Interesting DAW discovery .. Ableton "sounds better" than Reaper ?

[pfschim]

Ok, like many here I have been falling back on home recording to keep playing while we weather this pandemic thing.

I dusted off my pretty aged Scarlett 18i6 gen1 and got it working with Reaper (new learning curve for me) and the results were fine once I figured out a few things about the DAW and my signal chain etc.

I decided to update the gen1 interface with a current gen3 box (Scarlett 18i8). I got a bit better pre's with better dynamics/headroom to work with, along with slightly better latency (4.6ms down to 1.4ms). All good.

The new Scarlett comes packaged with several software options .. FX/plugins, virtual instruments, and Ableton Lite and ProTools First. I passed on ProTools just because there is no way I want to go down the PT licensing/price path and no need for what I do. But I did go ahead and load the Ableton Lite package because I had used it some years ago and recalled that the learning curve was reasonable and the work flow was more obvious to me than others I have used. FWIW, I only gave it up when Ableton moved to Windows 10 support with Ableton 10 and did not offer a reasonable upgrade path for prior users (I believe I was in Live 9, maybe 8? I don't really remember).

So ... just to check the new stuff out I booted up Ableton Live Lite yesterday and set up some tracks that I have been working on in Reaper. Using the exact same signal chain I was using with Reaper, I was surprised to hear what I felt was a much nicer bass tone in my monitoring headphones coming out of Ableton vs Reaper. Not sure why this would be, but there you go.

On further experimenting, I also feel like Ableton might handle FX/plugins with less CPU overhead than Reaper ... does any one have any in depth experience with these two DAW's that could comment on any of this. It's all kind of just for personal interest because I am not likely to get super deep into DAW's and such, but it is kind of interesting and I'd like to understand more about the differences in DAW's.

 

[pfschim]

There's a reason why many edm artists master in Ableton; I think it is the most articulate daw out there. The only problem I have with recording bass through Ableton is the occasional latency issues.

interesting. While Reaper and Ableton report latency to the end user a bit differently .. I would say that Ableton seemed to use a bit less CPU time than Reaper on my machine. I'm running a 6 core i7 (12 logical) system with tons of fast RAM (32gb), so neither DAW is really taxing my hardware very much at all.

I will add that I was surprised because I figured that all modern DAW's would pretty much sound the same in so far as they would not really impart any voice to the instrument inputs. When I noticed the difference, I did as quick an A/B as I could between Reaper and Ableton and definitely noticed the sound difference between the two. Fatter, less clanky sounding to my ears ... certainly much more pleasant to listen to while tracking.

I don't have any idea whether this "quality" in Ableton is imparted to the final tracks, it may just be an artifact of their monitoring flow. For the past 4-5 weeks I have been doing tracks for a few songwriters with my normal signal chain (Bass => Cali76 => Noble DI) with happy results. I am working with one friend in Mass who is a more sophisticated studio guy ... maybe what I can do is send him the same track rendered in Reaper and Ableton and ask him what/if any differences he hears.

now, the only other downside to this potential discovery is that if I wanted to move beyond the bundled Ableton 10 Live Lite to the full version, there is no upgrade path and it would cost me $341 simolians for a product that does way more that I really need vs Reaper (@ $60) which now that I have gotten a handle on the basics, seems perfectly useable even for a small time home recording guy like me.

 

[Aloe]

Ableton has it's own drawbacks. if you'll get to setting a compressor on a bus, you'll notice.

I however have a simple explanation for what you heard. is there a chance that you're running different sample rate in different DAWs, like 44kHz in Reaper and 96kHz in Ableton?

to be clear. I'm not defending Reaper or anything like this. I don't even use Reaper. but when I had a Scarlett, I compared Ableton, Reaper and Studio One and they all sounded the same.

 

[LexD]

Discussed at length over on GS.

Short answer, No.

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[David Vector]

A DAW should not be coloring the sound at all when just recording a track and playing it back without any effects or automation. It's just a string of numbers being written to your hard drive and spit back out. If you're genuinely hearing a difference and it's not some placebo effect going on (can happen to the best of us), there is something else going on here - something may be toggled on in one of the DAW's that's affecting the audio behind the scenes (whether it's a time stretching algorithm or something else). Null tests have been done between various DAW's and, once such variables are eliminated, the same files spit out of different DAW's have been demonstrated to be identical. (An exception would be something like Harrison Mixbus, which is always coloring sound since it's emulating an analog console.)

Here's just one example thread from Gearslutz (out of many) where some null tests were done...

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[pfschim]

Ableton has it's own drawbacks. if you'll get to setting a compressor on a bus, you'll notice.

I however have a simple explanation for what you heard. is there a chance that you're running different sample rate in different DAWs, like 44kHz in Reaper and 96kHz in Ableton?

to be clear. I'm not defending Reaper or anything like this. I don't even use Reaper. but when I had a Scarlett, I compared Ableton, Reaper and Studio One and they all sounded the same.

