dudes... i got it! i effin' got it!

[Jaysplace101]

wow. Thanks for doing the work on that splinter. It's no big suprise to me by now because as I said earlier, last time I did the digital OTB thing, I couldn't really tell the difference. But, here's what I still wonder;

I swear I can hear a difference when :

1. I do an ITB mix and bounce it down to two tracks.

2. I stem stuff out the digital outs - all eight of them. Then, I A/B between the DP file just playing along and the former ITB mix.

I don't know how I could test this because you can't line up audio waveforms. It would be much harder to null, especially with all the plug-ins going on. But, I did this, and I picked it 10 times out of 10 in a blind test. Probably got lucky.

I still think that analog summing could make a big difference and WITHOUT A DOUBT, great converters would make a massive difference.

FM, I'm going with the lynx because so many people have sung the praises of the AES16 or the Lynx 2. The clock is supposed to be amazing and I can get what I need for less than half the price of an Apogee AD16 and DA16. And, I'm really getting the same thing, maybe even better. And, with the Aurora 16, I'll be able to do 16 channels of OTB summing. Does that seem logical? Somebody please shoot holes in it. Tell me I should be an RME, it's just as good and a lot less expensive!

This is all VERY enlightening and splinter has relieved a lot of worries, and exposed some of our sillyness. Thanks Splinter! I don't feel bad at all. Because if you look at some of the myths and sillyness that Lynn Fuston exposed, golly, some of the great engineers weren't hearing what they thought they were. Sometimes when engineers say all this really detailed stuff that they hear,... you know... the "it sounds more open and detailed, but yet warmer" I know the greats hear stuff I don't, but I really do think that some of it is in their head, or a lot of it can be attributed to circumstances in different listening environments, you know, like they could be working in a room they've never been in before, and they're really hearing a great room instead of great Mytek converters, or whatever it is. There are just a LOT of variables, and this thread is great for discussing them.

Jayman

[thermos]

Dude Splinter
of COURSE work priorities aren't going to make a difference when you just bounce to disk! Why would they? I am talking about audio playback quality, which for those of us who use 16 channels of D/A for summing and then recording tyo an external source is very important and very real. For those of you who just bouce to disk, you are truly blessed. But for me its night and day, the more channels you listen to the more you hear it. Try it again.

[thermos]

To clarify, for my test I took the steely dansong out of my D/A and recorded it back in to DP at both medium and high priorities. No bounce to disk was used at all. Try that one, and listen to the differences.

[Splinter]

Thermos:

Unfortunately, I'm presently an ITB guy so I have no means of hearing what you're hearing... just like the guy at MOTU Can you post the mix to the web done at Low and High so we can all hear what a huge difference it makes?

Please read my post on your other thread. It is more detailed.

<small>[ December 28, 2004, 06:39 PM: Message edited by: Splinter ]</small>

[thermos]

Splinter,
Yeah I know what you mean. Though you can also take the motu guy as saying "oh, you are difinitely right but I don't want to fully agree with you because I don't want to get in trouble." But trying to decipher what people said is pretty impossible. Ex. constitution.
However, I will do the test again and try to post some mp3 examples. I'll also get real crazy, and record a full drum pass at different work priorities and stem through the dangerous 2 bus and see if there is a cumulative difference for both recording and playback.
Also, when I ran the test I was just playing back a stereo track at 16, 44.1 with no plugs so the computer is fine. (dual 2.0).

[Splinter]

Thermos:

More on your other thread.

Cheers.

[Babuska]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jayman:

The really weird thing is, and I wish someone could set up and verify this. If I stem some things out and back in through my lightpipe like I've described earlier, it sounds really good, a definite improvement when I'm just listening to the DP file play. But, then when I record it down to a stereo track, it doesn't sound as good. I don't know why...

I have also noticed this, really don‘t understand why it is so.

Years ago I had an Atari Falcon system, with terrible converters, and a cheap old analogue mixer. Believe me, when I say that everything sounded much better through that noisy old mixer, than everything I later recorded with a Spirit 328 digital, and I still think that Spirits converters were better than those of my 2408mk3‘s. If you are looking for an affordable solutions, about summing, give a try for an analogue mixers! And I am not talking about high end Neves etc...Thank you very much for this really interesting and beneficial conversation. I think that I try to save my money for the Tube-tech SSA 2A

<small>[ December 29, 2004, 03:37 AM: Message edited by: Babuska ]</small>

[Babuska]

Originally posted by Splinter:
Just ran the test.

