this is a great Vid Marco! something ive been wanting to do myself for a while now! i instantly heard a difference on my budget laptop speakers, on the un-mixed tracks. these tests illustrate exactly what ive been hearing and saying all these years, having used all of these programs.
the clarity and openess of sampltude is what makes it so good, and reaper unbeateable price considered. if you could do adobe audition, i bet youd hear it sounds most similar to SAM, and pro tools, sounding most similar to cubase. PT?CB has that crunchy mid range, and tough top end. audition and sam have the least coloration of them all (imho) studio one sounds quite good too.
i wonder if, the original tracking engineers had used sampltude, perhaps they'd have heard the slighlty strident mid/top on the vocals, and if yhe same would apply had you mixed initially in Samp. That would likely leave the other programs sounding dull, vs samp sounding bright. having a program like samp, which i believe is clear, not hyped, you can end up doing less processing to get to the final mix. theres a reason Mastering and Broadcast engineers often choose the Samp/Sequoia sound engine.
this is an excellent real world illustration, that Daws dont sound the same, and especially out of the box.
Marco,
While I might accept in this case you showed a difference between these 3 DAWs. I would caution using a blanket statement. I'd also point out that yes, different DAWs do default in some cases to different pan laws and also different unity levels. Another thing to definitely consider is, there are major players used by the overall commercial side of the music and film industry. Those are used not just because they were the first, I am fairly sure
. A good video, just narrow and in need of more investigation. It's a VERY VERY big contentious argument to make mate
.
My opinion, FWIW,
Tony
Protools gets used in film becuase of its integration with media composer, and the large scale Icon controller. Junkie Xl who does blockbuster soundtracks, uses an avid system as master for audio/video, with cubase and apollos for the 6 slave machines. Im not sure what you were trying to allude to as far as why they choose what they do, but none of those guys are arguing that its becuase theyre Daw sounds best, or distinguished. ita about speed, and deadlines at that level. My mentor did a song for the band NRG that was due for one of the Transformers movies soundtracks around 2012. the band missed the deadline by a day or two, and were not inlcuded on the motion picture soundtrack. To contrast, in order to maintain a deadline, Family Guy (a staple american animated show) producer Seth Macfarlane called into the studio while the VO artist was tracking, and was coaching him ect, thru a talkback rig my mentor patched up. That was done on digital performer. so its fair to me at least, to say that the comercial entertainment industry uses whatever is available, by and large. since they have a profit motive, and time is money. the record industry is the same, with the recent top 5's at Normandy/Wave Cave, being done on DP. I mention these things only because its me experience that the entire gaumat of Daws is being used at all levels. i was suprsied when surfing Major Studios websites a couple years ago, that a studio like sony, was still using an 02R and Nuemann 87, for one of their VO rooms.
Thanks Tony.
Within the parameters of my tests which I clearly stated in the video, the results were different sounding files.
I don't think I've made any claims other than this.
Pan behaviours, level and even dithering were at play... That's for sure !
But It was aimed at real users whom 99% won't go deep into the softwares to change those behaviours (if the software allows to make the changes)
But frankly, I'm an IT (20 years). I work with computers since 1982.
There is no way in my mind that the coding of audio softwares unless done the same will sound exactly the same.
Manipulating audio is the goal of DAWS, makers take any route they wish to achieve results.
I get your concerns, but we need not to go the opposit side and believe because we've been told. It's not a religion it's technology and science..
Oh I just got another idea ! I'll make another video which will take the same audio file loaded and exported many times and see how the degradation of recompiling will affect the sound...
great points. it would be more strange if differently coded programs sounded exactly same. it would point to our gear not being accurate enough. Something i was wondering before i saw this video, was how the standalone mastering in ozone/t-racks, vs doing it in a daw differs soncially. i wonder if theres an audible difference. overall on your test, i prefered reaper, un-mixed, ans Samp, mixed. Your example reinforced my opinions on these Daws, and exemplify why they are my top two choices, (samp overal, reaper for value), with PT there for MC integration, and general file compatibility.
excellent Marco. this is my favorite video, and something that really shows something people arent. i hope this gets alot of views on youtube.
