kevinlamb Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 I have been taking my old audio tracks from PTools audio files and moving them into LPX. Is it my imagination or is LPX much crisper, richer, wider, 'head-roomier" than ProTools? It seems that in LPX my audio files have so much more room to breathe and so much more room around them. They sound cleaner and clearer. If this is even possible is it because I have a 64-bit Mac and LPX is a 64-bit program? Is it because Apple makes both products and they are just "more" compatible? Or do I now have listening bias because I am not going back to Pro Tools and want it to be this way? Also, My I/O device is still the MBox3. I have heard that using a UA Apollo Twin Duo would give me even a wider path (some say that the Apollo gives sound to the outsides of the speakers or headphones? I have had a few techs say that the MBox sound is more screeched between the speakers - any truth that the choice of an I/O device can make a session sound "roomier?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Nahmani Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 It seems that in LPX my audio files have so much more room to breathe and so much more room around them. They sound cleaner and clearer. If we are talking about a single audio file played back at nominal volume (fader at 0 dB) in different DAWs, then the result is EXACTLY the same in all DAWs, as they are just passing 0s and 1s through (and changing a 0 into a 1 or a 1 into a 0 would be a huge bug). If we are talking about summing different audio files, then in theory at least, different audio engine could use different summing algorithms. If we are talking about things panned left and right then keep in mind Logic and PT do not use the same pan laws, so any engineer using their ears while mixing would set the pan knobs at different positions in PT vs in Logic in order to get the same sonic results. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevinlamb Posted March 8, 2016 Author Share Posted March 8, 2016 So it is "all in my mind" then! But I swear LPX sound bigger and fuller. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Nahmani Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 But I swear LPX sound bigger and fuller. Maybe something else is going on that is different between the Logic signal chain and the PT signal chain? Are all other links in the chain the same ones? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevinlamb Posted March 8, 2016 Author Share Posted March 8, 2016 Every thing is equal. I just brought over all the files from a Pro Tools session to an LPX session and it sounds much better. And it is not because LPX is at a higher volume. Maybe others here have experienced the same? I think PTools is still at 32 bit - - - - ? Don't know if that would mean anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steveLpx1 Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 ...just a thought...hth.../s~ http://therecordingrevolution.com/2016/03/07/how-i-was-fooled-by-a-mastering-engineer/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skijumptoes Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 Could be your soundcards sample/bit rate is set differently between the two DAW's? I had a similar experience going from Logic to Ableton when i had created the basis of a live set, it sounded more compact when going into Ableton, realised i was only set to 44k 16 bit within Ableton setup, and had exported out higher bit rated audio from Logic. Also be wary of any additional tasks when performing a bounce out of a DAW, as there may have been some normalisation or limiting applied to your audio on export (I'm not a ptools user but guess it has the option). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mixerjack Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 Dude it's all in your head.... It's a DAW, they all sound the same.... Ironically pro tools actually manages headroom way better than logic, but that's mainly down to better sized faders and much better metering; something that still bothers me today about logic. But alas any sonic difference you hear is just the noise between your ears ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mixerjack Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 Also 32bit/64bit programming has zero impact on audio fidelity !! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Nahmani Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 Every thing is equal. I just brought over all the files from a Pro Tools session to an LPX session and it sounds much better. And it is not because LPX is at a higher volume. Maybe others here have experienced the same? I think PTools is still at 32 bit - - - - ? Don't know if that would mean anything. No, that would not mean anything when playing back an audio file at nominal level: when playing back an audio file, any DAW is just having the dumb job of passing 0s and 1s through. If there's a "1" in the audio file, the DAW must pass that "1" through to the D/A converter which then uses that digital data to create the analog signal you hear on your speaker. Any DAW that chooses to pass a "0" when there's a "1" in the audio file would be seriously buggy. The DAW has no room for interpretation here, it's just a transparent link in the chain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevinlamb Posted March 8, 2016 Author Share Posted March 8, 2016 I have accepted that it is all in my head. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steveLpx1 Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 ...but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy it anyway!... ...btdt.../s~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skijumptoes Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 It's a bit more complicated than a single audio file passing 1 and 0 to through to the AD/DA* convertor though (*Which the audio interface carries out). Firstly you have transcoding from the source wave form to that of the project, then on top of that multiple audio tracks are subject to the internal mixing/summing algorithms of each DAW. If we're talking binary (0/1's) then the resulting single stereo audio binary data that Logic will produce will be considerably different to that of Pro Tools when feeding the same 30-40 audio tracks through. It's very much like merging 30-40 jpegs together in a photoshop application, all those images, ultimately, have to be intelligently merged into data approximately the same size as each individual image was to start with - Audio, very much the same. Basically speaking, The DAW is pushing 30-40 audio tracks back into a file that's the same size as one of those single audio tracks. It won't sound considerably different of course, but in terms of that final raw data it will be. Food for thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
