solved Difference in recording quality between Sonar and Ableton light 12?

[HOOK]

I'm not going to debate you when you consistently show your willingness to edit your previous responses to make it look like you weren't confusing the hell out of yourself with something you read on the internet.

[Will.]

56 minutes ago, HOOK said:

I'm not going to debate you when you consistently show your willingness to edit your previous responses to make it look like you weren't confusing the hell out of yourself with something you read on the internet.

Lol. Excuse you? 

FYI! Im editing typing errors. Since when was it a problem to correct our typos or to put emphasis on something? 🤔 

Edited May 17 by Will.

[AB9]

Will - I can see where you got that idea in the beginning of the article, but then the article gets more specific. Here is some quotes from the article, including when to dither:

https://www.izotope.com/en/learn/what-is-dithering-in-audio.html#:~:text=Dithering should always be off,bit to 16-bit).

When to dither audio 

Dithering should always be off unless you're bouncing audio to lower bit depths. Ideally, you should only dither audio once during the final stage of audio mastering when exporting a file to a lower bit depth (e.g. from 32-bit to 24-bit, or 24-bit to 16-bit). However, almost all modern digital audio workstations operate at 32-bit floating point or higher internally, so if you’re exporting a 24-bit WAV file for mastering, you should also dither.

Generally, you should only dither audio when bouncing down to 24-bits or less. You don’t have to worry about dithering if you’re exporting a 32-bit floating-point file or higher because it’s a high enough resolution that produces no audible quantization distortion.

. . .

Start using dithering in your digital audio

Hopefully this helps you understand why dither is so crucial to digital audio, how and why it works, and when it should be applied. Now, you’ll never have to dither about dithering again. If you’re reducing bit depth, whether from 64 or 32-bit floating-point to 24-bit fixed point, or from 24-bit down to any lower fixed-point value, add dither! It will always do more good than harm.

(Emphasis added.)

 

 

 

Edited May 17 by AB9

[Starship Krupa]

Good lord, what a nightmare, on multiple levels.

In the debate about whether it's possible for one DAW to sound different from another, I've always been focused on the playback and rendering side of things.

I've always taken it on deep faith that any raw recorded audio would be identical. After all, the DAW "only" has the job of taking in the zeroes and ones from the driver and putting them, with no changes, into files.

Now I'm reading here that it is at least possible for DAW A to interact with an ASIO driver in such a way that audio recordings are mangled, while DAW B may not have that issue?

That's nightmare fuel given how PC's are very complex systems whose parts (usually the drivers) often interact with each other in unexpected ways. I've had it happen that swapping out my video card miraculously cured my audio dropout issues.

What, exactly was the issue, and what, exactly, was the fix, I wonder. And I don't mean top-level "Focusrite fixed their driver," I mean "what went wrong with the driver that Ableton was able to deal with it and Sonar wasn't?" and "is the way that Ableton and Sonar talk to the driver that different?"

Time to go take the anti-anxiety meds....

[Scott C. Stahl]

On 5/21/2025 at 5:32 PM, Starship Krupa said:

Good lord, what a nightmare, on multiple levels.

In the debate about whether it's possible for one DAW to sound different from another, I've always been focused on the playback and rendering side of things.

I've always taken it on deep faith that any raw recorded audio would be identical. After all, the DAW "only" has the job of taking in the zeroes and ones from the driver and putting them, with no changes, into files.

Now I'm reading here that it is at least possible for DAW A to interact with an ASIO driver in such a way that audio recordings are mangled, while DAW B may not have that issue?

That's nightmare fuel given how PC's are very complex systems whose parts (usually the drivers) often interact with each other in unexpected ways. I've had it happen that swapping out my video card miraculously cured my audio dropout issues.

What, exactly was the issue, and what, exactly, was the fix, I wonder. And I don't mean top-level "Focusrite fixed their driver," I mean "what went wrong with the driver that Ableton was able to deal with it and Sonar wasn't?" and "is the way that Ableton and Sonar talk to the driver that different?"

Time to go take the anti-anxiety meds....

There was no "Fix" really except that the previous install had something wrong. Updating to the latest build cleared up the problem for me. Unfortunately, I doubt there will be an answer to exactly what went wrong in the original install. Some corrupted file is likely. Now the recordings in Sonar and Ableton are indistinguishable from each other.

Hope that sets your mind at ease. Believe me, I was worried too for a bit!

[David Baay]

On 5/16/2025 at 6:01 PM, Scott C. Stahl said:

Looks like the new Sonar build that came out seems to have resolved my problem. GEN 4 sounds ok now. It's brighter than GEN 3, but only in the way you'd expect with the better drivers. I was hoping the new install would overwrite any bad install files and it seems to have done it.

Late to the party, but it seems highly unlikely the coding of the new build itself changed anything. More likely the installation process or some other event returned some config setting to default. My guess based on the symptoms would be that you previously had 'Remove DC Offset During Record' enabled under Preferences > Audio > Playback and Recording. Try enabling it now, and see if you get a similar result.

[Scott C. Stahl]

On 5/23/2025 at 12:44 PM, David Baay said:

Late to the party, but it seems highly unlikely the coding of the new build itself changed anything. More likely the installation process or some other event returned some config setting to default. My guess based on the symptoms would be that you previously had 'Remove DC Offset During Record' enabled under Preferences > Audio > Playback and Recording. Try enabling it now, and see if you get a similar result.

I answered this, but somehow I either I didn't hit post or it just disappeared.

I don't think it was coding either. Probs something was corrupted in the first install that was overwritten in the next. DC offset shows no appreciable difference in my tests, but was on in this new build so was prob on in the last. 

[Noel Borthwick]

On 5/17/2025 at 6:34 AM, HOOK said:

Show me where you control input dither in Sonar or on your converter.

Correct. They're is no such thing as input dithering. Dither is applied on playback at the final stages when  the float mixed data is down converted to 16 or 24 bit audio.  ////this also happens on export.

During recording we write the raw audio data that comes from the audio interface.

[Noel Borthwick]

On 5/31/2025 at 4:33 AM, Scott C. Stahl said:

I answered this, but somehow I either I didn't hit post or it just disappeared.

I don't think it was coding either. Probs something was corrupted in the first install that was overwritten in the next. DC offset shows no appreciable difference in my tests, but was on in this new build so was prob on in the last. 

There isnt anything in the new build that would change sound quality of recordings coming from your audio interface.

[Bristol_Jonesey]

4 hours ago, Noel Borthwick said:

Correct. They're is no such thing as input dithering. Dither is applied on playback at the final stages when  the float mixed data is down converted to 16 or 24 bit audio.  ////this also happens on export.

During recording we write the raw audio data that comes from the audio interface.

Thanks for confirming Noel.

I thought I was correct but the usual suspect continued to argue the point.

[Will.]

On 6/8/2025 at 6:08 AM, Noel Borthwick said:

Correct. They're is no such thing as input dithering. 

Neutral response.

Not all interfaces sync automatically with the DAW(s). If you have your Asio driver set to 32bit, but your project is set to 24bit there's a conversion happening here with the obvious analog to digital converters - not so? 

You are more than welcome to do any test required. This is clearly from what I've read in the reference guide | and | from the tests I have done with various testing scenarios and software. Dithering actually happens at recording too - believe it or not. 

Then the reference guide clearly tells us that dithering happens when you bounce or freeze tracks too irrespective of the bit So, any rendering done using melodyne or vocalsync dithering happens when it's enabled in preferences. 

Edited Tuesday at 11:58 AM by Will.