Difference in recording quality between Sonar and Ableton light 12?

[Mr No Name]

1 hour ago, HOOK said:

Call me deaf if you want.  I don't particularly hear much of a difference in any of those clips that couldn't be attributed to proximity or axis placement.

Could be overthinking.

some people have very good hearing, I personally can hear dog whistles very clearly.

[Scott C. Stahl]

5 hours ago, HOOK said:

Call me deaf if you want.  I don't particularly hear much of a difference in any of those clips that couldn't be attributed to proximity or axis placement.

Could be overthinking.

I did my best to avoid proximity and axis issues as much as possible... recording in quick succession. There will always be quality variation unless I found a constant source other than my crappy voice. The BIG difference is going from GEN 4 to GEN 3. This has been consistent with repeated attempts. The top end on the GEN 4 recordings in real world (With effects, compression, etc) is unmanageable.

Now judging between versions of whether I like Triangle or powr3 on the GEN 3 for example, is more problematic I agree.

Still, the overall quality is one thing... it's whether on repeated tests the COMPARATIVE results are consistent is what caught my eye. 

Folks must understand I did not suspect this cause at first at all. It ruined a session (I thought my Mic pre was going out on me)

My client will have to re-record his vocals some time when he's back here unless he goes to another studio up his way. (650 miles from here)

Put a little sweetener like an EQ or other effect on those GEN 4 files and try to enjoy the results. (You won't)

I do appreciate the input tho. I need to be on my toes as much as I can, when it comes to my own perceptions on all this. Thanks

Edited 20 hours ago by Scott C. Stahl

[Will.]

16 hours ago, Scott C. Stahl said:

These are all without Effects. Taste varies on warmth, but the smoother they start out and you add compression, eq, etc. that gets ugly fast. No music as I sung these lines. Tried to maintain exact same voice level and mic position. Obviously not a good vocalist, but I hope this gets the point across

And how does the unit sound to you with tge Air mode off? You have to press it three times. The Gen 4 has 3 Air Modes. 

Keep in mind the gen 4 is designed more brighter, clearer and upfront than what the Gen 3 sounded. It has bettet pre-amps. I believe its housing some ISA preamps. So, the airy sound you hear in the Gen 4 comes from the preamps. Between the Focusrite Gen-4 and my Audient iD14 I dont hear much of a difference in my recordings - with focurite now having real analog feel in their budget units. I do lean more towards the Audient for my vocals, but thats only because I know the audient really well. Where I use the Focusrite is wihen I do my mixing. For me the Gen-4 has better (cleaner) outputs than the Audient - so my monitors gets a boost there. 

You might be dealing with the exposure that the Gen 4 is projecting in the vocal. Its more upfront, you might be hearing the flaws in your vocal recordings in more detail. 

[Scott C. Stahl]

5 hours ago, Will. said:

And how does the unit sound to you with tge Air mode off? You have to press it three times. The Gen 4 has 3 Air Modes. 

 

You might be dealing with the exposure that the Gen 4 is projecting in the vocal. Its more upfront, you might be hearing the flaws in your vocal recordings in more detail. 

I tried the air mode in GEN 4 in all settings just to be sure it wasn't actually being turned on by accident. Actually you're right, I was concerned I might have been mixing the new upfront sound with a problem, except that

#1 The Ableton recording Focusrite support took me thru sounded ok compared to Sonar just a few mins later. Repeatedly tested this. The quality of my attempts to perfectly repeat my voice recordings was not the best I know, but the comparison  between GEN 4 and 3 and Ableton and Sonar was always consistent in showing a problem

#2 The Gen 4 recordings are way too off. They are really exposed in real world mixes. My examples posted here minimize the differences due to their being no effects

My Mic pre is a Manley Voxbox and my Mic is a Soundeluxe U99 so a lotta tubes! Not gonna deny I have to be careful of crappy ambience here, inconsistent singing etc. All of that bears watching, agreed. But TBH I've swapped out the GEN 4 and 3 So many times to test again I've kinda hit my limit. 

At this point until I can get some answers the GEN 4 is a brick right now for me. Very surprising

The other surprise was following your suggestion, on checking the difference in sound recording depending on the dither setting in Sonar. Why dither would change recording sound I do not know. I simply listened after changing the dither settings and recording, never exporting to listen in another way. I appreciate your input. It does help. Pilot error is always the first thing I have to relearn over and over to check for first

[pwalpwal]

did you test them both with a basic sine wave?

[Will.]

11 minutes ago, Scott C. Stahl said:

#2 The Gen 4 recordings are way too off. They are really exposed in real world mixes. My examples posted here minimize the differences due to their being no effects

But TBH I've swapped out the GEN 4 and 3 So many times to test again I've kinda hit my limit. 

As I have stated - The Gen 4 has brand new | and | different preamps than the Gen 3. It is literally a brand-new unit with major upgrades regarding sound quality and circuitry.

Auto-Gain & Clip-Safe Mode are settings I personally leave off. They, sound awful - if I could disable them completely I would. Then again there are lot of users that like these two features. 

[Scott C. Stahl]

1 hour ago, pwalpwal said:

did you test them both with a basic sine wave?

Something like that would be a good idea since there too many variables to a sung vocal, but I have to produce something outside of the box to record via the interface since that's where the problem is. Once in the box there's no issue