy Thomcat?

yayo