I am an admitted semi-newb to home recording gear ... even though I have been doing it on and off for 15 years. I am not running a particularly serious home studio set-up, just enough to be able to do decent sounding bass tracks using guide tracks (usually WAVs) that songwriters I work with send me.

I have moved the sample rates and buffer sizes around to get the best clean performance I can from my available gear, so I have changed that with Reaper and Ableton. But for my compare, I was definitely using the same 2 settings on both DAWs ... 44.1 with 64 buffer and 96000 with either 64 or 32 buffer. It's also entirely possible that I'm hearing some artifact of the way the two DAWs handle monitoring too. I settled on input/DAW monitoring over the Direct monitoring (right from the input) because I liked that best originally in Reaper. And to be clear, I was not using any DAW provided FX/plugins, just my normal live signal chain: Bass => Cali76CB (light comp) => Noble DI (light level of EQ), so the only effects were outboard and each DAW got the same input as far as I can tell.

As I said in my OP, I was kind of surprised to be honest, because I started out thinking that the DAW would be a totally neutral element in recording quality. I am also not suggesting that the resulting tracks sound any different between the two DAWs, this was entirely a statement/question about the subjective quality of the Monitoring I was hearing.

 

[vindibona1]

Just a wild, out of the blue stab, but is it possible that a very minute difference in latency could be the difference in clarity?

 

[pfschim]

Just a wild, out of the blue stab, but is it possible that a very minute difference in latency could be the difference in clarity?

I was seeing a bit lower reported CPU usage with Ableton vs Reaper ... but like 5-7% vs 4-5%. Reaper reports latency right in the UI ( I was getting 1.6-4.5ms) and I don't recall seeing latency being reported in Ableton outside of the ASIO setup tab, where it was reporting 4ms. These differences seem fairly trivial so I'm not sure I would jump right to latency differences being the source of the monitored tone differences I heard.

its no big deal ultimately, I'm happy to have both DAWs up and running. I plan to run them both for a while and see which one ends up being the easiest to use for me, then I'll just go with the easier work flow. Both are presenting little challenges to me as a newb (once again) ... so it will take some time to shake out. Still fun to be working with this technology again.

 

[vindibona1]

I was seeing a bit lower reported CPU usage with Ableton vs Reaper ... but like 5-7% vs 4-5%. Reaper reports latency right in the UI ( I was getting 1.6-4.5ms) and I don't recall seeing latency being reported in Ableton outside of the ASIO setup tab, where it was reporting 4ms. These differences seem fairly trivial so I'm not sure I would jump right to latency differences being the source of the monitored tone differences I heard.

its no big deal ultimately, I'm happy to have both DAWs up and running. I plan to run them both for a while and see which one ends up being the easiest to use for me, then I'll just go with the easier work flow. Both are presenting little challenges to me as a newb (once again) ... so it will take some time to shake out. Still fun to be working with this technology again.

I'm waiting for a MOTU M4 to get shipped. It's packed with Ableton Live 10 Lite with some other stuff. When I first got my M-Track interface it also came with Ableton. Getting a handle on it I thought was challenging and more geared toward those wanting to do EDM compositions. I'll have to give it another look when the M4 comes in.

 

[pfschim]

I'm waiting for a MOTU M4 to get shipped. It's packed with Ableton Live 10 Lite with some other stuff. When I first got my M-Track interface it also came with Ableton. Getting a handle on it I thought was challenging and more geared toward those wanting to do EDM compositions. I'll have to give it another look when the M4 comes in.

Having used Ableton on and off since Live v7 (they are currently on v10), it's just a DAW with a bit different workflow/UI than the usual recording desk analogy (although it has that too). I think it also originated with very strong live performance elements and was loop focused so that's probably where it got the rep as being oriented to EDM. It seems like just as a good a DAW as others I have seen (admittedly not very many), and IMO, it's certainly worth checking out when you get your M4 ... particularly for free.

 

[GMC]

A DAW should not be coloring the sound at all when just recording a track and playing it back without any effects or automation. It's just a string of numbers being written to your hard drive and spit back out. If you're genuinely hearing a difference and it's not some placebo effect going on (can happen to the best of us), there is something else going on here - something may be toggled on in one of the DAW's that's affecting the audio behind the scenes (whether it's a time stretching algorithm or something else). Null tests have been done between various DAW's and, once such variables are eliminated, the same files spit out of different DAW's have been demonstrated to be identical. (An exception would be something like Harrison Mixbus, which is always coloring sound since it's emulating an analog console.)

However...there is a Analogue to Digital converter involved and there is no such thing as a truly neutral or transparent A/D converter. Consider this...if a digital workflow is just a string on binary...then why do CD players sound different? Same reason...the A/D or D/A converters impart a character into the sound. I have an old Quad CD 67 and it sounds fantastic even against more modern hi end CD players.

