Sound of DAWS

[DMB13KOS]

My question is to those of you that have used Pro Tools and other DAWS.

I've been working with REAPER and Ableton Live 9 Lite and processed the same audio tracks in each one - and the final mixes all sound a tiny bit different - or is it my imagination?

Do you hear the differences in various DAWS?

[Drew Mazurek]

You have isolate and account for EVERY variable before you can attribute a difference to any one thing. This is A/B'ing 101.

So, levels need to be matched to 1/10 of a dB (humans will always pick louder as "better"), Pan law needs to be the same, on and on and on.

You can't simply mix a song in one DAW and then mix the same files is another, have it sound better, and then attribute that difference to the DAW. It doesn't work that way. Many people have driven themselves crazy "chasing" a sound this way.

[DMB13KOS]

I get that - but all I did was take some WAV files from Sibelius and just mix them as much the same as I could get. Obviously you'd have to be more accurate than I to do a serious study.

But I have decent ears, and without doing anything to the tracks, there seemed to be a very subtle difference in the way they sounded before any processing.

[mikeyman]

yes there will be subtle differences.But is there a big difference?If you go over to the Gearslutz forum there is a couple large posts on this subject.One says PT's 11 sounds better but not many people think that it's so.I don't think I read any posts that agree with your theory.

[mikeyman]

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/pro-t...ly-better.html

[8dB.co.uk]

Same files played on PT TDM, Pyramix and Sadie over madi always sounded worse out of the ProTools. Since 10 native and HDX there's been a huge improvement. Subtle improvements, mainly in plugins, including stock, with PT11.

[DMB13KOS]

Thanks. I'll read that link.

Ok, so I'm not completely imagining things.

[CME]

Originally Posted by DMB13KOS

Thanks. I'll read that link.



Ok, so I'm not completely imagining things.

You could be. While I've never done an A/B comparison myself, I have listened to a few. And if everything is equal, I've never heard a difference. But there are some slight difference that have to be accounted for. Like in logic, I believe, you have to either add or subtract like .01 from mono signals. I think there's also an option to normalize the file after bounce in logic.

But that said, sometimes different workflows will lead to different results. So you can't discount that either. At the end of the day it's about results.

And there is one daw that definitely sounds different. Harrison mixbus. It's designed to sound good. Check it out.

[DMB13KOS]

I suppose it could be the plug-ins, too.

[Shan]

Originally Posted by DMB13KOS

My question is to those of you that have used Pro Tools and other DAWS.

I've been working with REAPER and Ableton Live 9 Lite and processed the same audio tracks in each one - and the final mixes all sound a tiny bit different - or is it my imagination?

Do you hear the differences in various DAWS?

We did some tests on REAPER many years back and compared it to every DAW out there at the time. Once the pan laws where matched every DAW nulled with each other, hence no difference in sound. That old thread is still around over there somewhere.

Shane