Art1820m
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QUALITY
Hi all, I have a m audio profire 2626 interface, and my question is that when I do my mixes then afterwards I compare them with commercial recordings done on pro tools HD, it sounds small and weak this is bothering me so much. My maximum loudness on the limiter is-0.1 2- 3 db reduction (not enough power and Quality). I do a balanced mix but still whatever I do its still not what I want. I heard playbacks on pro tools hd not even mixed they sound beautiful, when Im saying pro tools hd I mean just a basic 192 hd, no fancy stuff. So Im thinking its the audio interface, ad/da, I struggle so much to separate all the sounds but still there's frequency masking, but on the other hand pro tools Hd sounds more wide in comparison and the sounds are so separate in detail. is this correct can it be my audio interface? can that same mix be done in my setup? with sonar also or DAW have to do with this also.,,?
I will highly appreciate all the replys and advice's guys thanks best regards..
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Danny Danzi
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There is no difference in the sound of PT vs. Sonar. It's what you're tracking or how you're tracking that is making problems for you. Trust me, I use both here...there is no difference between them in sound quality. You're doing something wrong in Sonar or have some settings that need to be changed. We can only go so "wide" in a pan field. If you're not getting wide enough in Sonar, that's gotta be something to do with your profire and how it's configured.
As for comparing to commerical recordings, don't waste your time. You will never get that sound unless you are able to record the sounds you hear on a commercial recording. For example, if I run my guitar into Guitar Rig 4, use the SI Bass guitar plug in Sonar, use Session Drummer as my drum module and give you the best recording I can give you, it will not sound like a commercial recording. Simply because these instruments, though great, are not what it takes to get "commercial sound" in certain genre's.
To get commercial levels, you need a mix with all the right stuff that can stand on it's own. That means, properly panned, the right eq curves, the right compression, no frequency masking of any kind, all peaks controlled, and the project has to be mastered properly by someone that knows what they are doing. Lose one of those elements and you just cut your chances to compete with commercial recordings.
Keep in mind, a commercial recording most times is done by a record label. Labels have money...connections, killer studio's they deal with, engineer and producer that know the field and the craft. You can't compare your little 20k studio investment vs. millions of dollars in experience, gear, the right rooms and of course, just knowing how to put it all together. So stop pulling your hair out brother. Concentrate on what may be wrong with your card settings and Sonar. Read the X1 manual or do some research on the M Audio site to see what they recommend when using that card with Sonar. Good luck.
-Danny
My Site Fractal Audio Endorsed Artist & Beta Tester
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Guitarhacker
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Danny is pretty much right on the money. The commercial artists have producers, engineers and studio musicians who are the best of the best that money can buy. They know the craft, and the music, and how to get a good sound.
Since digital is digital no matter the DAW platform, the results you get on one should sound the same on a different DAW. The quality is the same. Plugs, FX and such things will alter the sound but the underlying quality is the same. With cake's "beginner DAW", MC4, I was producing music that was being signed by some of the biggest music libraries in the business for use in film & TV.
As hobbyists and part timers, working in shared rooms (bedroom/studio) the sound we hear on professionally produced CD's is generally not something, sound wise that we can easily achieve in our makeshift studios. However, it is totally possible to produce music that is 100% radio ready in every aspect. Sound quality, overall volume level, etc..... are all possible in a home studio with the software tools currently available.
With the proper gear and software, musical talent, lots of study, and trial and error and learning from our mistakes, it is totally possible to achieve an excellent sounding mix. Many here can do that on a consistent basis.
It is mostly about the education and understanding you have, and of course having a few essential software tools to help you get it done.
I mostly use the default Cake FX.... Studioverb 2, delays, and eq in my tracks, and a few third party FX such as Melodyne for pitch correction on vocals, and Ozone for polishing the mix. That is about it. I believe that by learning a few FX and knowing how to use them effectively and well, as opposed to having tons of FX and randomly throwing them in a project hoping for a good sound, is the better way to work. So my "go to" tools in the tool box are limited to a few tried and tested plugs.
Thats just my 2 cents.
My website & music: www.herbhartley.com MC4/5/6/X1e.c, on a Custom DAW Focusrite Firewire Saffire Interface BMI/NSAI "Just as the blade chooses the warrior, so too, the song chooses the writer "
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Rimshot
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Good comments from Danny and Guitarhacker. Nothing to add.
