2022 interface and DAW

[Stew-D-O]

I'm on PC. And I agree with you protools is very easy to work and layout it's all well done. However I can't keep with the perpetual fees. I'm just a hobbyist musician with a home studio.

This week I starterted toying with Reaper DAW and I'm starting to slowly understand how it works.

This raises another question though...do DAWs impact the sound of the recordings? I mixed 1 song in both Reaper and pro tools and guess what I could clearly hear a difference !! Like protl tools has a veil on top of everything..I dunno.

Have you tried Cakewalk? It's free. I've been using it for over 20 years.

 

[Newmarket]

Have you tried Cakewalk? It's free. I've been using it for over 20 years.

Oh - I didn't know it was 'back' as Bandlab freeware after 'going through' Roland and Gibson.
It was one of the earlier DAWs I tried on trial / demo before it got pushed off course by 'the corporates' !

 

[Stack]

Oh - I didn't know it was 'back' as Bandlab freeware after 'going through' Roland and Gibson.
It was one of the earlier DAWs I tried on trial / demo before it got pushed off course by 'the corporates' !

If I were starting, all over again, I’d find the most effective DAW to do a job. There are many more options to choose from and there’s no heed to get yourselves into a system of money grabbing, leaving YOU, the unwitting victim of their greed driven agendas.
Try everybody if ya can. Reaper gives YOU an option to pay whatever you’d like. THAT was refreshing. If you prefer being extorted by clearly, relatives to Whitey Bulger. The MOB was always a huge player and,
in the music business !

 

[john12ax7]

All DAWs have their quirks, demo a bunch and see what is most intuitive to use. It will also depend on intended use. My 2 cents for the ones I've used

Pro Tools - best for rock and pop mixing and tracking
Cubase - best for composition
Studio One - best for songwriting
Samplitude - best for jazz and classical recording and editing. Arguably the best sounding.

For electronic production probably a tie between Cubase and Studio One.

For interface Lynx are solid and dependable. The first version Lynx Aurora is cheap now and a workhorse. RME is also solid. The main thing is you need reliable drivers. Lynx and RME are both leaders here.

 

[grid_stopper]

interesting that the"DAW sound" topic is alive and well in 2022. Ive seen this topic pop up on GS numerous times, only for it to be shut down by a null test where they all end up cancelling out. good enough for me, but as always- YMMV

 

[john12ax7]

It's actually impossible to fully null two DAWs when you start doing a bunch of processing, people claiming that are not understanding the scope of the issue. Generally what accounts for the sound difference is the proper implementation of dither, historically Samplitude has been one of the few to correctly do this (it's possible others have caught up).

Don't rely on GS for accurate information, way too poor S/N ratio. If you do go, apply a heavy dose of filtering as to who you listen to.

 

[Gold]

For interface Lynx are solid and dependable. The first version Lynx Aurora is cheap now and a workhorse. RME is also solid. The main thing is you need reliable drivers. Lynx and RME are both leaders here.

I'm running into driver issues with a cheap Native Instruments interface. I know RME and Lynx are great for drivers. This is mainly to run Pinguin metering software on a Microsoft Surface Pro3. The NI driver is not working well. Samplitude won't recognize it either. Neither Lynx nor RME make a low channel count inexpensive interface. How are the Focusrite drivers? I could use a Scarlett.

 

[john12ax7]

No experience with the Scarlett, but seem to recall a test software thread where a bunch were discussed.

 

[abbey road d enfer]

I'm running into driver issues with a cheap Native Instruments interface. I know RME and Lynx are great for drivers. This is mainly to run Pinguin metering software on a Microsoft Surface Pro3. The NI driver is not working well. Samplitude won't recognize it either. Neither Lynx nor RME make a low channel count inexpensive interface. How are the Focusrite drivers? I could use a Scarlett.

You use only the ADC, correct? Have a look at E1DA Cosmos ADC.
I have one, it's the closest to a professional converter, no knobs to tamper with, and pristine preformance for teh price of a lousy music interface.

 

[Gold]

You use only the ADC, correct? Have a look at E1DA Cosmos ADC.
I have one, it's the closest to a professional converter, no knobs to tamper with, and pristine preformance for teh price of a lousy music interface.

I have a Cosmos sitting on my bench. I haven't got a USB A to USB C cable to test it on the Surface3 Pro. I need to stop at the computer store. I bought the Cosmos to work with this but since it's a one man company I didn't know how good the ASIO drivers are. I didn't want to run into the same thing.

Eventually I'd like to make the Surface a test setup using Digilent Waveforms software. I can use the 14 bit Discovery2 interface but a 24 bit audio interface would be nicer. It would be nice to have a bi directional 24 bit audio interface

 

[grid_stopper]

It's actually impossible to fully null two DAWs when you start doing a bunch of processing, people claiming that are not understanding the scope of the issue. Generally what accounts for the sound difference is the proper implementation of dither, historically Samplitude has been one of the few to correctly do this (it's possible others have caught up).

Don't rely on GS for accurate information, way too poor S/N ratio. If you do go, apply a heavy dose of filtering as to who you listen to.

just curious because this is interesting to me, but most DAW's (at least, protools and Logic, the two im most familiar with, dont dither by default when exporting, and ive always used a 3rd party plugin for that. Is that what you're referring to here, or is it something else entirely?

 

[dmp]

I had a focusrite scarlett and the mixer software was terrible. I couldn't believe they released something that was such garbage.
I'm still using Echo audiofire12 and I love it. The mixer is great, sounds fine. Simple line level inputs/outputs. I don't want one with preamps or any gain knobs.
Unfortunately the drivers are no longer being upgraded and I don't know what I'll go to when I need to upgrade the OS. The Lynx Aurora seems obvious but spending $3k-$4k to replace something just because I can't get updated drivers is pretty infuriating.

