Logicno8 Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 One sound quality related question. Speaking strictly in the box terms. Recently one of my friends said : "Your miser would get more depth and volume if you ran these same tracks through a better computer with more CPU power or something like Presonus LIVE mixer and if you made Logic work less while rendering all these audio and MIDI instrument tracks with all the plugins, automation and mastering chain on the output". Hm... Makes total sense but I've never gave it a thought. I don't have any glitches or problems with my bounces and they sound generally good (they translate well to the other listening environments and I don't hear anything missing in particular). Plus I do have a nice computer. It's far from some beast machine but it works perfectly fine and I don't even freeze tracks much. I do get some struggling when there is a lot going on towards the end of the mix but that's about it. So now my question is, do you guys think that If I had bounced ALL of my MIDI tracks to AUDIO and than also maybe even bounce them down in stems with the FX printed on and all plugins processing and automation and THAN re-import them and apply mastering separately in an empty new project, I would gain better depth, width or any benefit of sound quality ? Making Logic works much less and doing less calculating. Basically making all these processes separate rather than everything bouncing ALL AT ONCE to a final mastered AIFF or mp3. In other words, does the computer when bouncing and using 25% or 70% of CPU for the whole process give better results than when using 98% of it's resources? Does this affect sound quality or just bounce time ? Thanks a lot in advance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eriksimon Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 (edited) Recently one of my friends said : "Your miser would get more depth and volume if you ran these same tracks through a better computer with more CPU power or something like Presonus LIVE mixer and if you made Logic work less while rendering all these audio and MIDI instrument tracks with all the plugins, automation and mastering chain on the output". Hm... Makes total sense No, it does not - because, unfortunately, it is completely and utterly untrue. do you guys think that If I had bounced ALL of my MIDI tracks to AUDIO and than also maybe even bounce them down in stems with the FX printed on and all plugins processing and automation and THAN re-import them and apply mastering separately in an empty new project, I would gain better depth, width or any benefit of sound quality ? Making Logic works much less and doing less calculating. No, since you then lower the resolution of your mix to 24 bits. At the very best you will not hear that the second method is actually slightly worse, sound-quality wise, because you truncated plugin and software instrument processes from 64 or 32 bit floating point to 24 bit fixed point. Bit 24 bit fixed point could still be deep enough so that you wouldn't notice. But it would not improve anything. The only scenario in which to contemplate such steps, is to free up CPU so the project can still run realtime. But if it is not needed, don't do it. Basically making all these processes separate rather than everything bouncing ALL AT ONCE to a final mastered AIFF or mp3. In other words, does the computer when bouncing and using 25% or 70% of CPU for the whole process give better results than when using 98% of it's resources? Does this affect sound quality? Hmm, how shall I put this... No. It only affects bounce time, nothing else.The same project bounced on wildly different Macs will yield the exact same file. Edited May 18, 2015 by Eriksimon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Logicno8 Posted May 17, 2015 Author Share Posted May 17, 2015 Recently one of my friends said : "Your miser would get more depth and volume if you ran these same tracks through a better computer with more CPU power or something like Presonus LIVE mixer and if you made Logic work less while rendering all these audio and MIDI instrument tracks with all the plugins, automation and mastering chain on the output". Hm... Makes total sense No, it does not - because, unfortunately, it is completely and utterly untrue. do you guys think that If I had bounced ALL of my MIDI tracks to AUDIO and than also maybe even bounce them down in stems with the FX printed on and all plugins processing and automation and THAN re-import them and apply mastering separately in an empty new project, I would gain better depth, width or any benefit of sound quality ? Making Logic works much less and doing less calculating. No, since you then lower the resolution of your mix to 24 bits. At the very best you will not hear that the second method is actually slightly worse, sound-quality wise, because you truncated plugin and software instrument processes from 64 or 32 bit floating point to 24 bit fixed point. Bit 24 bit fixed point could still be deep enough so that you wouldn't notice. But it would not improve anything. The only scenario in which to contemplate such steps, is to free up CPU so the project can still run realtime. But if it is not needed, don't do it. Basically making all these processes separate rather than everything bouncing ALL AT ONCE to a final mastered AIFF or mp3. In other words, does the computer when bouncing and using 25% or 70% of CPU for the whole process give better results than when using 98% of it's resources? Does this affect sound quality? Hmm, how shall I put this... No. It only affects bounce time, nothing else.The same project bounced on wildly different Macs will yield the exact same file. Ok, got it. Thank you for your thorough explanation. I have a question though, I don't really get "truncating" part. I know Logic 9 is 32 bit floating point and Logic X is 64, but If I record and bounce everything in Logic X and keep going back to Logic X, how is it truncating it ? Isn't that suppose to be fixed value ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eriksimon Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 (edited) I don't really get "truncating" part. I know Logic 9 is 32 bit floating point and Logic X is 64, but If I record and bounce everything in Logic X and keep going back to Logic X, how is it truncating it ? Isn't that suppose to be fixed value ? Because you are truncating what comes from software instruments, which is a 32 bit or 64 bit audio stream (o, and btw, 64 bit addressing, what you are referring to, is not connected to audio processing resolution at all, it is just how memory is addressed - both Logic 9 (in both memory-addressing modes) and LP X have 32 bit floating point mixers). Eventually all is bounced down to either 24 or 16 bit, but you should avoid any unnecessary extra conversion before that. Original vs your method SI or FX 32 or 64 > mixer 32 > truncated when bounced to 24 or 16 bits SI or FX 32 or 64 > mixer 32 > truncated to audiofile 24 > mixer 32 > truncated when bounced to 24 or 16 bits As you can see, one superfluous extra step. Edited May 18, 2015 by Eriksimon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Logicno8 Posted May 17, 2015 Author Share Posted May 17, 2015 I don't really get "downsampling" part. I know Logic 9 is 32 bit floating point and Logic X is 64, but If I record and bounce everything in Logic X and keep going back to Logic X, how is it downsampling it ? Isn't that suppose to be fixed value ? Because you are truncating what comes from software instruments, which is a 32 bit or 64 bit audio stream (o, and btw, 64 bit addressing, what you are referring to, is not connected to audio processing resolution at all, it is just how memory is addressed - both Logic 9 (in both memory-addressing modes) and LP X have 32 bit floating point mixers). Eventually all is bounced down to either 24 or 16 bit, but you should avoid any unnecessary extra conversion before that. Original vs your method SI or FX 32 or 64 > mixer 32 > truncated when bounced to 24 or 16 bits SI or FX 32 or 64 > mixer 32 > truncated to audiofile 24 > mixer 32 > truncated to 24 or 16 bits As you can see, one superfluous extra step. I see, I'll do a little research now about those 64 and 32 bits memory and processing wise so I get a better grasp. Thank you very much for clearing it up.t Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eriksimon Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 You're welcome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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