the sound of Pro Tools.

lefthanddoes · Post by **lefthanddoes** » Wed May 25, 2011 10:46 am

So I'm thinking about changing my rig up a little bit. I've got an old Edirol firewire box and Logic, and I do all kinds of stuff from tracking to mixing to mastering. (please, I am not looking to have my preferred methods questioned.) I was thinking of getting some kind of Digi, since they're not so bad, and maybe working with Pro Tools, since it's pretty good.

I'm wondering about what other people have found about the sound of the software, and the sound of the hardware. I'm guessing you'd have to have PT9 to know whether you get that "Pro Tools sound" if you work with a non-Digi interface. So this idea has recently become more complex now that you can have PT and not a Digidesign interface.

I've noticed that whenever someone gives me tracks to master that were recorded in PT, and I try to use my usual tools in Logic, everything sounds horrible. This is using Logic and an Mbox! But then when I try to use the same tools in PT, things work as they should. I'm talking about using Waves plugins in both cases, so the plugins theoretically aren't different.

I've also noticed taht using teh Mbox as a preamp, the crappy MXL I keep around sounds not half bad on vocals, because it has a way of smoothing over the extreme highs taht works well on that mic. However, I do not want that smoothing on my overhead mics. I hate teh sound of smooth cymbals.

Basically I'm trying to figure out if I should get a Digi, or if I should get an Ensemble or something similar (i LOVE the sound of the Duet.) I do like the features of the 003, maybe I should get another preamp for things I don't want smoothed over. And I do like working in PT, but if that 'sound' is because of the software, forget it.

Thoughts? Any science, math, or subjective experience is welcome.

A.David.MacKinnon · Post by **A.David.MacKinnon** » Wed May 25, 2011 11:19 am

Others may argue but as far as I'm concerned the software doesn't really have an impact on the sound. I'd guess what you're hearing is the sound of the mic and the pre.

markjazzbassist · Post by **markjazzbassist** » Wed May 25, 2011 11:31 am

the software doesn't sound like anything. but the digital interfaces do.

i find they have a lot more high end on tape, and super low end as well. bigger frequency response (as opposed to my tascam 388), BUT, there's missing info.

Zoom in super close on a digital wave form. there are literally chunks missing. Even if you have the very best converters, a wave is not 1's and 0's, so for ME, i only use the digital domain for conversion to mp3/wav/aiff for CD/itunes release. otherwise i try and keep it analog.

all this in my humble opinion

markjazzbassist · Post by **markjazzbassist** » Wed May 25, 2011 11:32 am

the software doesn't sound like anything. but the digital interfaces do.

i find they have a lot more high end on tape, and super low end as well. bigger frequency response (as opposed to my tascam 388), BUT, there's missing info.

Zoom in super close on a digital wave form. there are literally chunks missing. Even if you have the very best converters, a wave is not 1's and 0's, so for ME, i only use the digital domain for conversion to mp3/wav/aiff for CD/itunes release. otherwise i try and keep it analog.

all this in my humble opinion

palinilap · Post by **palinilap** » Wed May 25, 2011 11:38 am

lefthanddoes wrote:I'm wondering about what other people have found about the sound of the software

Different recording software may have slightly different summing algorithms, but there shouldn't be an audible difference.

lefthanddoes wrote:and the sound of the hardware.

That's where you'll notice variances.

JGriffin · Post by **JGriffin** » Wed May 25, 2011 12:06 pm

markjazzbassist wrote:the software doesn't sound like anything. but the digital interfaces do.

i find they have a lot more high end on tape, and super low end as well. bigger frequency response (as opposed to my tascam 388), BUT, there's missing info.

Zoom in super close on a digital wave form. there are literally chunks missing. Even if you have the very best converters, a wave is not 1's and 0's, so for ME, i only use the digital domain for conversion to mp3/wav/aiff for CD/itunes release. otherwise i try and keep it analog.

all this in my humble opinion

Yeah. Y'know, film is a series of still images and our brain extrapolates the movements in between those images (the phenomenon is called persistence of vision). Been that way for over a century. This same approach is somehow seen by analog purists as a crippling weakness in the design of digital audio, even though the "frame rate" of the audio is nearly 2000x that of film.

