Chili
Site Moderator
I mean....there are times when people will say, "I used DAW ____ and my stuff sounded great, but when I ran the same project on DAW ____ it sounded different".......and people will right away jump in and say that it's not possible for there to be differences, without even asking if there was any processing involved or if it was just a question of straight playback.
I'm one of those that jump in and say you can't hear a difference between DAWs. I use my own purchased plugs and never use stock plugs, but I am willing to believe if I did, I still would not hear a big difference, if any. There are so many other facets of home recording to contend with first that sonic differences in DAWs or their stock plugs are moot.
I'm also willing to believe those who say they can hear a difference between Cubase, PT and Sonar are those who are listening with psycho-acoustics. They think they hear a difference because they want to believe they hear a difference. Or they are riding a certain products bandwagon, ie. ProTools.
Having said all that, I do believe there are sonic differences between DAWs and stock plugs. Steinberg, Sony and Avid aren't sharing the same code, so the data gets handled differently and I can see how that might alter the sound; especially plugs. But after comparing Sonar and Cubsae (which I did several years ago), I'll be damned if I could ever tell a difference. And you know I've got pretty good ears.