sonic differences in tracking or editing?

[rbhsjr]

For those of you who have to transfer tracks from another software - do you feel you "lose something" by doing this or does the quality of SAW's editing and buildmixing "make up" for it?

Rutherford

[AudioAstronomer]

Just transfer it to another program.. doing nothing?

Sometimes. Some programs have default pan laws that can really mess with a project.


With no pan law.. it's likely mostly your imagination.

[Cary B. Cornett]

A digital sound file is a big bunch of numbers. Period. Once the file exists, simply copying it makes NO change. Moving it to another place has no effect on its content. Changing from any uncompressed file format to another uncompressed file format (.wav to .aiff for example) changes the header information and possibly the order in which the numbers are stored, but the actual SOUND of the file is not changed. Not at all.

Now, suppose you have recorded or created a number of sound files using, say, Sonar, and then transfer them into SawStudio. The content of these files is not altered by that transfer. There is no loss of detail, and no added distortion or noise.

Any differences are in what happens when the files are processed. Suppose you have a set of files for the "tracks" of a song. Say you set up a mix that uses no EQ, no plugins, no effects processing of any kind, just a set of level and pan settings, and you put the Identical settings for mixes in both Saw and Sonar. Then you render a mix file from each program. It is possible that the resulting mixes will indeed sound slightly different from each other. Why? Because SawStudio and Sonar use different methods for internally mixing/processing the files.

Now, which is better? Well, in the analog world, would you have gotten a better "sound" from a Neve console or from an SSL console? Each brand has users who SWEAR theirs is better. (My personal preference would be for the Neve, but what do I know... except for what I have heard? And what makes my perception more authoritative than yours or anyone else's??)

There seems to be some consensus here (in this user group) that SawStudio's mixing is cleaner, more transparent, or more "analog sounding". I personally don't make any such claims, but I do know that, given my choice, I would prefer to mix using SawStudio. The few times I tangled with Nuendo and Sonar, I did not like either one as well as SS. I have mixed using Neve consoles in the past (8048 and 8108), and I much prefer mixing in SawStudio. Again, that is my opinion, based on my own perceptions as filtered through my personal prejudices.

If someone wanted me to mix something that had been recorded by "another software", I would prefer to mix it using SawStudio. Would it sound exactly the same as it would mixed in the "original" software? Probably not. At the end though, the only thing that counts is, is the client or producer happy with the sound of the finished mix? The quality of the result has at least as much to do with the engineer as it does with the tools used.

I personally have never felt that SawStudio failed to "do justice" to the sounds that went into it. I have made bad recordings using SawStudio, but they were bad because of what happened BEFORE they went into SawStudio. I have also made good recordings with SawStudio, and I feel that it was easier to do so with SS than with any other recording setup I have ever used, including analog tape. It is also easier to hear any of my mistakes. SS simply gives back whatever I put into it.

I hope I understood your question correctly, and that my answer is useful to you.

[rbhsjr]

Cary,

That's exactly what I was wondering. I have basic but need to record 18 tracks and can't move up to Lite right now and wondered if I could use something else. Our base player has nuendo so I was thinking maybe we could track the additional channels with that but edit in ssb.

Rutherford

[Grekim]

Cary,

That's exactly what I was wondering. I have basic but need to record 18 tracks and can't move up to Lite right now and wondered if I could use something else. Our base player has nuendo so I was thinking maybe we could track the additional channels with that but edit in ssb.

Rutherford

18 tracks at once, one recording pass? If so just do it in Nuendo, export as wave files and mix and or edit it in SawBasic.
Before exporting I would put all pans and faders at "zero" and remove all effects and automation. I know in Cubase4 you can simply use the bounce to audio (rather than export audio) command and bypass the mixer.

[Cary B. Cornett]

Our base player has nuendo so I was thinking maybe we could track the additional channels with that but edit in ssb. Yes you can. Going from one platform to another is not uncommon, and done correctly works just fine. Grekim's comment sounds "on the money" to me.

[Dave Labrecque]

Yes you can. Going from one platform to another is not uncommon, and done correctly works just fine. Grekim's comment sounds "on the money" to me.

In a pinch you probably can even skip the whole export thing. I once got a project tracked in Pro Tools, and didn't have the time to figure out how to export it from PT. I just grabbed the wav files and ran... :)

[Grekim]

In a pinch you probably can even skip the whole export thing. I once got a project tracked in Pro Tools, and didn't have the time to figure out how to export it from PT. I just grabbed the wav files and ran... :)

"Consolidate regions" would be the ticket as far as I know.