Difference in recording quality between Sonar and Ableton light 12?

[Scott C. Stahl]

I recently have been trying to track down audio issues when recording vocals. I complained to Focusrite about the recording quality on a new 4i4 Gen 4.

High bright kinda grainy quality.

They asked which DAW I used and I said Sonar.

They had me install Ableton lite 12. It was a pain, but once done I tried recording on it and it sounded fine.

I then switched to Sonar, recorded same mic, same settings and sure enough, it sounds brighter and grainier. Putting effects on it afterward really brought out the issues with that grainy sound. Something's wrong, but I have a hard time believing this is the cause, but it's undeniable.

Just tried it again a bit ago and same thing. It's fairly subtle W/o effects but it kicks in big time with them. Double checked settings. Both ASIO, both same buffer, same sample rate and bit depth. How is this possible? Win 11 new machine 196 GB Ram. BTW picked up this issue with inst input as well. Have 2 files recorded with exact same setup. Then imported back to an empty Sonar project, level matched and exported as mp3s.

   Top is Ableton. Excuse my crappy singing. No background music just A cappella. Put a few effects on that bottom one especially and it starts sizzling.

 

 

Edited 10 hours ago by Scott C. Stahl
Added mp3 s

[Amberwolf]

I don't have a specific answer, but some questions, thoughts:

 

What exactly does "same settings" mean (specifics), in each program?

Are all the same options chosen for dithering? 

Same driver mode? 

Bit depth?  Sample rate?  latency?

 

If you record a clip in one program, then go to your audio folder, and drag that clip into the other program, or a separate simple wave file player (like windows media player, MplayerC,  etc), does it sound the same?

If you record a clip in each program, then go to your audio folder, and drag both into something like Audacity that has a spectrum view, do the two clips look the same?  

 

[Scott C. Stahl]

4 minutes ago, Amberwolf said:

I don't have a specific answer, but some questions, thoughts:

 

What exactly does "same settings" mean (specifics), in each program?

Are all the same options chosen for dithering? 

Same driver mode? 

Bit depth?  Sample rate?  latency?

 

If you record a clip in one program, then go to your audio folder, and drag that clip into the other program, or a separate simple wave file player (like windows media player, MplayerC,  etc), does it sound the same?

If you record a clip in each program, then go to your audio folder, and drag both into something like Audacity that has a spectrum view, do the two clips look the same?  

 

I simply Hooked up my mic to the interface, recorded in Ableton, then exported the file with 44.1 24 bit to my desktop,

then closed Ableton and opened Sonar, recorded the exact same way and exported with same sample and bit rate.

The problem seems to be in recording... not inside the box.

Took abt 2 mins between recordings.

Then took both files on my desktop and played them via Media player, noted the difference,

then imported both into an empty Sonar project. Level matched them, then exported them both back out to my desktop as MP 3s. Then dragged them both onto this site

[Scott C. Stahl]

No difference in the mic, the interface, or the internal ASIO protocol of both Daws. Same sample and bitrate settings for both. No dithering. Both recorded and exported as 24 bit. then imported back into Sonar as 24 bit then exported as mp3s

Edited 10 hours ago by Scott C. Stahl

[Amberwolf]

What if you take the actual audio files that were recorded and compare them directly?  Not exporting, which creates new, different files, but the files in the audio folder for each program and project. 

That would eliminate processing during export. 

 

Beyond that, maybe someone that knows both programs, could compare all the specific settings you've chosen in each place there are any audio settings in each program, to tell you if there is any difference between them. 

 

[Scott C. Stahl]

I did. I only exported to show them here. There is zero difference between what you hear and what is on my machine. This is the second test, but I've spent 10 hours now going over this... all with the same result.

Focusrite told me to go to the Sonar builders and let them know this problem after quite a bit of fiddling and double checking.

I spent 7 hrs today trying to lay down backing tracks and constantly found the recorded tracks unusable.

I might try to hook up my old Gen 3 4i4 on this new Win 11 system and see if that works better.

When I tested the Gen 3 on my old win 10 system, it was flawless. Same mic, same settings. It's just I hate the old Focusrite Control software

[Scott C. Stahl]

I Hooked up my old Gen 3, but Just left the old Gen 3 control software uninstalled. The Gen 3 unit worked, but it made no difference to the sound.

Then I installed the old Control software for the Gen 3 and Bam! It was great! All issues resolved. Opened up a project and replaced a bad vocal from an earlier session and it was perfect. It was nice to hear a clean vocal again.

Something is wrong with the way the new Control 2 software is interfacing with Sonar. At least on my brand new Win 11 machine.     

Focusrite had made me make sure the factory default had been set and the latest drivers, but still did not help the control 2 with the Gen 4.

For me, Gen 4 Scarlett is a bust with Sonar on Win 11. I might try it on my old win 10 machine and see if it interacts better there, but if it doesn't, Focusrite will have to accept a return or I'll have a doorstop and be a very unhappy customer.

I hope you folks can figure out what's up if Focusrite can't or won't

[mettelus]

1 hour ago, Scott C. Stahl said:

Something is wrong with the way the new Control 2 software is interfacing with Sonar. At least on my brand new Win 11 machine.     

This is something to definitely share with the bakers. The handshaking between the interface and Windows is everything. AFAIK, Sonar relies on Windows to properly see the interface, so I am not sure if there is a resolution short of the Control 2 being fixed, but the bakers might very well have insight as to the "why."

I didn't even realize until someone posted a few months ago that MixControl got "dumbed down" to Control. They said something to the effect of, "If I could see what the videos of MixControl show, I would be a happy camper, but that is not there in the Control software." Even in the days of MixControl, the very last update to that was for a Mac issue, which made Windows usage do wonky things, so I had to back out to the previous version. I got spooked from that and saved multiple copies of the last driver that worked so that mine doesn't turn into a doorstop (that "Mac fix" was, in fact, MixControl's final release).