Freddie H

Chregg


"I use the UAD platform and the difference in RTAS vs. VST of the same plug is clearer and small changes in the knob settings can be heard in RTAS less so in VST. I have file tested this and there is a difference in the files in the mid to upper frequency range. " Thats quite interesting that, hate to drag you back into this, but what kinda differences where you seeing/hearing between the files

Middleman


I use the UAD platform and the difference in RTAS vs. VST of the same plug is clearer and small changes in the knob settings can be heard in RTAS less so in VST. I have file tested this and there is a difference in the files in the mid to upper frequency range.

From my experience it is a waste of time to compare DAW platforms without taking into consideration the primary influencer of the sound which is the plugins used to develop a mix. Another area which is never debated is how one DAW handles the audio driver versus another. This alone can skew your listening results even though the files of two systems can match.

Bowing out now because I have a feeling this old and worn out debate is about to tumble into the realm of my DAW is better than your DAW.

 
What you experience is  is because of phase shift and quality degradation of the RTAS plugins. RTAS do not sounds better actually it perform worse both in audio quality, CPU use, multi threading and latency. RTAS is in 24bit only. VST float in 32bit or 64bit.
New AVX plugins float in x64bit and will sound and perform much better then RTAS.
 
AU-plugins, OSX audio drivers and OSX over all perform less then PC and VST. MAC  and OSX is not a very good multimedia platform that you might think.
That is why the big turn in the multimedia industry last years (Music, FILM, animation, Photo) toward PC platform. As far as I know AVID has put their main resources making PRO TOOLS 11 x64 work and perform best on Windows 7/8 x64bit platform.   
 

This is not in line with the testing I have done. Additionally, I am using the 32 bit float option in 10.3.5.  Your information is outdated as Protools updated the rtas platform to run 32 bit. Also, I am not using a Mac with Protools here, using Windows 7x64. But here we go, he said, she said.

One thing that I think is much better in Pro Tools, is notation.  It's a light version of Sibelius that's significantly better than what Sonar has.

aleef

 Recently, we obtained Pro Tools 11.

No disrespect..but how???   It has not been released yet, and Avid and those in the know are bound to secrecy upon the launch date.

None taken at all.  Right place, right time kind of thing.  ;-)

"VST trashes good audio"-  preposterous.
that argument's been settled years ago.

VST trashes good audio

Of course VST trashes good audio.  You feed it a number 3 and you might get back a number 5.  Of course, if the AU or RTAS plugin is really using the same algorythum, if the VST returns a 5 then the AU and the RTAS will also return a 5. 
 
Look folks, this is just about mathematics at the plugin level.  You feed in a number and you get another number out.  It does not have anything to do with sound.  Same algorythum, same result.  In the end, all of the plugins trash what they receive.  That's what we want them to do.  Same truth pretty much applies to the DAWS (once you get past the A/D or D/A converters which don't have anything to do with which DAW).
 
Glen

gcolbert
Look folks, this is just about mathematics at the plugin level.  You feed in a number and you get another number out.  It does not have anything to do with sound.  Same algorythum, same result.  In the end, all of the plugins trash what they receive.  That's what we want them to do.  Same truth pretty much applies to the DAWS (once you get past the A/D or D/A converters which don't have anything to do with which DAW).
 
Glen

It's also about, how well did the DAW company implement VST because it's a Steinberg platform which other companies implement. There are variations there as well.

sergiobklyn


One thing that I think is much better in Pro Tools, is notation.  It's a light version of Sibelius that's significantly better than what Sonar has.

Hi,
 
yes, notation is much better in many other daw's I know, for example Cubase and Samplitude as well.
It's the really only part in sonar I dislike. And because of this, you cannot master every element of the music production process, as it is described on the hompage.
 
Timo

Middleman


I use the UAD platform and the difference in RTAS vs. VST of the same plug is clearer and small changes in the knob settings can be heard in RTAS less so in VST. I have file tested this and there is a difference in the files in the mid to upper frequency range.

From my experience it is a waste of time to compare DAW platforms without taking into consideration the primary influencer of the sound which is the plugins used to develop a mix. Another area which is never debated is how one DAW handles the audio driver versus another. This alone can skew your listening results even though the files of two systems can match.

Bowing out now because I have a feeling this old and worn out debate is about to tumble into the realm of my DAW is better than your DAW.

  I have heard a lot of odd things over the years but this is the most off the wall thinking I have seen in a long time. 

VST and RTAS are protocols only. Neither one has anything to do with the sound what so ever. The same goes for DX. If you perceive a difference it has nothing to do with the protocol used. As long as the internal processing is run using the same math and the bit depth and sample rate are the same there should be no difference. Think of the protocol as nothing more then a container holding the processing algorithms.  What is important to us end users is will it work with our host? 

I am not a fan of any protocol. It makes no difference to me whether its VST or DX as long as my host can load it. You should look at it that same way. Though, my first guess would be that an RTAS plugin would be more limited in how it can process due to the limitation of PTs audio engine for so many years. It has used a 48 bit integer audio engine for a very long time. I'm not sure that an RTAS plugin is designed to do floating point math. 

If it does than it should sound the same as a VST version or DX. If not it is due to the RTAS protocol that is use only by PT. Why do you think PT has move away from it and now is using a brand new protocol? Could it be because RTAS can not deal well with floating point audio?

John, you're operating from a lot of old data.

The way the math is implemented, and it is not the same, has everything to do with how the final result will sound.

RTAS uses 32 bit float as of several versions ago, already stated earlier in the thread.

RTAS is a x32 bit platform and the direction for PT now is x64 bit, that is why things are moving to AAX. Purely an update to the platform.

the thing is middleman, i asked you to elaborate on that and you still really havent, once again, what differences in the mid and upper frequencies, between the two files you mentioned, justify this claim ?? Please