I haven't tried the Freeze or Work Priority test, but I suspect they will yield the same results. IT'S ALL MATH BOYS!!!

...

I am not saying that you are wrong, because I dont‘t know the truth about this. You are right, in digital domain everything is math, but still I think, that sometimes bouncing multitrack mix to a stereo don‘t give "one to one" result. Having said that, DPs bounce function works better than Cubases, what was my previous software.
I use a lot of bouncing and freezing, for a many reasons. The most important reason is money. I have a small home studio, purposed for my bands music, and my setup is minimum. No expensive outboard gear at all. It is very true that overally my setup with 2408 interface sounds thin and cold, and I have tried to compensate that, with mastering my mixes in a pro studio, but still I miss something. This thread has given some answers to me. Maybe I go back to the cheap analogue desk, if I can find a room for it.

[FM]

Originally posted by Jayman:

FM, I'm going with the lynx because so many people have sung the praises of the AES16 or the Lynx 2. The clock is supposed to be amazing and I can get what I need for less than half the price of an Apogee AD16 and DA16. And, I'm really getting the same thing, maybe even better. And, with the Aurora 16, I'll be able to do 16 channels of OTB summing. Does that seem logical? Somebody please shoot holes in it. Tell me I should be an RME, it's just as good and a lot less expensive!

Jayman

nice.
after you responded i started looking at the lynx stuf a little closer.
at first i didn't get how it would interface with my mac but once i saw the AES16 i understood.
here's a silly question, heh, will the core audio drivers allow me to still mix and stem out from DP?
that's the part that confuses me.
i guess that's how it should be, in your outs/hardware configuration you'll see the AES16 outs as options... is that how that works?
plus the Sumo, that should be pretty nice.
thanks for your response, i have to say, the way you're planning on dong this is so far the most sensible/budget oriented one.

cheers!

FM

FM has seen you on the beach and he has seen you on TV.

[Splinter]

Originally posted by Babuska:
You are right, in digital domain everything is math, but still I think, that sometimes bouncing multitrack mix to a stereo don‘t give "one to one" result.

Oh boy, here we go! I'm really getting in over my head here and I said I wouldn't go there, but I'll do my best.

DP uses 32bit floating point math. What that is is a 24 bit word - which can represent a 144dB range - with an 8 bit exponent attached. Together they make up a 32 bit word that can rrepresent - and I'm not kidding here - about a 1500dB range. That's huge! I've tested this.

Take a track and pull the fader down to about-140 then add Trim plug ins with 40 dB of gain till the track is almost peaking. You'll notice in the Trim plugs you'll have huge overs - like 200 dB with in the plugs, but no distortion as long as you stay out of the red on the channel output. That's because that huge range can only be expressed within that 24 bit range. The same is true with the master fader. You can give it level all day, not what I recommend, but as long as it doesn't clip the output you won't distort DP internally.

I guess what I'm trying to say is DP's internal summing is very good and wide for digital. I would agree it can sound cold, but more accurately I'd say it's just honest. It spits out what you give it. It has a colorlessness that we sometimes tend to like at the summing stage. As far as spatiality, I think that is more a matter of good clocking and DAs, not an internal summing issue as I previously noted with my project being mastered by Ken Love. (Which I guess makes more sense now. If my clocking and monitoring was inferior to Ken's - and I'm sure it is - the original 24 bit file would playback more spatial and "open" on his system where the master is ultimately rendered without the smudged glasses. It doesn't mean the final mix files were smudged I just couldn't hear the clarity and definition. Ken's setup brought that out and then recaptured it in the master. So even now with my smugded glasses, what originally seemed clouded was uncovered (or discovered) from the original files, reprocessed and repackaged in a clearer, more open form. I can't imagine what things would sound like if I got rid of these darned smudged glasses.)

Anyway, this is the nature of digital summing. If you want color you have to add it on the frontend before summing and even then it doesn't blend the same way as analog. I agree it is much easier to get better sounding mixes faster in the analog domain for this very reason - the harmonic distortion and interaction between tracks creates a "glue" that just doesn't happen digitally.

Now, all that said, I've heard what you guys are talking though I hear it less and less with newer versions of DP - realtime playback sounds different than bounced or realtime recorded mixes (which I'll remind you are completely and exactly the same But, I actually like the sound of the bounced mixes better! It's always a pleasant surprise to me when I finish spending hours working on a mix, bounce it and things sound slightly more open and defined. Now I'd rather it sound that way all the time, but I'm not usually disappointed as so many here seem to gripe about. I have a feeling DP's playback engine functions differently (reduces bit depth?) where the rendered audio gets all the goods. My point being the math employed for realtime playback versus rendering must be different. CoreAudio may have changed this significantly which may account for why I don't hear it as much anymore. But as I pointed out it is still all math. Different algorithms may yield different results, but 1+1 still equals 2 and that never changes.

