Stoopid Question

[dr.colossus]

Hey guys, do differnet programs sound different? or is that entirely up to your soundcard. That is; if I use the same soundcard to record the same noise on Nero Wave Editor and then Cubase or Pro Tools, will they sound the same?

 

[guttapercha]

That's a good question. Soundcard being the same, given that you are using equal sampling rate and bit depth between the two different programs, there should be no difference. That being said, different programs may use system resources differently, and on a marginally obsolete system, you might hear differences because of needing to use HD cache more (along the lines of clicking and popping).

 

[Chris Shaeffer]

In my experience the programs themselves have no influence on the sound, with certain exceptions like Cubase's Input Overdrive thingy. Can't recall the name of it.

The fact that the programs use different effects *does* have a significant impact, but many effects are cross platform and so should sound the same.

There are also arguements that Pro Tools does change the sound in its own way, but to the best of my knowledge that's actually a hardware issue with the now obsolete MIX systems. I use a MIX rig at work and don't like it compared to my 002, but I don't run the same preamps and whatnot on both systems. My personal rig kicks the snot out of the rig at work for good sound but not for processing power .

I don't notice any difference when use Cubase with the 002, however.

Not a stupid question at all.

Take care,
Chris

 

[Bulls Hit]

Different programs will use different algorithms for summing, downsampling, upsampling, dithering etc. and so introducing different quantities of rounding errors and potentially introducing different levels of distortion.

I doubt if anyone apart from Bob Katz could actually hear any difference though