...and also the Timestretching algorithm, i must admit i hate the zPlane Elastique V3 on tonal elements. It sounds grainier than on Elastique V2 so i had to switch back to StudioOne V2 exactly for that particular reason... And is not only about StudioOne3, but also about any daw who implemented the latest Elastique version. The only material ElastiqueV3 is better is on percussive elements.
At least they should give people the option to switch the timestretching algorithm version on every sample clip. The only DAW i know to offer that option is Reaper, because it also implemented the latest timestretching algo but it didn't got rid of V2.

 

Daws do sound different, out of the box. But not because they can't sound the same if we want to. Filters, algorithms, plugins or whatever are tuned to do the job for what music was DAW mainly created. Some daws is fine tuned for all around music in mind like studio one with a little more laid back sound out of the box and some others are fine tuned for particular genre like FL for EDM or Digital performer for orchestra music.

 

Without reading the entire (surprisingly big ) thread: it's a simple fact that DAWs in essence do NOT sound different.
The only one I know that is really different is mixbus, because it has a kind of console emulation built in.

Each (modern) DAW uses the same processing to do the mixing.

There are a few things that might cause you (the user ) to do things differently and have a different outcome.
The obvious one of course is that the DAW does not sound different, but its included effects and filters might of course.

Also - less obvious - are things like the pan law. There are different ways to pan, and DAWs do you use different ways to pan, making the outcome different. Reaper has a lot of options for this (even adjust it per track) and Studio One (2.x) has a set default.

While there may be bugs causing differences or user error (reapers samplerate setting during render can cause havoc if you don't know what it actually does ) I don't count them .

So, differences in the mixing and processing? No (except mixbus). Differences in the included plugins and effects? Yes of course.
Differences in the panning? Yes, and the only thing I can think of that might be a typical thing to be forgotten.
There are plugins of course to do the panning so you can bypass the DAWs default, but there still might be (clean) gain differences due to pan law which you need to compensate for when doing comparisons.

 

Any DAW application that uses 32 Bit floating point calculations will process audio without introducing any unwanted effects i.e frequency response, distortion etc i.e Transparency. From a transparency point of view ALL DAW software is created equal,

Some (very few) people claim they can hear the differences in sound between due to the various algorithms used in summing. Whilst possibly quantifiable both suspect & pretty non important imho.

What some people fail to remember is the plugins used & how they react/ work ect. For example some synths most of the time have a degree of randomization using oscillators The result is that most synths is to not produce the exact same waveform twice. Therefore u can't simply play on synth in one DAW & then try it in another and say wow that sounds so much better. Most definitely not down to the DAW itself.

Like momo mentioned it is an easy test summing is to simply import an audio file and then phase invert exactly half of them.
(several channels of course )

If you hear any sound at all on playback the sound on the channels is different & the software is doing something to the audio when summing the mixer channels. This could also be processed from earlier down the sound chain.

Then simply export the same audio file from two different DAWs and then phase invert them to each other. This will then give you an indication as to whether anything is happening to the audio on exporting the audio.

When people usually hear/perceive a difference in sound this is normally not down to the software involved. However any noticeable difference is much more likely the result of the hardware used i.e mics, preamps, A/D and D/A converters, etc.

What is most important is probably workflow & the adopted approach to mastering etc

Like Evorax mentioned mostly this is down to this skill level of the person involved & how they approach the situation which in just about all cases is far more important than the software that is being used.

JMO

 

DAW is complete package. If you compare, i don't know 70-80% of core package, they should sound the same. But if you compare it as whole product(with all filters, plugins,... and also use it that way(the way that is intended with how developer wanted ), they sound a little different out of the box. People seems confusing when talking about daws. Some talking about like 80% of core engine that actualy should sound the same and others like me talking as whole product which is not sounding the same in comparisons.

 

Test between FL Studio 12 and Studio One 3

Both the mixer re-sampling settings and export re-sampling settings are same.

Studio One 3 - https://clyp.it/ybuk2nss

Fl Studio 12 - https://clyp.it/3h235bm2

Both of the Instruments are same and same midi.

But Phase Cancellation is not working.

I'm not gonna blame the DAW, But my question is "Is it the plugins that behave different in DAW? or ?? Why? (Both of audio sounds different) Please test and try phase cancellation.

 

MIDI has the best sound. Especially with red MIDI cables cables. That's all I know.

AFAIK this topic already died back in 2002. No need to bring it back to life.

 

Everything is dead center/untouched in the example. (Regarding panning)

The alrgorithm used for interpolation could very well make a difference but how drastic could it be when saving at 32/44.1? (Not changing rates)

It still seems to me that FL does something funky with the gain. How can it be it sounds louder (not better or worse) at 0 dB compared to the others?

Regarding CPU usage, of course there are differences. For example, I can run 4-5 Voxengo plugs at x8 oversampling no-problem at S1, FL will start crackling with one.

It baffles me even more, when PreSonus themselves say "S1 sounds better".

MIDI has the finest sound, indeed.

But the topic doesn't seem all that dead to me.

 

Also, did anyone here spotted the quality difference between timestretching algorithms (Elastique V2 and V3) between StudioOne2 and 3?
To me the stretching on complex tonal sounds sounds grainier on V3 , which makes me stretch what i need in StudioOneV2 then re-import it in V3. On the percussive sounds, Elastique3 seems to work a tad better, but just that.