[Jaysplace101]

nice.
after you responded i started looking at the lynx stuf a little closer.
at first i didn't get how it would interface with my mac but once i saw the AES16 i understood.
here's a silly question, heh, will the core audio drivers allow me to still mix and stem out from DP?
that's the part that confuses me.
i guess that's how it should be, in your outs/hardware configuration you'll see the AES16 outs as options... is that how that works?
plus the Sumo, that should be pretty nice.
thanks for your response, i have to say, the way you're planning on dong this is so far the most sensible/budget oriented one.

FM, I tried to figure out the same thing and I can't. I did searches for LYNX and DP, beacuse I'd like to go with that AES16, but I can't find any DP users using Lynx. There is a somewhat informative thread within the Lynx forum and a guy is asking Lynx Tech Support about using it with DP and the tech guy suggest getting rid of all MOTU stuff and going with the AES16 and Aurora setup. So, I'm assuming it will all work, but I can't figure it out from anything I've researched. I think the best thing to do is buy from a local dealer and try it out. We'll see.

I would LOVE to hear from any DP Lynx users. It seems like there are a lot more Nuendo and Cubase Lynx folks. Maybe I'll start a little thread asking if there are any...???

Jayman

[Splinter]

Jay:

Make sure Lynx doesn't give half-assed Mac support. That could kill you. The Cubase/Nuendo consistuency should tell you this may be a PC favored ride.

If they don't have good CoreAudio drivers you could be screwed!

[Jaysplace101]

Splinter... for sure. It sounds like the RME drivers are suspect to say the least, and Lynx could be the same. I talked to the guy at Lynx and he said they were written really well, but who knows for sure. I think no matter what the Aurora would be fine since it can be a standalone box, but I need to make sure I can return the AES16 if the drivers stink.

Jayman

[Resonant Alien]

The really weird thing is, and I wish someone could set up and verify this. If I stem some things out and back in through my lightpipe like I've described earlier, it sounds really good, a definite improvement when I'm just listening to the DP file play. But, then when I record it down to a stereo track, it doesn't sound as good. I don't know why...

I haven't tried this experiment with DP, but I don't believe it has anything to do at all with DP, or digital domain, or light pipes. In fact, this same statement is true in a totally analog domain. In my exp., the multitrack playback always always always sounds better than that same multitrack output after it has been printed, bounced, etc to two-track. I've heard it in analog and it's probably true in digital. Don't know the math behind it, but it probably has to do with the fact that when you go to two track, no matter how you get there, you are squeezing a whole sh--load of information into two skinny tracks, whereas before, you were playing that information each with its own track. I don't think this phenom. is anything specific to DP or any other DAW.

I guess what I'm trying to say is DP's internal summing is very good and wide for digital. I would agree it can sound cold, but more accurately I'd say it's just honest. It spits out what you give it. It has a colorlessness that we sometimes tend to like at the summing stage

Exactly - back when we switched from analog tracking to digital tracking, this same basic debate raged "digital is cold". Well, if you just did the same thing you were doing when you tracked to a Studer 24 track analog, it would sound cold because the tape itself colored your tracks. Since then, we have found ways to get the warmth during tracking in other ways, Tube Pre amps,etc.

Well, guess what guys - now we are on the cusp of not only tracking digitally, but mixing digitally as well. This is the next big leap, and the same arguments are coming out. "Digital mixes sound cold" Well, yes, if you just do the same things you did when you were running through that fat warm analog desk, then of course digital will sound colder because the desk itself colored the sound. SO....we just have to find new waysaround it....like the dangerous 2 bus or other eq techniques.

Just my honest opinion...

[Babuska]

...load of information into two skinny tracks, whereas before, you were playing that information each with its own track. I don't think this phenom. is anything specific to DP or any other DAW...

Thanks Resonant Alien, your words are wise, but if we have loads of headroom, as Splinter said, this sentence about "two skinny tracks" is not true. I dont‘t understand much about summing, so forgive, if I write something stupid. This thread has been so blessing for me, it really has opened my eyes, to see the importance of the summing, so I would want to continue, if you have patience. Could someone "bounce to disk" this thread, in other words, make a reference about this thread?