des99 Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 I'm not sure you understand what goes on a daw. Mixing/summing isn't some exotic algorithm, or like jpeg compression, it's addition. That's it, and the maths has been perfect for quite some time. Leave aside stuff like time stretching, sample rate conversion and other fx processing for now (those all degrade audio in different ways according to the algorithms used but that's outside the scope of what's being discussed here) - any 32float mixing engine, implemented properly, will sound *identical* to any other. So, either there is some other processing going on that the OP doesn't know about, or the differences are just confirmation bias. Note that this has been proven time and again - if you leave out daw specific differences, daws will sum the same set of files to bit identical results. Differences only start to creep in when things like varying pan laws come into affect. But summing is a solved problem, and it's not at all like you describe - " compressing 30 files into one file of the same space " is just a very incorrect analogy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mixerjack Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 So to summarise, all DAWs sound the same! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
des99 Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 So to summarise, all DAWs sound the same! It's not *quite* that simple, but certainly all daws *sum* the same (although there is the odd one that has a 64-bit summing engine, but how much practical difference it makes to plain old 24-bit audio with a few volume processes running I have no idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skijumptoes Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 Of course, if you're talking purely the sum of audio tracks as the only operation. But we're not that's the very point i was trying to make. I got the impression that the OP was noticing more headroom when mixing in Logic compared to PTools, and was making a general comment in regards to that. For me, you don't know what headroom you have until you start to mix, hence why i drew that impression. Just a further point is that PTools internal mixing engine runs at 32, 48 or 64 bit depending on which version and hardware combo you're using, we could even be comparing an old LE version to LPX, which had some notorious artefacts with it's summing that would affect the mix. But i still think that my point remains that it's not just simple 0's and 1's, as everything runs through the core engine of each DAW, surely. So there must be interpolation there at the very least? As for me understanding what goes on in a daw, you're correct, i have no experience whatsoever with audio processing at that level, and quite honestly blows my mind from a coding standpoint how an earth it all comes together in such a short amount of time with plugins, mixing levels, time stretching and god knows what else goes on. So, Please don't spoil the magic! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
des99 Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 Yes, it is just 0s and 1s, there's no magic! Sorry! Headroom on a 32float mixer is around 1500dB (above 0dBFS), although how plugins handle stuff above 0dBFS is variable. But pan laws are different between Logic and PT, and the interface itself affects mix decisions, so in the real world, results for a given user may vary, leading to a preference in how a daw "sounds" when it's actually not a technical or quality thing at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Nahmani Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 i still think that my point remains that it's not just simple 0's and 1's, as everything runs through the core engine of each DAW, surely. The OP is talking about playing back a single audio file using different DAWs. In that case, it's just simple 0's and 1's the DAW is passing through to the audio interface. The audio engine from the DAW does not make any calculations or alterations to that file. Even if the DAW has to turn the 24 bit fixed audio file into a 32 bit floating point signal, at the output of the DAW you'll end up with the exact same 0s and 1s you had in the original audio file. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skijumptoes Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 Ok, i read it as an entire mix which he was rebuilding in Logic using individual audio files taken from a pro tools session, my bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeRobinson Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 One thing that occurs to me is: what if the "final stages, heading-out the-door-now, on-the master-fader" processing between the two somehow isn't exactly the same? Might Logic have slipped a sweet Audio F/X gadget into that final step? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Nahmani Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 Might Logic have slipped a sweet Audio F/X gadget into that final step? No. There's nothing magic or mysterious going on. Upon playback, what goes in is what goes out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
des99 Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 Might Logic have slipped a sweet Audio F/X gadget into that final step? Undocumented, additional, always-on extra mix processing? No, that would be insane, and easily proved with a bit of null testing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric Cardenas Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 Headroom on a 32float mixer is around 1500dB (above 0dBFS. Logic's audio engine allows + 770 dBFS before it craps out. Should be enough for any scenario. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jerrydpi Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 What's the word on the PreSonus Studio One? Teddy Riley says it has more headroom that LPX Check this YouTube link: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Nahmani Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 Teddy Riley says it has more headroom that LPX Aaaah the power of manufacturer endorsements... Assuming that statement is true: do you really need more than 770 dB of headroom? If you do, then your main problem isn't your DAW's audio engine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mixerjack Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 It's managing headroom that is more difficult than in pro tools I find. Pretty much just down to the meters and the fader size... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevinlamb Posted March 10, 2016 Author Share Posted March 10, 2016 i was talking more about an entire mix. But I think the consensus here is that the human ear cannot tell a difference. It probably is confirmation bias on my part. Some fascinating replies in this thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skijumptoes Posted March 10, 2016 Share Posted March 10, 2016 I think there's a difference, but as many people have said it's probably more to do with the working environment, i.e. mixing controls and general structure of each DAW. I remember doing a few tracks in Reaper and they sounded amazing, and i've always considered it to be a superior sounding DAW over Logic based on that experience. In hindsight it was (maybe) because i was thinking more about what i was doing, being in a new environment, and thus hearing something different to what i'd normally do (which i perceived to be better). But i STILL can't get it out of my head that Reaper sounds amazing. *hangs head in shame* I never swapped over to it, as Logic as a whole is such a perfect match for me and i feel like i have put an investment into it over the years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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