Reading this thread, I just had to test it by myself (again). I put a 24 bit 44,1 kHz stereo file in Ableton Live 11.0.11, turned off warping and rendered a 24 bit 44,1 kHz file out and the result perfectly nulls, it is bit for bit identical.

Everyone interested in this, please do the test for yourself and post the result. This is just about the audio engine not altering anything, not about stock plugins or mixing.

 

If you think these are all things that cannot be measured in any technical way then I don't know what to tell you. If there are differences then technical analysis would show them. If the transients are being smudged even at a completely inaudible level, for instanced, you will see this on a capable analyzer 100%.

I specialized in audio forensics during my masters degree: everything you describe can be measured. If you are unwilling to measure it, then that's a different matter.

 

And if your answer is that this cannot be technically measured, then I would like to know what is actually occurring that would evade serious analysis?

Because passionate, subjective claims mean fuck all in what is a completely mathematical domain.

 

Most people claiming that DAWs sound different while mixing don't care about different pan laws or are using different effects/plugins, which obviously give different results.
The whole debate about one DAW sounding beautiful, the other one shiny or like a unicorns fart is pure marketing bullshit, as long as there is no prove in form of files that everyone can have a listen to.

 

it has already been reported by various users that the "phasey" sound is caused by warping feature. Try switching off warping mode and you will have the sound you are looking for. For info read the manual.
There are countless threads on various forums dealing with the topic "Which DAW sounds best?", Extensive testing has been done, but no one has ever been able to prove that there is a difference between them all. If you can now bring evidence that logic sounds better than ableton I will be very grateful
Evidence means reliable data and measurements and not "personal feelings"

 

So I did the test: I recorded both LIVE (again, not the brand name but the state of pressing play on the daw) outputs with audiohijack in AIFF (uncompressed format)
It is a simple drum beat in wav format, but it has transient information as well as depth and spatial stuff going on. The kick sounds flatter and lost punch in the Ableton file. Also there is less front to back dimension. As I've said before: it sounds just like an interface which is clocked badly and suffers from jitter that leads to phase distortion. It sounds like transients aren't aligned and playing back when they should. Logic retains more stereo information as well as punch. This is what producers who "feel" music instinctively know- it smacks more, simple as.

But hear for yourself. I'm not going to lie: you'll have a hard time judging details if you don't have a decent sound card. Ableton's recording just has less 3D life to it. I'm imagining this accumulates across channels too.

You can download the files here: https://easyupload.io/m/brhrtc
I wanted to upload them here but Audiosex doesnt allow for aiff files.
Edit: Both have been unwarped, and unflexed. I ticked off the box in logic that snaps it to the tempo too and turned off smart grid or whatever. Nothing on masters and normalized to 0 on the faders

 

Last edited: Mar 1, 2022

Do you actually read posts that aren't your own or do you keep copy pasting the same thing over and over again? Pls leave this thread. You contribute nothing

 

I am not going to just listen, I am going to compare them with proper technical analysis. That's what I am trying to say and what will determine if there is any difference. It is a mathematical issue, not a subjective one.

 

Fair enough but it would be best to do both honestly. At least do a blind test and see which one sounds more dimensional and which one sounds flatter and phasier. And use a third party player maybe, cause if you were to import it into ableton again you'd hear Ableton's sonic imprint

 

It's all fake and make believe until it's proven by "science" bro. Lucky for us: "science"changes over night, as recent events prove to us.
Anyway: remember when CDs were touted as being superior in fidelity to Vinyl? Yeah, nice gas lighting again: they sounded like shit and worse than vinyl until it was discovered WHY. People are so eager to flock to what has to be, instead of actually having an open mind and ears and DOING THE TEST THEMSELVES and realizing that sometimes things are different than what they "should be"

 

These files are indeed different.

But first of all, the original clip is 44,1 kHz, both Ableton and Logic files are 48 kHz, so a sample rate conversion is done, which makes the comparison rather useless, as we don't know when and how this comparison was done.

Then you can hear a slight drift between the Logic and Ableton files, which means there is some sort or warping/stretching going on.

Using Audio Hijack instead of the DAW output is also not a good idea, as it's possibly altering the audio data to synchronise between audio devices.

 

This is again pure nonsense, input and output are bit identical, so there is no "sonic imprint". There has to be a problem with your setup, maybe you use an "aggregate device" that does synchronise different audio drivers or something else.

 

That was Audiohijack unfortunately. But it shouldn't matter if both projects in both daws were at the same sample rate- why would the recorded live audio be different? There is clearly a difference and the question is WHY? If you think this has to do with audiohijack changing the sample rate, you do your own test. I'm not trying to convince people who don't trust their own ears. Besides: how would you record a test of the live playback engines if not by recording the system output?

Edit: No, there was no warping involved. Maybe ( probably) this drift you're referring to is this phaseyness I'm lamenting. Warp was turned OFF

 

My findings as well.

Interestingly enough, even when excluding the Ableton recording, the drift occurs between the Logic output and the original loop.

 

Oh, that's the drift you meant. Yeah, it's best to align them by hand. I had to press record on audiohijack before I started the playback on each daw. As I said: this is a real time recording.

 

Would be great if all the files had the same sampling rate. Apart from that, I imported all of the files into Reaper 6.49, time aligned them manually and listened very closely as well as performed a null test.
(Logics output sound like there is some sort of highcut applied to it.)
Nulling both the Live and the Logic one against the original file result in Live nulling the best in certain spots while Logic does not null anywhere. Even applying spectral phase compensation (MAutoAlign) does not help the matter.

In the end, I don't know where you hear the phasey, smeary artifacts you talk about Ableton Live produces. To my judgement at the moment, it's a problem with your setup.
My own tests recording the playback output of Reaper and Live, then nulling results in very similar, if not indistinguishable files.
If wanted I can provide the files too, I'm in a bit of a hurry at the moment.

 

I definitely aligned them by hand at a per sample resolution

 

Just for fun, i put your drum break in Ableton Live 11.0.11 and exported it. Then i ran Reaper to record what is coming out of my RME Interface digitally while playing back the drum break in realtime in Ableton Live. It perfectly nulls and sounds the same.

Hear for yourself: https://easyupload.io/2n0vo3

It was done on Windows 10, but I also work with Logic on macOS and never had problems with "phasy" audio.

 

Dude, no one cares about offline rendering. Did you actually read this thread? I'm talking about the LIVE playback engine.

 

Attention: Logic also uses "warping" for loops, it's called flex time. You have to be sure to turn it off.