Any good interface on Linux? I'm interested in the Ardour DAW

 

[abbey road d enfer]

I have a Cosmos sitting on my bench. I haven't got a USB A to USB C cable to test it on the Surface3 Pro. I need to stop at the computer store. I bought the Cosmos to work with this but since it's a one man company I didn't know how good the ASIO drivers are. I didn't want to run into the same thing.

The driver is a third-party; it seems to be the one recommended by the chip manufacturer, ESS.

Eventually I'd like to make the Surface a test setup using Digilent Waveforms software. I can use the 14 bit Discovery2 interface but a 24 bit audio interface would be nicer. It would be nice to have a bi directional 24 bit audio interface

I'm patiently expecting the Cosmos DAC. Meantime I use a Topping E30.

 

[john12ax7]

just curious because this is interesting to me, but most DAW's (at least, protools and Logic, the two im most familiar with, dont dither by default when exporting, and ive always used a 3rd party plugin for that. Is that what you're referring to here, or is it something else entirely?

The proper way to do things is to dither every time you lower the bit resolution. This would apply for exporting but also internally as well. Every time you use a plugin, or even move a fader, there can be rounding errors. The DAW is constantly going from higher bit depths to lower bit depths. You can truncate these errors which creates distortion, or dither and essentially make it broadband noise

Many coders are lazy and will simply truncate based on the argument that floating point will have the errors be so low they won't be audible. There is some truth to this, but errors add up, and eventually you will hear the "crunchiness" of excessive truncation.

I think everyone knows you should dither going to 16 bit, but many neglect the rest.

 

[grid_stopper]

The proper way to do things is to dither every time you lower the bit resolution. This would apply for exporting but also internally as well. Every time you use a plugin, or even move a fader, there can be rounding errors. The DAW is constantly going from higher bit depths to lower bit depths. You can truncate these errors which creates distortion, or dither and essentially make it broadband noise

Many coders are lazy and will simply truncate based on the argument that floating point will have the errors be so low they won't be audible. There is some truth to this, but errors add up, and eventually you will hear the "crunchiness" of excessive truncation.

I think everyone knows you should dither going to 16 bit, but many neglect the rest.

Right I more or less understand that, and pardon me if im being obtuse- this is mostly for my own curiosity/so I can observe best practices. I do always dither when going 16->24 bits, but thats always at the end of mix down, and something I use a plugin for, never the built in option. Are you saying that dither is getting applied in the DAW internally before the final export?

Edit: i think i actually understand what youre saying here, however, I thought those issues were solved when the major DAW's all switched to 64 bit back in 2012 or so? or am I perhaps misunderstanding/misremembering?

 

[Whoops]

just curious because this is interesting to me, but most DAW's (at least, protools and Logic, the two im most familiar with, dont dither by default when exporting

Thats not correct, ProTools dithers automatically when you export a wave file, export in ProTools is called "Export Regions as files" and Dither is applied.

For "Bounce to disk" you need to choose your preferred Dither plugin and insert it in the Master track, because ProTools is bouncing exactly what is in the session, if you don't have dither applied in the session of course it will not be bounced with dither.

 

[grid_stopper]

Thats not correct, ProTools dithers automatically when you export a wave file, export in ProTools is called "Export Regions as files" and Dither is applied.

For "Bounce to disk" you need to choose your preferred Dither plugin and insert it in the Master track, because ProTools is bouncing exactly what is in the session, if you don't have dither applied in the session of course it will not be bounced with dither.

Sorry, I should have been more specific with protools I was referring to bounce to disk, where it does not dither. I wasnt talking about exporting a .wav

 

[john12ax7]

I'm saying dither should be getting applied internally, or at least give you the option for how it is handled. If the DAW does some internal calculations and goes from 64 bit to 32 bit, dither should be applied. Unfortunately you don't often have a say in this.

For best practices you do control, apply dither anytime there is a bit reduction. 16 bit you already know. But this would also include going from from float to 24 bit. If you bounce to 24 bit, apply dither. If you use a console or hardware inserts, you want to apply dither to the 24 bit D/A outputs.

 

[grid_stopper]

I'm saying dither should be getting applied internally, or at least give you the option for how it is handled. If the DAW does some internal calculations and goes from 64 bit to 32 bit, dither should be applied. Unfortunately you don't often have a say in this.

For best practices you do control, apply dither anytime there is a bit reduction. 16 bit you already know. But this would also include going from from float to 24 bit. If you bounce to 24 bit, apply dither. If you use a console or hardware inserts, you want to apply dither to the 24 bit D/A outputs.

Gotcha, thank you for the explanation. This has got me curious about my own workflows, and Im going to set up a 1:1 test between Logic and PT, accounting for pan law. Im thinking of a bunch of channels with varying degrees of attenuation on each track(which if im understanding your point correctly should test the DAW's internal math) as well as a bunch of plugins/processing. I will also do some bussing, again with a bunch of processing + fader moves then bounce down in each DAW without dither, keeping things at 24 Bits. Am I missing something, or would this be a thorough enough test to measure any differences?

 

[john12ax7]

It is a very deep rabbit hole if you wanted to actually go through and find, isolate and quantify the DAW differences, I wouldn't recommend it.

If you're curious I would first start with using dither at 24 bit. This should theoretically be inaudible. The fact that it sometimes wasn't was what convinced me of the issue.

I think Bob Ohlsson has written a lot about this issue on GS. If you can find that it might be useful. I vaguely recall that different DAWs were brought up and what the appropriate best practice for each was.