Pro Tools Sound Quality???

[benderbro]

To Mike Rockwell:

You answered Pete45's question but what about blairl? You know, the question right before that about Sonic Solution's statement. I too would be interested in your response to that.

------------------
[email protected]

[El Guapo]

I tried to avoid spending the loot for a digi system that seemed profesionally usable. I waited 3 years for the other promised DAW products which would be better, faster, and less expensive than digi to the extent that I tried several solutions (Akai, Paris, etc.) and finally, (unfortunately) got a Mackie d8b and MOTU 2408's last year. It entirely bombed.

It's interesting that a digi system is compared to (what I would call) expensive digigal boards. Gee, I also wish my 40K digi system sounded like a 400K system. What is more interesting is that so many people believe it should be able to.

Get off your duff Digi and make this product sound like a 400K recording system now!

I expect the complementary upgrade by the end of the 4th quarter, 1999, before the power goes out.

[MICHAEL JACKSON]

Pro Tools works perfectly fine and sounds realy good.I've done lots of mixes on it,engineered 10 albums(most in 16 bits!).I think there is too much crap talk on the subject of the sound quality.I've also had experience on all sorts of Neve boards and SSL and nothing gives me such a good sound,flexibility as Pro Tools does and DIGI is not paying me to say this!!!I've recently done A/B test between Apogee AD-8000 and 888 I/O on a pop song in front of several clients and believe me or not-nobody could tell the difference in sound quality!
I believe that it all comes down music beeing recorded.When you recording jazz or classical material you would propably want to go 24 bits and 96 khz with Prism or Apogee in order to get the edge.But with pop,rock,dance,rap...believe me it doesn't matter!!!

[tnie]

Mike Rockwell,

I also would like to hear the answer to blairl's question. The one dealing with Sonic Solutions........

I get acts nagging me about the type of desk they want me to use, (mostly Neve but they dont know the difference betwween the 80's ok ones and the real deal 60's & 70's ones)
Digi's commitment seems giant, lots of cool stuff coming out for PT.
Options versus internal sound? Options can be take em or leave em,. Sound? Now that's something you can't bull**** about, word will get around.
It would be coolest for my buisness if Pro Tools became known as the "Neve" of the DAW's, rather than the "Dr Gadget".
Very exciting times ahead for us all.....
Thank you Digi!

Jules

[Digi Engineering]

Ok. To my knowledge, Sonic Solutions still uses 56k series DSP's in their workstations. The are the same DSP's that are used in PT systems. 56k's are capable of processing with double precision which is 48-bits wide. It takes more cycles to process 48-bits wide than to process 24-bits in many cases. Most of the plug-ins that run on TDM do carry the results in the 56-bit accumulator (8-bits are for overflow). This includes the 24-bit optimized mixer. The only potential difference between TDM and Sonic is that they may maintain the 48-bits when they transfer the data between multiple DSP's where with TDM it needs to be converted to 24-bit by truncating, rounding or dithering. At some point the Sonic system has to convert to 24-bit to get out AES or go to a file.

I'm not sure what the term "High Density Audio" means. It sounds like a bunch of marketing junk to me. I have to say that I personally don't think anyone could hear the difference between the 48-bit accumulated signal being truncated, rounded, or dithered. We are talking about differences that are down -138 dB. Your source material only contains noise down there since no converter in the world can actually deliver more than around 21-bits worth of information. I suppose that some plug-ins (like reverbs) could generate something useful down there but you can't hear it because no D/A converter can resolve it and no analog monitoring system could reproduce it.

All that being said, in a few weeks we are going to do an experiment with all you folks being the subjects. We are going to post a number of audio files that differ in only one respect. One set will have been gain changed through the PT mixer with dither noise added after the fact. Once set will have been gain changed with 48-bit precision dithered to 24-bits. A few of them will be just two different passes with the PT mixer as controls. The questions that will be asked are:
Can you hear the difference?
Which one sounds better?
This will be a truly double blind test. I encourage everyone to download these files and join in on the experiment. Again this won't happen for a few weeks as we are in the final throws of getting PT 5.0 out the door. It'll be really interesting to see if anyone can actually hear the difference.
-Mike Rockwell

[Disco_Doctor]

Mike, now THAT is a really cool idea!

In the interest of making sure that the test is not manipulated by either Digidesign or its detractors, I'd like to suggest that you strongly consider giving an objective third party the "answers" as to which file is which before you post the files to the public...just so there's no question at all that Digidesign is being completely honest about which file was which when the results of the test are made public.

One other thing - I wouldn't be surprised if very few people could hear the difference under the conditions you are describing - that is, one piece of source material being gain changed one time through the PT mixer vs. one piece of source material being gain changed one time with 48 bit precision and dithered to 24. That may be, as you often claim, too subtle to detect. What would be a more realistic comparison would be if, in addition to those single-pass test files, you took some mix stems - say eight to twelve tracks worth - and gain changed and summed all of them through the PT mixer and this 48 bit precision/24 bit dithered process - which would be a more real world example of the sort of accumulating "thinness" and loss of clarity that people are claiming to hear when mixing large projects in Pro Tools.

I hope you'll consider these suggestions...I look forward to the test!



PS - Please don't use Spice Girls or Kid Rock for the source material!

[Steve MacMillan]

might I suggest...

Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata

[J Harry]

This is a fun test you can do at home.

Take a split stereo file- vocals, acoustic guitar, piano- something with a bit of detail and dynamic range

Create split stereo pairs via three methods

1. Bounce to Disc
2. Analog Bounce (Direct Out into 888/24 inputs)
3. Recording to tracks via the aux busses

Import the bounce to disk and compare the three.

Hope some other folks will try this and post their results

JH

[Joris Vincken]

Michael Jackson (?!) it's thru that almost no non pro audio person can hear the difference between bit rates, other convertors or even cheaper microphones. From experience with my clients I do know however that once you combine all those little improvements, especially after using a lot of plug-ins etc that people do hear the difference. As for the internal 24/48 bit question, for me it doesn't matter which sounds better. It would just be easier if I had more headroom when mixing and don't have to worry what sounds better. The speed I gain is what matters. When using multitrack 16 bit can sound just as good than 24 (when using a lot of tracks). It's just that with 24 bits you don't have to worry about levels that much and still have it sound good.