Rimshot
Rimshot Sonar Platinum 64 (Lifer), Studio One V3.5, Notion 6, Steinberg UR44, Zoom R24, Purrrfect Audio Pro Studio DAW (Case: Silent Mid Tower, Power Supply: 600w quiet, Haswell CPU: i7 4790k @ 4.4GHz (8 threads), RAM: 16GB DDR3/1600 , OS drive: 1TB HD, Audio drive: 1TB HD), Windows 10 x64 Anniversary, Equator D5 monitors, Faderport, FP8, Akai MPK261
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Art1820m
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Thank you very much guys for the advices, I feel little better knowing it has nothing to do with the DAW, But what about the interface? do I need to go HD or no, Because I wanna get Quality mixes , and by saying quality I mean being able to identify all the sounds ,open , clean mix that there is no frequency masking, I know guys (complimentary Eqing still dont get what I want) I'm talking about the separation of sounds, I even Sum to analog board to avoid frequency masking, but still problems,. Ive been through a lot of trial and errors many many years and a lot of frustration also  . I mean is there some kind of secret? seems funny :( once you come to a point that you overcome the trials and errors, then do you know what needs to be done every time you mix?? Danny Im gonna research on the settings for my profire 2626 and compatibility with Sonar, did you have any particular setting in mind?
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Guitarhacker
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The interface is capable of adding some color to the signal. For example, I use a Focusrite Saffire. It has a software console in it where I am able to preset EQ, reverb and compression. So yeah, depending on how I set those FX that are built in to the software front end in the Saffire..... DSP..... I can alter the sound.
However, since I don't want coloration in the signal, I have the levels of those FX set very low..... almost not even there.
I'm guessing M-Audio has something similar. I'd set them neutral or off to start with.... then turn them on and see what difference it makes.
My website & music: www.herbhartley.com MC4/5/6/X1e.c, on a Custom DAW Focusrite Firewire Saffire Interface BMI/NSAI "Just as the blade chooses the warrior, so too, the song chooses the writer "
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Art1820m
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Is there some good threads or videos you guys can recommend I would appreciate thank you.
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droddey
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The only way it sounded beautiful unmixed is because it was recorded beautifully. It all starts with the source. If you don't record good sounds, you'll be struggling to make it sound good. If you do record good sounds, then you can spend your time enhancing them in ways that don't get in the way of the good sounds you already have. The biggest problem of all, IMO, with most of us newbies is that everything you read on the net is about mixing, mixing, mixing, mastering, mastering, mastering, as though a bunch of plugins are all that matter and everything suddenly sounds great. Pros know how to record it to sound good to begin with, so they are starting off a few miles ahead of you. If you are recording yourself, then put more time into learning how to record. Try to make it sound mixed as recorded. Take the time to get it right. Listen to songs you like and try your best to break them down and figure out why those parts work together. It'll pay off more than anything else you can do. Work on how you select parts so that they fit together to create a nice overall effect. If you are just interesting in being a mixer, then get some professionally recorded tracks to mix, where you know that they were well recorded and you can hear other people's mixes of those tracks to get a feel for what is possible, so that you know if you can't get what they can, it's your fault and you need to learn more. Look into the Shaking Through stuff. Those guys record some very interesting artists and make the multitracks available to everyone to mix. Look in Gearslutz.com for Weathervane and Shaking Though and you'll find them.
post edited by droddey - 2012/04/17 21:40:17
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AT
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Once you get past the song itself and players, there is the arrangement. Many times a weak mix comes from not have your instruments spread across the sound spectrum. It is too busy in the low or high end, so the instruments aren't separated. It is like panning, but frequency dependent. There is a ton of stuff like that, and some of it is just basics. If the guitar is doing a staccato rhythm strum, the bass or the keys should hold the notes. You can get into all kinds of opposites like that, which opens up the space in the song, which makes it feel stronger.
You don't mention your style of music, but the front end matters, too. Most AD/DAs, even lower end stuff, is pretty good and isn't going to step on your sound. But recording acoustic stuff, a good mic or two (LDC and SDC, preferably two of the latter to do stereo) makes a difference - to go along w/ a 57. If you get a cheap but good ribbon so much the better. You don't have to buy an old Newman, but just something decent. Same w/ the preamp or a channel strip. Again, you don't have to buy a vintage Neve (tho it never hurts), but something a step up from your built-in interface's preamps. Another thing is the room - if it sounds horrible, well, that is going to tape, too. Again, you don't have to build a room, but if you get rid of the bad resonances, frequency build-ups and slap-back echoes, etc., that will help. Each of these acoustic steps might be smaller than you hope for laying out good cash, but cumulatively, they really matter to take the next step up. That helps w/ monitoring, too (which is another place to spend some of your hard-earned
money).
