Do DAWs Really Sound Different?

[Anderton]

This was inspired by another thread. I think a lot of it has to do with panning laws, because not all DAWs use the same one. If you have a DAW that can switch panning laws, try it...the sound will seem to be totally different. Thoughts?

[MikeRivers]

I've heard the pan law argument before, and it certainly makes sense in a mix context. However, if Mats is listening to just his guitar, he'll be listening in mono and the pan law makes no difference other than in absolute level, which should be adjusted to be identical from input to monitor for both signal paths. Test equipment helps, even if your meter is the DAW's meter, as long as you can read it to a a resolution of a few tenths of a dB, and match levels that accurately.

[Phil O'Keefe]

I would expect there to be audible differences depending on the panning method each one uses, but as Mike pointed out, that isn't a variable if Mats is working with a single mono file.

 

One way to test it is to use a external recorder of some kind and then put a clone of the mono file from that into each DAW, and then use the same external converters for the playback with both DAWs - match the playback levels (faders at 0), then listen while flipping back and forth between them. That keeps the converters the same and the source audio file the same; you're only comparing the DAWs themselves, and not the other variables. If you want to check the recording too to see if that is different, then you'd need to use the same interface and converters to do the recordings with both DAWs.

 

 

 

 

[onelife]

You could also, in the words of gubu, 'flip the phase' on playback and see how much cancellation there is.

[WRGKMC]

The DAW only matters when mixing. Most of that is plugins too. We must remember we're dealing with ones and zeroes here, not analog sound.

 

A DAW does not change the data coming from the interface when you're recording. It sets up files on the hard drive where the streaming bits get saved to the drive. That's it.

 

Coloration requires some kind of algorithm to be running to recalculate the samples. You can run plugins in the daw and run them in close to real time. In that case you would be processing the data before its written to the drive.

 

Playing back the data you do have various pans and volumes you can use to attenuate levels. They don't change the data until you mix down. In fact none of the plugins actually rewrite the data on the drive unless you render those effects and rewrite the data saved to that file.

 

Panning and Volume changes may add some coloration depending on how the program was written, but allot of what you're hearing is mostly an illusion. The steps used when adjusting a volume up or panning the track may have more steps on one daw vs another. This gives you the illusion its more analog like and has a plusher sound.

 

The only way you can prove there is a difference is to run two daws running the same file into a third running a dual trace frequency analyzer. You could then overlay the two files playing back and see if there is any variance between the two DAWs.

 

My guess if you do suspect one sounds different it more likely a metering difference. One may be playing back louder because its meters are less sensitive. I noticed this difference between Cubase and Sonar. The Cubase seemed to be louder when I played back the same tracks.

 

I took a test tone, set each DAW for the same -3db then mixed both down. Then I pulled them up in cool edit and checked the DB levels. It was obvious the two programs meters weren't the same. Sonar is way off. I can be peaking the 0dB on the outputs and wind up with a -6dB file or less.

 

 

I figured out it had to do with how the DAW read the Transient peaks and their latency in reacting to those peaks. One daw can be real sensitive and read all the peaks making you think the levels are much higher then thay actually are. In reality the RMS level is way down in comparison.

 

I would be good if DAW manufactures had a button that allowed you to toggle between RMS - Average and Peak so you knew what you were looking at. If its only reading peaks you have no idea how much of those peaks really matter.

 

I suppose how well the drivers intergrade with the DAW may have some influence too. Some use DSP controls for tracks that modify the samples. How well the DAW buffers data and regulates latency might be another aspect that can influence what's being written or played back. Unless the CPU is really struggling to write to disk I thing the amounts of data loss that cause pops and clicks would be minimal, especially with the newer computers we have today.