 

Like me and others said: Probably (but I don't know) because of the pan law.
If a DAW has _no_ pan law, it means a simple track panned dead center is left alone with no processing at all.
If a DAW has a pan law of -3.0 db, it means a simple track panned dead center is -3.0 db lowered. If you start panning it to the left, that 3 db of gain reduction is slowly lowered.

That _is_ what pan law is, compensation for the fact that a mono signal in the center is louder than coming from the left or right. (If it's center, it's coming from two speakers at the same time, which makes it louder. Pan law compensates for this by lowering centered tracks by a certain amount).

I know Studio One (2.x) _has_ a pan law of -3.0 db which you can't (easily) change.

I know Reaper defaults in it's bare defaults to no pan law at all, but you can change it per track or you can set a default per project (and for new projects) and it has multiple options.

I don't know what FL studio does, but if it has _no_ pan law at all, there is your reason why centered tracks sound louder than in other DAWs. And it is also an explanation for what some mindless person would call 'that FL studio sound', it means 'a weird stereo image' because it is mixed without a pan law.

Analog consoles back in the day used pan law.. Neve's have -3.0 db I believe and the good ol' SSL 4k had -4.5 db (but don't quote me on that, might be wrong).

Which is why I come back to this: If you start comparing sounds (be it plugins, daws, sound cards, whatever) make sure you _level match it_. Only then can you compare it. And there are multiple reasons why the '-2.0 db on the track level' might mean something different in DAW 1 than it does in DAW 2... as long as you make sure they are both the same loudness, they would sound the same.. All DAWs these days do the summing and mixing in perfectly clean floating point (some even in 64-bit floating point, although that is a bit of overkill in my opinion).

He means that it is long known and proven that there are no sound differences, unless you don't know how to compare (like matching gain / levels and stuff).

It's OK to ask if and why in my opinion (you might learn something, which is always a good thing), but don't go try to prove that there _are_ differences.. because there aren't .

 

I can't find any re-sampling settings for Studio One 3 mixer and neither in v2.

btw S1 now supports drag export with (or without) rendered fx chains for audio clips

 

Guys, plugins are better to consider, not DAWs...
THough 2015 is today, but DAWs nowadays are pretty multi-mega functional. If sound engine is not considered in next DAW versions, it means that sound engine is OK, nothing to fix and improved. Today 2015, 95-98% plugins are closer to analog or viceversa mathematically clean/transparent.
About 3-5 years more to wait each developer will sound twice better than old analog. And then we will consider "How analog sounds worse than digital", because digital is better and better nowadays. Or will ask again that your tracks still sound "not analog" and "very digital, even worse than 99's"???? Stop this shit. Nowadays is OK. Nobody complains about transient-killing-oversaturated-limitered to -1dB RMS tracks...All is fine.
Buy UAD to make 99% cool sound, if you are complaining about vsts, vstis, DAWs, Nebula/Acqua stuff etc...
Only what I complaining - bad edits, bad restores, too lazy for edit, SRC bad choose, not using dithering or using it wrong way, loud limiting...
It's many time worse than small nuances like subtle saturation, achieveness of 100%ness of analogueness (who cares if all analog is different?), daw's engine (maths is same, 1+1=2, summing is same everywhere, maybe some small differences, but if you are mixing and you will noticed it - fix it, you have hundreds of plugins for fixing phase, stereofield, loudness, saturation, eqing, panning, balancing...). Stop dis.

And yes - all DAWs sound different.
To me, word CUBASE sounds not same as the word LOGIC.

 

@ Calvinmusic i cant download the files
but if phase cancellation is not working
the settings in each daw were not the same when rendered to wave
look for these settings,

dithering on / off ,,,daw bpm
wav bit depth
resampling /point sinc

when these are all set the same it should work
you could also try the settings you frist used with a loop
and if the phase cancellation works on the loop but not with the plugins
there is something going on ?
===
This was posted here befor the McGurk Effect,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-lN8vWm3m0

 

AH, While opening the project in studio one 3, you can select whether you want to work with 512 bit sync point or lower. You should click on change audio settings (Below ASIO).

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3R5gHF0vzew

Here comes the null test:
http://www76.zippyshare.com/v/RCoDjWor/file.html - https://mega.nz/#!AN8FyDCR!BGUN1_EjQThM8H9N7RuFjapSqjGYkH3CWKw865YYHNA

Enjoy the sound of silence.

Note that in the original I used Kontakt which has its own interpolation thingy going apart from the DAW's.

 

I don't have FL anymore but guys you can run a quick test:

Take sylenth1, init patch draw a 1/2 note on c5

Export with the same settings

Export 1 times directly from the master output (channel --)

Export 1 time thru a blank channel (channel 01)

Now import those 2 clips on a daw with zero zooming (S1, Cubase,Logic....)

Both waveforms start exactly at the same time?? When i runned this test i find that the clip from the channel-export was slightly shifted...

 

You are wrong, there are no mixer settings like that in S1. This is just Asio audio buffer. It's not a mixer setting. Audio driver used doen't make any difference on the exported files... You can export a clip without using any audio driver...

 

It Worked , Tried a loop with (44.1 kHz) 32bit sync point. Phase Cancellation Worked! (Checked Phase Cancellation in Logic X)

 

We can absume that FL sounds like every other daw as already stated

 

But there is mixer settings in FL Studio, you can find it below (Mixer - Resampling quality) :