Lastly, the mixing. If you get a good recording, it becomes easier to mix. And the more you mix, the better you get. I've heard plenty of "professional" sounding mixes done in the bedroom, but the mixers knew what they were doing.
@
https://soundcloud.com/a-pleasure-dome
http://www.bnoir-film.com/ there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. 24 And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.
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mattplaysguitar
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AT and Dean both make two VERY good points here and are most likely the crux of your problems.
Recording - at the end of the day, this accounts for easily 80-90% of your sound. If you don't have this right, or pretty close, you're fighting not just an uphill battle, but up an over vertical cliff.
Composition - is everything (also). I'm not talking about simply writing a good song. A good catchy song can still sound sonically empty and boring. If it's that good, it may still sound great regardless, but we are striving for the ultimate in sound here. If you don't compose instruments in a way that create that huge (or whatever feeling you're going for) sound many of us are going for, you're going to really struggle to make it happen in the mix.
Forget buying more gear for now. It's not worth it. If you really want to spend some cash, get some good books on recording and song composition. Or even find a course to do. You'll get so much more from that than the mere 0.05% gain you'll get from getting new pre-amps. Only when you have everything else right is it worth upgrading your gear. Find the bottleneck. Fix the bottleneck. Then find the new one. Work your way up from there.
Study to music similar in your style. Listen to what is used in the composition. Draw a soundscape of where everything sits. Work out why. List the instruments. List their purpose. Study study study. It's amazing how many instruments can be involved in an almost empty sounding, simple intro to a song. Each adding their own little important element. Conversely, don't add too many instruments if you don't know why else risk things getting too busy! Adding lots makes mixing much harder and you risk screwing it up.
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guitartrek
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Art1820m
Thank you very much guys for the advices, I feel little better knowing it has nothing to do with the DAW, But what about the interface? do I need to go HD or no, Because I wanna get Quality mixes , and by saying quality I mean being able to identify all the sounds ,open , clean mix that there is no frequency masking, I know guys (complimentary Eqing still dont get what I want) I'm talking about the separation of sounds, I even Sum to analog board to avoid frequency masking, but still problems,. Ive been through a lot of trial and errors many many years and a lot of frustration also . I mean is there some kind of secret? seems funny :( once you come to a point that you overcome the trials and errors, then do you know what needs to be done every time you mix?? Danny Im gonna research on the settings for my profire 2626 and compatibility with Sonar, did you have any particular setting in mind?
The interface will help you get good sound going IN. I'm not sure about summing to a board - but if you render a mix in Sonar, the interface has NOTHING to do with the quality. I've confirmed this with Noel: All mixing / summing is pure mathematics and happens inside your computer - nothing to do with your interface. However, if you are somehow sending individual outs to external hardware and letting it do summing, then that will have an impact on the quality for sure. Not sure why you'd want to do that though.
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batsbrew
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ultimately, you want to get to a point where you are so good at recognizing balanced sound, that when you track something, you don't touch the eq, you don't touch the compression, you move the mics, adjust the source sound, and the way the track plays back to you, sounds exactly like it did going in.
then, you literally put all the faders up to about unity gain, and the mix automatically happens!!
LOL
i've done this, maybe, once, every one hundred mix sessions.
the daws are simply capturing wav files.
the 'quality' really starts at the source.......
then the mic.
after that, to a much lesser degree, is all the gear used to amplify the mic signal. you can ruin the sound that the mic captured, at this point.
but the daw, is only seeing the final capture, in a wav file, at whatever bit depth and sample rate you dictate, that it is capable of.
