Testing record with three DAW. Cubase, Sam & PT
 

I do not know if they are interested, but I did a day of testing with three DAW. "Pro Tools 12", "Cubase Pro 8" and "Samplitude Pro X2." I know some people think that the difference is impossible, but they let their ears to the locker room. The reasoning seems good, but the facts contradict it. I can do nothing.

Setup: Voice (a Neumann TLM49 on an SSM-10 Martinsound, mono), 2 AKG 414 XL II is in stereo preamplifiers SSL) and piano (Vienna Imperial VSL). A bit of Lexicon.

The three DAW with the same settings, including the panoramic width.

Cubase, which I love for MIDI, but I thought best for audio recording, disappointed me. There is a sail, a blockage on audio, choking. I defended Cubase, but it's over for audio. VSL for the piano, it was good.

Samplitude, despite its complications and its outdated interface, did well. The vote was close, well detailed. However a little hard. VSL for the piano, it was bad. Dry and ugly.

Pro Tools, which I had distanced myself, is winner. It was not preordained. I was certain that Samplitude would win. I was also certain that Cubase was going to be at least in Pro Tools. Well no. Pro Tools is above all levels. Sweetness and voice clarity, proximity, balance, gentle piano, everything.

Then it's decided for me. Except for some complex MIDI manipulation, which Cubase is master (where Samplitude is zero, and Pro Tools is average, mostly because it does not have all its functions well presented and that it does not maps like Cubase), I back Pro Tools. I know there's a lot of momentum to Steinberg products, but for the record, I do not carry.

However, I hope that Avid will do development. Many interesting features among other DAW must be integrated. Competition is the key to progress.

Re: Testing record with three DAW. Cubase, Sam & PT
 

I like ProTools too more than any but I find Nuendo to be way better than Cubase. It's robust and seems to have better imaging. Nuendo is what you want to use to compare Steinberg and Avid.

Re: Testing record with three DAW. Cubase, Sam & PT
 

Perhaps. But Steinberg says it's the same audio engine.

Re: Testing record with three DAW. Cubase, Sam & PT
 

does Nuendo have Mixer Undo ??? pro tools is the only DAW i know of that allows you to undo mixer moves ..

cheers john

Re: Testing record with three DAW. Cubase, Sam & PT
 

+1
Pro Tools still is the very best DAW for audio by far. Logic has come close as a pretty cool, very affordable overall
solution (very nice for production stuff, Midi etc.) but it´s still far from PT´s audio quality and mixing capabilites.

Finally it´s good to have both. ;)

Nevertheless you can do all in PT as well as Avid has done a good job as for Midi and stuff during the last years.
Pro Tools has become seriously usable for these applications too however it primarily wins when it comes to audio
recording and mixing.

Cheers!

Re: Testing record with three DAW. Cubase, Sam & PT
 

You are right on the audio quality. But PT must evolve. For example, the routing scheme should have an overall window. I would like to visually see the full path of an audio stream from the input to the output, through all groups, FX, AUX, with indicating the inserts. A diagram of the full flow. Cubase has that. I also want to move a series of markers combined!

MIDI side, PT has real value and works very well for many things, but lacks 100 useful functions. You have to know what Cubase to understand that. PT users think they have everything in MIDI, but that is wrong. They do not know what they're missing.

Still, the central DAW is PT. That's why I came back. Version 12, for me, is very stable.

Re: Testing record with three DAW. Cubase, Sam & PT
 

Cubase for MIDI work is light years ahead of Pro Tools. For simple MIDI stuff Pro Tools will suffice though.

Come mix time, I much prefer Pro Tools gui and workflow. If we are really arriving at a period of stability having got past the 12.2.0 hiccup, then let's hope Avid can maintain that while gradually enhancing MIDI features over time.

Please let's not reach stability, and then break that in the name of progress. We've had a rough ride since PT11 came out, let's hope stability will start settling down now.

But that is no excuse to stand still, Pro Tools has a lot of catching up to do on its MIDI functionality.

Re: Testing record with three DAW. Cubase, Sam & PT
 

1+ Completely agree.

Re: Testing record with three DAW. Cubase, Sam & PT
 

I don't normally weight in on things like this, as I usually think that the differences in audio engines is a bunch of hogwash. BUT... after doing a project in ProTools 12, I was VERY surprised at the difference in output. I've used Logic 8,9 & X, and all versions of Studio One. I've *always* been disappointed by the .mp3 renders of bothj of them. When I mixed down my ProTools project, I felt very little was lost going to MP3 and WAV, compared to the mix downs of Logic & Studio One. I think that they are all excellent DAWs, and Logic is wonderful to write in, but ProTools does seem to have something in the mix engine that is not in the others

Re: Testing record with three DAW. Cubase, Sam & PT
 

The key question is ....

Do you have the exact same plugins instantiated on every track, aux busses, mix buss etc etc in all three daws? Or no plugins at all? Have you exported audio from one to the other and set up a static mix with all levels and pan positions the same?

If not, it can never be a true comparison of the qualities of the 'mix engine'.

I've never been a great fan of Logic's stock plugins, they always seem to be a bit uninspiring to me. I have done some albums excludively stock Logic plugins, but, subjectively, it felt like it took a lot longer to get the mixes nailed. Impossible to be objective about it, as every mix is different, every client is different, etc. I dislike the standard gui of stock Logic (and Cubase) plugins too.

I've got some mixes that still sound great to me dating back to Cubase's VST5 era, late 90's, but again it wasn't stock plugins, I had Yamaha's DSP Factory cards in there, giving me Yamaha 02R quality DSP Powered compressors and EQ on every track, and I was using reasonable 24bit convertors even then, and external hardware for reverbs, delays, exciters, finalizers etc.

Since I bought into the UAD plugins system, and McDSP ported over to Audio Units, I've been much happier with Logic's 'sound', and Cubase's for that matter.

I guess consistency, using the same plugins you know and like, probably has much greater impact on the final sound than any mix engine difference.

I think Pro Tools attracted the best plugin makers first, and has a longer history as a platform supporting plugins, as well as a long history of clients with deep pockets, and so the quality of plugins is a key factor, as more money was spent developing them early on.

I do think that whatever difference there is in audio engines must be very subtle, otherwise you'd hear the manufacturers actually making claims that their's is best! After all, why wouldn't they, and quite rightly too, but you don't see much of that.

So I guess it is largely down to plugins, and, perhaps, a more intuitive gui and workflow in Pro Tools.

PS I use Sonnox's Codex Toolbox for all my MP3 conversions, and am very happy to say I hear minimal difference between wav and mp3 files when using it, especially at the highest bit rates.