Do differant DAW's make huge differances?

[phriq]

Hey Everyone,

I have been using Cool Edit Pro for about 5 years and have upgraded to Adobe Audition about a year ago. However, I know that these are nearly as used DAWs as Pro-tools, Cubase, and cakewalk. I was just wondering if there is big benifit with the other DAW's? I have gotten really comfortable with Audition and am worried that if i do switch, i would have to learn an application all over again and I dont have huge amounts of time to dedicate to learning a new program.

However, i would focus in on learning if you guys would deem it necassary? Will my DAW choice really affect my sound, or does that mostly come from your other equiptment (interfaces, mics, instruments, and your ear).

All advice is very much welcomed. thanks!

[therage!]

No,

what is going to really affect your sound is the talent, room, mics, preamps, converters, etc etc...

[dementedchord]

a guy by the name of lynn fuston put out a cd comparing the sound of different daws... check his bbs for a copy... but you may want to check out other progs anyhow... the biggest diff is how you integrate into a package... you're not gonna get alot done if ya cant wrap your brain around it... and you may even find that one works better for you...

[COOLCAT]

i use Kristal.

i'm a Kristal user.

Kristal is what I use.

I was told its the soundcard or /interface holding the converters.....

but I'm not so sure thats everything because I was side-by-siding waves and mp3 on a track... and wave was obviously better in my tests.

the mp3 was tolerable but it was really squashed and muffled and poopy sounding in side by side comparison.

is there different MP3 quality softwares? I don't know...i'm off to find out.

[mshilarious]

Originally Posted by COOLCAT

is there different MP3 quality softwares? I don't know...i'm off to find out.

There are different encoders and different quality settings, so that could certainly be the case. But if two DAWs sound different in handling uncompressed audio, one or both of them is defective.

[tmix]

I personally have tried many different low budget to high dollar programs and at the level of recording and playing back raw audio, you can't really hear a difference.
However some of them are written to handle processing and edits better.
Some will argue that some are written better in the way they sum the audio particularly when using any amount of plug ins.

I personally bought and use Samplitude because it flat out just works well for me and I am fast at it. It is very liquid... FOR ME....
Use what works for you and the type of recording work you do. I don't use loops or soft synths or tons of amp farms and the like.

You may.

[dgatwood]

Originally Posted by tmix

However some of them are written to handle processing and edits better.
Some will argue that some are written better in the way they sum the audio particularly when using any amount of plug ins.

If so, as mshilarious put it, one or both of them is broken. You're dealing with floating point through the effects chain, so that's pretty hard to get wrong, and you'd have to really work at it to screw things up in an audible way during the summing process; if you add 1.5 and 2.0 and don't get 3.5, you're pretty screwed....

Now you can get audible differences using different methods for resampling (sample rate conversion) and bit-depth reduction, but even if your app sucks at one or both of those tasks, if worst comes to worst, you can always mix down in one app without doing any SRC or BDR and do that with a different app as a post-processing phase.

[tmix]

I mainly meant some programs just seem to work better than others. Perhaps it is because they may create a heavier CPU load the way they are written as well as some of the algorithms for things like cross fades; how seamless it streams through edited audio.

The fidelity may be there , but there is nothing more frustrating than studdering audio and crashes, clicks and pops.

[dgatwood]

Originally Posted by tmix

I mainly meant some programs just seem to work better than others. Perhaps it is because they may create a heavier CPU load the way they are written as well as some of the algorithms for things like cross fades; how seamless it streams through edited audio.

The fidelity may be there , but there is nothing more frustrating than studdering audio and crashes, clicks and pops.

Oh, yeah, that. Absolutely agreed.