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cowboydan
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I go to a site where I can download raw material and work on these songs for practice. These songs are free to mix and for practice you can't go wrong. There is also a book "Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio"That is not that expensive. The website is the extra information and has a lot of that. When mixing use your ears and your "Soul" . Trying to compare with the Studio recordings does'nt get you there. You have to feel what the song is telling you. After all when we mix a song the only thing we are doing is polishing what was already there. Nothing more - Nothing Less. But sometimes we get lost in the technical mixing and lose the song al together. www.cambridge-mt.com/ms-chInset.htm
post edited by cowboydan - 2012/04/18 13:39:50
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Art1820m
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Very nice point guys thanks a lot. you guys are right about getting the source right in the right begining, Im using a lot of virtual inst, most of the time instead of the bass guitar I play live unless the song calls for a synth bass. however Im thinking to give a try to send the virtual inst out to a gear, preamp or something for color then in to DAW, what do you guys think of that? Im just very happy to know the mix has nothing to do with the interface. My mixes and can be doneright if the right approach is necessary. thanks very much guys. 
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batsbrew
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no ITB tweaking will ever give you vibe and soul out of a synth instrument.
thats just my opinion.
but it's a strong one.
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AT
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Tho I use mostly virtual synths and loops these days for my own stuff that presents its own set of problems. A synth sound sounds good - great. But you start stacking full range sounds together and you have all kinds of reverb and frequency overlaps. I find I use more and more drastic filtering on soft synths to get them to fit in (as well as nixing the built-in reverb). This has not so much to do w/ power as with mush, which can become flabby and anti-power. Loops and emulative synths ususally are better about this, but still something to watch out for.
As far as interface - bouncing in the box doesn't pass through your interface. However, using outboard stuff to mix through does pass through it. Although expensive AD/DA is nice, that is probably the last thing you have to worry about or spend money on until other things are taken care of.
I do find that nice outboard provides a nice polish to ITB productions - even just mixing through it and routing it back into your DAW. I can't speak to cheap comps, but I have a nice stereo comp/limiter that I mix through and all the yummy transformers and high-quality electronic components do help give ITB productions a more professional sheen - even when not squeezing the sound much. I would never do that if I had an extra DBX 163, but from +$1000 electronics yes.
Spending money isn't the answer itself - such can help but ain't necessary. Once you reach a certain point in mixing, tho, it can help carry you over the line. Sending individual tracks could help, but it is probably more important coming in (which these tracks aren't doing). Playing the synth through could help more. But you'll get most of the impact from sending your entire mix out and back end. But don't think that will fix your mix, even spending stupid money won't really help until you have the basics of good technique down. And cheap stuff will probably worsen the situation.
@
https://soundcloud.com/a-pleasure-dome
http://www.bnoir-film.com/ there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. 24 And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.
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foxwolfen
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droddey
The only way it sounded beautiful unmixed is because it was recorded beautifully. It all starts with the source. If you don't record good sounds, you'll be struggling to make it sound good. If you do record good sounds, then you can spend your time enhancing them in ways that don't get in the way of the good sounds you already have. The biggest problem of all, IMO, with most of us newbies is that everything you read on the net is about mixing, mixing, mixing, mastering, mastering, mastering, as though a bunch of plugins are all that matter and everything suddenly sounds great. Pros know how to record it to sound good to begin with, so they are starting off a few miles ahead of you.
If you are recording yourself, then put more time into learning how to record. Try to make it sound mixed as recorded. Take the time to get it right. Listen to songs you like and try your best to break them down and figure out why those parts work together. It'll pay off more than anything else you can do. Work on how you select parts so that they fit together to create a nice overall effect.
If you are just interesting in being a mixer, then get some professionally recorded tracks to mix, where you know that they were well recorded and you can hear other people's mixes of those tracks to get a feel for what is possible, so that you know if you can't get what they can, it's your fault and you need to learn more. Look into the Shaking Through stuff. Those guys record some very interesting artists and make the multitracks available to everyone to mix. Look in Gearslutz.com for Weathervane and Shaking Though and you'll find them.
This just can't be emphasized enough.
A scientist knows more & more about less & less till he knows everything about nothing, while a philosopher knows less & less about more & more till he knows nothing about everything. Composers Forum
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Art1820m
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Hi, guys this is one of my recent mixes that I want you guys to hear. It is not final and needs some more work, some tracks are muted but you'll get the idea. please feel free to give your input,.any advice will be highly appreciated .. thanks again :) http://www.soundclick.com/mixtest
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AT
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Art,
after a quick listen I think the "sounds" used cause some of the problems, esp. the piano at the start. Struck me as being gm.
If I was given this project I'd probably try the SSL bus comp for a little glue, maybe a little reverb. Also on my computer speakers it sounded a little unbalanced, as if there was more bass coming out of the rt speaker.
