X2 Sounds Better

It's null test time for you!

Welcome to NEW SYNDROME. 

I need A and B tests or it never happened.

Its funny when ever a new version comes out we get posts of this sort. I've been subject to it too. Being human we are all subject to this.

But my answer is be happy.  Love the DAW you're with.

Its a simple test for those who do not know: take the stereo mix from the X1 file, put it parallelel to the same stereo mix bounced inside X2. Route both mixes directly to your Sound card output without going through a Sonar bus of any kind.

Make sure both faders are set to 0. Flip the phase on one of the two tracks.
Hit play.

If there is a difference in the sound, you will hear the actual difference - mix X1 minus mix X2, if there isn't, it will be silent.

Try it and let us know.

  "No it doesn't perception IS reality...quantum physics proves this..." ................... Actually quantum physics says that "observation changes the result" thereby changing 'reality' in a limited sense of the word. I don't think it means that when the earth is charred and sterile, from over heating, and all earthly 'perception' has therefore ceased, that the universe actually goes 'poof'! Do you? .................... Anyhow, as far as testing if there is a 'difference', it might take going further than creating two mix down files, one from X1 and the other from X2, both from the identical project, and then subtracting one from the other. ............To definitively determine if there is a difference between the X1 engine and the X2 engine, it might take a comparison of the real time data going to the D/A converter!

Quad, I venture to bet that there are very few ears on this planet that will hear THAT difference :O)

It'll be the interleave button again like last year.

X2 does sound better because two is a better sounding word that one. Although you'd rather be a number one than a number two. Two also has a 'w' in it, which looks like to Vs side by side, which is cool. The number 2 looks a bit like a thin swan on a lake. 1 looks like a stick.

X3 is currently in production and sounds 20-40% better, I'm told.

Everything sounded better immediately,with a master I'm [still attempting to polish...if you know what I mean!]working,that was the first project I loaded,and lo and behold,it was due to 
Breverb/R-Mix,on a send/bus....instantly "less crap" sounding!
Bob

Rain


At the end of the day, what really makes a difference is - will it make a difference on the next mixes you make and how will you interact w/ that better-ness?

Toggling from one app to another often fools my ears into believing that the new one sounds better - only to realize that it makes very little difference when I build a mix from the ground up in that new app. 

Man,youre "Rain"ing on my parade,I'm going to choose the "New" buzz,and enjoy it!

console emulation? It seems to be on by default in the default template, not sure if it would be applied to an imported project, but if it gets turned on somewhere along the line it could certainly account for a difference... that being the idea and all... 

tbosco I still say I "think" its a tad better, and when it come to that "a tad better" some people will spend big bucks to hear it, or "think" they hear it with audio. *L* I do know that Media Center 17 sounds better with Asio drivers than iTunes.

X2 Sounds Better!!

Yes it does and work better. No glitch almost never doing anything during playback. You can change screensets too without "click" noise!
Add VSTs without any disturbance of timing!

Glad you folks are seeing improvements and enjoying X2 - that's all that matters really :)
Regarding the engine there have been hundreds of changes spread out all around, the majority being in the areas of effects, prochannel, and realtime playback and triggering of synths, loops and audio. We have new code to handle transitions (or gaps as some refer to it) that make it far more seamless than X1. For example inserting/bypassing/replacing synths, changing loop points etc no longer interrupt the audio stream and are done in parallel with a smooth transition at the end.
Rendering of automation has also been improved.

Regarding direct audio changes its not impossible that some combination of fixes may have activated some circuit in your mix that was previously dormant. For example a bug fix preventing an effect from rendering some parameter could now activate it. A null test should show this however as others have pointed out. We're very careful (paranoid) about ensuring that nothing changes in the mix engine to modify mixes across versions so there is no intentional change in X2 to the audio processing or pan laws/gain structure etc.

Talking about tangible changes that make things sound better, here is one measurable improvement. The timing accuracy for realtime MIDI triggering of synths is hugely improved in X2. You can measure and feel the difference for yourself by comparing X1 and X2 in this regard. The test is as follows:
- Insert any VST instrument (this also applies to some select DXi's)
- Set your audio latency to something medium high like 25 msec
- Play the soft synth or trigger it via a MIDI loop in the matrix if you don't have a keyboard controller. 

In X1 you will hear some noticeable MIDI timing jitter that gets worse as the latency is higher. At higher than 25 msec its pretty much unusable. The timing errors are particularly noticeable if you play fast rhythmic patterns. Using the matrix you can clearly hear these inaccuracies if you play MIDI patterns. 
If you now do the same test in X2 you will see that playback perfectly reproduces your live performance. I suggested a high latency of 25 msec to make the problem more evident, but the timing errors are present even at low latencies like 2 msec buffer sizes. They are just less noticeable. In X2 MIDI timing follows exactly what you play.

"In X1 you will hear some noticeable MIDI timing jitter that gets worse as the latency is higher. At higher than 25 msec its pretty much unusable. The timing errors are particularly noticeable if you play fast rhythmic patterns. Using the matrix you can clearly hear these inaccuracies if you play MIDI patterns. If you now do the same test in X2 you will see that playback perfectly reproduces your live performance. I suggested a high latency of 25 msec to make the problem more evident, but the timing errors are present even at low latencies like 2 msec buffer sizes. They are just less noticeable. In X2 MIDI timing follows exactly what you play." Good to know that they can start to acknowledge how bad X1 REALLY IS. :) Upgrade or Crossgrade... hmmm