 

[David Vector]

Converters don't factor into what's being discussed, though. The OP suggested a difference was being heard using the same signal path and same interface/converters running into different DAWs. The converters aren't the variable in such a proposition - the DAW software is (or, more accurately, whatever settings in one DAW or the other that might be interfering with a pure and undoctored playback of audio).

 

[DigitalMan]

Maybe I'm reading between the lines, but were the tracks recorded in one DAW and then opened and listened to in the other?

Some DAWs (looking at you Pro Tools) purportedly (in some situations/versions/etc) raise the volume of imported files to 0Db for some inexplicable reason (like there is no need for headroom after a track has been recorded - which I disagree with). I'm wondering if "sounds better" means that the importing DAW altered the levels of the imported files.

PS - this is a hunch built on top of a rumor. Likely to be wrong.

 

[pfschim]

Maybe I'm reading between the lines, but were the tracks recorded in one DAW and then opened and listened to in the other?

Some DAWs (looking at you Pro Tools) purportedly (in some situations/versions/etc) raise the volume of imported files to 0Db for some inexplicable reason (like there is no need for headroom after a track has been recorded - which I disagree with). I'm wondering if "sounds better" means that the importing DAW altered the levels of the imported files.

PS - this is a hunch built on top of a rumor. Likely to be wrong.

my post had nothing to do with the tracks themselves, sorry if I was unclear. It had to do with how each DAW sounded while monitoring while tracking. Given that the signal chain and interface were the same in both cases, I just assumed it was something in the DAW. Ableton just delivered a sweeter, warmer, better sounding (to my ears) monitoring signal thru my headphones.

I never did the process where I would run the same track in each DAW and try to compare the results to see if it sounded different. Both DAWs produce perfectly good tracks, although I have stuck with Reaper for tracking so far just because I got used to the layout and workflow (as simple as mine is at this point).

 

[DigitalMan]

my post had nothing to do with the tracks themselves, sorry if I was unclear. It had to do with how each DAW sounded while monitoring while tracking. Given that the signal chain and interface were the same in both cases, I just assumed it was something in the DAW. Ableton just delivered a sweeter, warmer, better (to my ears) sounding monitoring signal thru my headphones.

I never did the process where I would run the same track in each DAW and try to compare the results to see if it sounded different. Both DAWs produce perfectly good tracks, although I have stuck with Reaper for tracking so far just because I got used to the layout and workflow (as simple as mine is at this point).

Told ya I'd be wrong.

(FWIW it sounds like either a bitrate/depth or gain staging difference then. That's really the only thing the DAWs should be capable of doing to color the sound while monitoring.)

 

[pfschim]

ha!

 

[silky smoove]

@LexD and @David Vector have it right. DAW's don't have a sound unless you've set them up to have one. On their own, all DAWs will null with their competitors. When they don't the culprit is almost always down to things the end user didn't understand, such as pan law settings or differences in default export settings. This has everything to do with software settings and nothing to do with converters or any other gear that exists in or partially in the analog realm. There has been discussion regarding differences in monitoring as opposed to the actual file, which certainly has merit, but there again that does not affect the actual file.

 

[pfschim]

yes, no doubt. I did not, nor have I heard any noticeable difference between the tracks that I did in either DAW. It was just the sound of the monitoring, and even then, I can't validate the difference with any data ... one just sounded better to me at the time, which is the height of subjectivity.

in any event, I have been able to track successfully and that was the goal so the rest is just interesting options.

side question ... has anyone been able to successfully validate/authorize the SoftTube plugins that came bundled with their Focusrite (or other?) interface. It's driving me nuts that I can't get this done ... between the SoftTube login/password and the Ilok login/password (which SoftTube forces on you) I can't get this done.

 

[silky smoove]

side question ... has anyone been able to successfully validate/authorize the SoftTube plugins that came bundled with their Focusrite (or other?) interface. It's driving me nuts that I can't get this done ... between the SoftTube login/password and the Ilok login/password (which SoftTube forces on you) I can't get this done.

I use a lot of Softube plugins. None of the bundled ones, but it should be the same. I've often found this process to be a little clunky. You need the iLok License Manager program on your computer. Once that's there you should be able to see the authorization status of the plugins. Depending on the plugin you may or may not need an authorization code that Softube would have emailed you. Lastly, some of their plugins require your computer to be restarted while others don't, and their documentation makes no mention of this.

Softube is one of my favorite plugin developers, but their authorization process could certainly use some work. That said, all of mine are working, so hopefully you can get yours running.

 

[pfschim]

I'm particularly interested in the Bass Amp Room, but I was able to get a couple and would like to try them all at some point if I can just authorize them.
This convoluted process also slows me down if I ever use the DAW to rescan the plugins, because that process appears to kick off the impossible, no win, authorization loop all over again.

you say I need the Ilok License manager on my laptop ? . sounds easy enough, so I wonder why SoftTube just does not say this when you register on their website. I'm willing to believe their plugins are good, but their authorization process s**ks!