But overall I think it sounded pretty good. Nice writing and good playing and plenty of separation. One thing I wonder is how busy the final mix is if you've muted some tracks. Anything else might clutter up the fast song.
@
https://soundcloud.com/a-pleasure-dome
http://www.bnoir-film.com/ there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. 24 And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.
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spacealf
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This studio was brought up the other day by Mike ( I think or hope I am correct on that) and as you look at the equipment to the right of the mixing desk brought in by the studio musicians perhaps you begin to see in even a almost professional studio (well maybe okay type professional) recording session that you have nothing similiar to set up unless perhaps you win a big lotto, like the one that was just won by those three lucky people who probably don't even listen to that music anyway. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exQRfHbSwn0 Such is life at the low end of the rungs of the ladder if not down on the curb sinking into the grating on the street catching the sewer run-offs.
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Art1820m
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Thanks AT, some string parts are muted but not played a lot, this is the main foundation. once I master the whole thing I will repost it again. thank you
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Art1820m
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hi guys what do you think of this songs mix? do I have enough separation in the sounds? how can it be more improved in quality? Im wanna achieve more detail quality in my mixes. this is a mix I did, only the bass is live thanks best regards http://www.soundclick.com/mixtest
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mattplaysguitar
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I think there is plenty of separation. But I feel almost like there is too much. I feel like everything is all out the front a bit too much. Everything is given a place to shine in the front. Nothing is sitting back in the mix to fill out the gaps. It all just feels a bit empty and lacking depth. Almost like it's all percussion. Some thicker pad lines with an appropriate amount of reverb could fill things in a bit. Mmm, it's hard to pin point it. I think it sounds very good, but just not quite right. When we first start out mixing, we are always tempted to try and make every instrument shine. Everything has to be out front. But that makes for a really busy mix. Often it's important for there to be those instruments there that you don't really hear, but more feel and you only really notice when they are removed.
I think it's more a composing issue that a mixing one here (any this is purely my opinion - others may think it's perfect). Mixing could clean things up and fill it out a bit more, but I think the best thing for it would be a bit more work in the actual composition.
And I think we are really getting down to personal opinions here. I'm sure plenty of other people will say it's great just how it is.
Oh and some of those sounds were a little 'cheap MIDI' sounding, but if that's the sound you're going for, then it's all good!
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Art1820m
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Guys I appreciate for all the advice. I wanna make sure one thing I across Avid hd website and this is what I found this is from Avid website I copy pasted.. : Overview  Create professional-quality, richly detailed productions, quickly and easily, with the lowest latency of any host-based DAW. With Pro Tools|HD Native—a new generation of Pro Tools HD core system that harnesses the power of your Mac or PC—you get amazing sound, incredible performance, and the lowest latency on the host. Whether you create music or sound for picture, equip yourself with the tools you need to compose, record, edit, and mix with great speed, ease, and reliability—and hear what you’ve been missing. A complete Pro Tools|HD Native system is comprised of a Pro Tools|HD Native PCIe card, which comes with Pro Tools HD software, and your choice of one or more Pro Tools HD Series audio interfaces: I am very impressed with its stability. I tried very hard to break it but I couldn't! Well done Avid, a stunning product that works from day 1. Mike Thornton, columnist for Sound on Sound HD Native PCIe card and Pro Tools HD software—Unlike USB- or FireWire-based DAWs, which are inherently prone to latency, Pro Tools|HD Native employs a high-speed PCIe core card, greatly improving monitoring while recording. By eliminating distracting latency, increasing your I/O capabilities, and providing 64-bit floating-point processing for more headroom and a higher mix resolution, you get a professional native solution that meets the highest audio standards. And with the tight integration of Pro Tools HD software, included, you have all the tools you need for studio-quality music and audio production. . : My question is how would this affect sound quality , its claiming to have the highest sound quality. this works with pro tools hd sound card. I have heard on this forum and understood that sound quality in "mixing" or getting a balanced quality mix with detailed sonic quality has to do with internal processing inside the DAW and therefor not the sound card, ....please clarify me on this guys how does this work? or is it because the dsp power? I hope I'm clear.. Thaks guys, Best Regards
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Guitarhacker
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I believe that for most people, anything above CD quality 16 bits at 44.1khz is simply lost to the inability of the human ear to hear it.
are there advantages to recording above this level...of course and I most certainly do. But in the end it all comes back down to the CD standard.
