Different Daw's - Different sound engines

[ChrisJones]

I never really cared about this... But lately I've been doing these tests between different DAW's. Okey maybe boring...

First of all I know it's the user not the DAW. :)

I use Pro Tools HD and Pro Tools 9. I have always got better mixes with Pro Tools HD. Tighter bottom and smoother highs and better mids. The things is I don't know really why. People call me crazy and maybe it's my mixing mood that day. But man this is killing me. Does anyone feel the same? Okey we have the 32 float vs the 48 fixed. But still it shouldn't stop me from making great mixes in 9(past LE). And I've heard some great mixes by others done in LE.

I know the mix won't sound the same if I open up a LE project in HD. So i can't really pre-mix at home then complete the mix with my HD rig cuz I will then have to change the whole mix. Btw I use Lynx Aurora for both of my setups.

Last night I demo'd Samplitude 11 and today I decided to do a test between different sound engines. 8 tracks stems, so no panning, volume at zero and no automations, just everything flat out. Except every track had Waves SSL channel on it(EQ bypassed, Comp bypassed, Output level set to - 5.0)

My results...
Pro Tools HD - Nulled with none
Pro Tools 9 - Only Nulled with Cubase
Cubase 3 - Well.. nulled with PT9
Samplitude 11(demo) - Nulled with none
Reaper(latest version) - Nulled with none

Well none of them sounded better just slightly different.

[midnightrambler]

I've always found mixing harder in LE due to the misrepresentation of the mbox D-As / pre-amps, rather than any inherent problems in the software. I've opened LE mixes in HD and got it to ø, the main differences being any ADC and time delays between busses, rather than any obvious differences in TDM, RTAS, 32 vs 48 bit, etc etc. I've not exactly been scientific in my approach though, I have to admit.

As for the rest of the DAWs, I'm afraid I couldn't say.

[ericsvizeny]

Interesting...