MoreSpaceEcho · Post by **MoreSpaceEcho** » Wed May 25, 2011 12:28 pm

markjazzbassist wrote: Zoom in super close on a digital wave form. there are literally chunks missing.

you realize that the waveform displays are just representations of the waves, right? i'm pretty sure no chunks are actually missing.

lefthanddoes · Post by **lefthanddoes** » Wed May 25, 2011 12:30 pm

Hi friends,

I agree with one of the two points of view about analog v. digital (won't say which one), but please don't derail the thread. You know how things go around here.

Great replies so far, I'd like to hear more peoples opinions about the sound of Digi preamps and if they've experienced something similar to my experience.

Thanks,
Luke

dfuruta · Post by **dfuruta** » Wed May 25, 2011 12:39 pm

markjazzbassist wrote:Zoom in super close on a digital wave form. there are literally chunks missing. Even if you have the very best converters, a wave is not 1's and 0's, so for ME, i only use the digital domain for conversion to mp3/wav/aiff for CD/itunes release. otherwise i try and keep it analog.

Just want to note that the way your DAW visually renders a wave has very little to do with anything, and certainly doesn't indicate missing information. Most any modern converter is going to capture audio more accurately than your Tascam...not to say which sounds better, but it doesn't have anything to do with "chunks missing". Up to nyquist, there aren't chunks missing.

MoreSpaceEcho · Post by **MoreSpaceEcho** » Wed May 25, 2011 12:48 pm

lefthanddoes wrote: I'd like to hear more peoples opinions about the sound of Digi preamps and if they've experienced something similar to my experience.

i've not used an mbox, but i always thought the 001 preamps/converters had a sort of hazy grayness to them. to me, that is way more of the 'sound of protools' than anything the software/mix buss/whatever is doing.

dunno if that's any help.

not to go OT but i have to ask why you hate smooth overheads? you like pain in your ears?

lefthanddoes · Post by **lefthanddoes** » Wed May 25, 2011 12:54 pm

I think the hazy grayness you speak of may be what I mean by 'smooth.' I don't like someone's ride or hats to sound like a young lady softly speaking an S consonant. We're talking about someone hitting a large piece of metal with a stick. Sometimes the cymbals do sound smooth in real life, I don't have a problem with that, it's when they sort of get smoothed over in the highs somewhere in the recording process by the preamps or whatnot that I don't like. I like them a little more dynamic. But I think more importantly we are talking about a similar phenomenon.

JGriffin · Post by **JGriffin** » Wed May 25, 2011 1:09 pm

lefthanddoes wrote:We're talking about someone hitting a large piece of metal with a stick.

This is my favorite sentence on TOMB today.

JGriffin · Post by **JGriffin** » Wed May 25, 2011 1:10 pm

lefthanddoes wrote: I agree with one of the two points of view about analog v. digital (won't say which one), but please don't derail the thread. You know how things go around here.

I do, and I too hope the thread does not totally derail. Apologies.

MoreSpaceEcho · Post by **MoreSpaceEcho** » Wed May 25, 2011 1:12 pm

lefthanddoes wrote: like a young lady softly speaking an S consonant.

if the records i've mastered in the last year are any indication, this is an exceedingly rare event.

*hugs de esser*

anyway, it sounds like you're talking about transient detail, which i would say is somewhat lacking in 001-style pres/converters. not that i have a ton of experience with them, but that was my unscientific impression. i will say that when i got a few channels of lavry blue converters i got A LOT happier with recording straight to computer.

Theo_Karon · Post by **Theo_Karon** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:34 pm

Preamps and converters have a huge impact on the sound. In my experience it's much more noticeable when you aren't working with digital from the start but dump an analog multitrack... there have been a few sessions where I've done this (digi 002, RME fireface) where we dump the multitrack, play it back through the exact same chain for each channel, just patch the recorder track for track to the same inputs the tape machine was running to, and everyone's like "what the hell happened to the low end? (002)" or "whoa, the low midrange sounds scooped and weird in a really fucked up way (fireface.)"

I did the same thing on a RADAR a couple of years back and was really happy with the results; sounded exactly the same coming out as it did going in. I've been using an Alesis HD24 XR for this purpose lately, and it's the same thing- I can't tell the difference, it still sounds like tape if it was tracked to tape, to such an extent that I'll often instictively reach for the tape machine remote to stop playback and push "stop" a couple of times before I realize what's going on. I'm not 100% sure about this as actually working with a DAW is something I have yet to try, but I believe you can use the HD24 as an interface for recording software. Anyway, might be worth looking into; it sounds just as good (or doesn't have a sound at all, rather) as a RADAR and is significantly cheaper.

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