If you have a card that can record higher bit rates and such and want to use the hard drive space it requires, by all means do it with my blessings.
The sound quality that affects us the most comes in at the source of the music. The microphones, the amps, the rooms, the musicians, all these things have a much much larger affect on the music quality than any respectable sound card will ever have.
Even the much maligned Sound blaster cards will give you above CD quality, assuming the tracks are good.
My website & music: www.herbhartley.com MC4/5/6/X1e.c, on a Custom DAW Focusrite Firewire Saffire Interface BMI/NSAI "Just as the blade chooses the warrior, so too, the song chooses the writer "
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AT
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No doubt the new avid stuff is good, very good. I haven't heard the new stuff but have used the earlier stuff. But the last bit of hardware I would worry about is the converters - even the most budget interfaces today give a good, clean copy of what you provide it. If you want to add some umph to your recording/playback it is far more cost-effective to add high-end analog hardware going in and out on the source rather than in the converter itself. I could be wrong, but I've voted w/ my pocketbook on that issue.
Think about it this way. You have a great, multi-thousand dollar channel strip. With it you can capture a sound that has all the nuance you want - nice clean replication if the source needs it or a little more saturation, all with plenty of the 3-D we associate w/ professional sound. The channel strip can help you do that (nothing is guaranteed, of course) which your budget converters will deliver w/ 99% accuracy. A superior converter will do that w/ 99.6 accuracy, but if you are using a budget preamp that is fine w/ clean capture but is iffy when overdriven a bit and gets harsh rather full, better conversion only helps you capture more of that harshness.
Coming out it is the same thing. You've got a mix that sounds great - the good converters delivers that sound while the great ones delivers a tad more clarity or, if it is Burl or even an apogee a nicely thickened, analog style sound. Running the mix through the budget converter and a nice stereo compressor and/or EQ you get a more analog sound more like the burl etc, plus some processing (which is actually doubled since most everything was recorded through it on the way in).
This is not to discount great conversion, just that as far as I have heard it is toward the end of what makes a great sound, not the reason for it. Well, neither is the preamp/comp/EQ - that depends upon the source and your ability to capture it but it helps more than the converter does. Ideally, you want a top notch stereo channels going in and out from preamp to converters, but unless you have all the money necessary at once building from the front end out is the way to go - or I have.
Of course, if you have a plan building up from the converters go for it.
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Bristol_Jonesey
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Good post AT, and good reasoning.
It makes sense whenever you are considering a hardware upgrade is to ask the question "where's my current weak point in the chain" and to build on that.
I'm at the stage where most of my hardware is more or less firmly in the mid range of gear, so for me, what to upgrade next will be a major headache, and quite possibly, major cash outlay.
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John T
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Aye. Another way around of looking at this is that the diminishing returns curve on audio gear can be quite stern. The difference between a £50 interface and a £500 one is vast. The difference between a £500 one and a £5000 one often surprisingly less so.
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Middleman
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Ok, not to be controversial but there is a difference in the sound of Sonar and Protools and I have measured it. Now, I am still in progress on some tests but the difference may come down to VST versus RTAS when using plugins. I will not get into a debate about which sounds better but I can say that a recent test using the same test file, with the only variable being a single instance of the UAD Precision limiter and using the same settings, yielded a very audible summing difference. (reverse phase test). The two base programs with no plugins I am testing later today when I get some time. Even if they are exactly the same, which may be the case, when you instantiate plugins they diverge in their output and you will get a different result. In this particular case, the difference was a higher level of the 100 to 300 range in Sonar with slightly more low end than PT below this point. The other difference is that there are several .5 to 1.5 peaks in the 1k, 2k and 3k areas in PT with a narrow Q. There was a recent article, can't remember the guys name, in Sound on Sound where he mentioned moving from Sonar X1 to PT was the difference in a warm, more glued sounding mix in Sonar versus the clarity but also more sterile sound of Protools. I thought this his claim was bogus but I have heard and now measured a difference which roughly equates to his comments. Just for those scientific types, yes I checked the pan law which was -6 in both cases. There was no adjustment to levels. Stereo file added to both programs, one limiter on output. All that said, the difference you are hearing is probably more attributed to the converters and possibly the monitoring system because anyone with an HD192 has probably spent some money on his room to make sure things are sounding balanced.
post edited by Middleman - 2012/05/22 12:18:11
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mattplaysguitar
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And it was definitely lined up perfectly, sample for sample?
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