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Old 03-21-2023, 11:02 AM   #1
AudioLemon
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Default Audio Fact Sheet for Reaper

Hello All,

A colleague, professional mix and mastering engineer and devout Pro-Tools user, is convinced Reaper sounds, not just different to Pro-Tools but bad. He is convinced it sounds different, and bad.

Today we put the same track into both Pro-Tools and Reaper, and we asked each other and the class if we could hear a difference during playback. Initially I thought I heard a difference in the lower mids but after repeated listens I determined I could not hear a difference. All but one in the class said they could definitely hear a difference. They said Reaper was muddier. I asked him to render the track from Reaper, import it into Pro-Tools and then phase null both tracks, to check. They nulled perfectly. I said that proves there is no difference. He responded saying that nulls do not always mean the tracks are identical and that it is possible that the Reapers rendered output is different than its timeline playback.

It is difficult to argue against 'feelings' so I was wondering if Reaper has an Audio Fact Sheet similar to the one Ableton provides - https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/audio-fact-sheet/

Also, does anybody know if audio Nulls means both signals are 100% identical or can there be instances where two signals null but are not identical. I cannot think of a situation but my colleague said that Dan Worrall put a lot of 'faith' in null tests but my colleague was unconvinced null tests told the whole story.

I could not hear a difference, the rendered audio nulled perfectly, but all but one student said they could hear a noticeable difference in the lower mids and that PT was much better - I would like an Ableton like Audio Fact Sheet that I could point too.

If a team for this does not exist I would be very willing to become a member of such a teams and develop some of the 473 automated tests that Ableton carries out. I have friends that work in Ableton and I am sure I could ask them for the details of the any non obvious tests that are carried out.
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Old 03-21-2023, 11:29 AM   #2
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AudioLemon View Post
Hello All,

A colleague, professional mix and mastering engineer and devout Pro-Tools user, is convinced Reaper sounds, not just different to Pro-Tools but bad. He is convinced it sounds different, and bad.
A digital DAW = any other digital DAW. The only things that can change to my mind are default pan laws and the possibility of built-in 32-bit float dithering on every channel/bus and master (I believe Samplitude/Sequoia might have it). But, newsflash, unless you have over 8000 worst-case float calculations and your music has a dynamic range greater than 60dB, you are simply not going to hear any difference.

Differing qualities of export encoding (lossy formats) is going to be the biggest driver not internal mixing engines (assuming your files are saved to 24-bit and you are using either a 32-bit or 64-bit float engine). No offense but "fact sheets" seem pretty pointless.
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Old 03-21-2023, 11:34 AM   #3
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Old 03-21-2023, 11:45 AM   #4
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They nulled perfectly. I said that proves there is no difference. He responded saying that nulls do not always mean the tracks are identical and that it is possible that the Reapers rendered output is different than its timeline playback.
It's spreading! I have read a similar discussion on reddit a few days back (was about a perceived difference between non-compressed and loseless-compressed audio: guy had not only null test presented, but literally a unix diff between files that returned zero differences and still was sure there's a difference that's detectable by extra measurements). Or maybe it's the same guy.

Really weird if stuff like this goes past the audiophile circles.
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Old 03-21-2023, 11:49 AM   #5
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Was it a blind test?
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Old 03-21-2023, 12:00 PM   #6
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If this really happened it would be a pretty embarrassing day for the trolling instructor when the first student did a null test on the audio file right in front of him and the whole class and put his horseshit to rest.
(Followed by some mighty awkward rebukes of the instructor's credentials and discussion over tuition refunds!)

Or maybe this was a trick question to tease out a student figuring out to do a null test to be able to call bs. And the whole class failed!

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Also, does anybody know if audio Nulls means both signals are 100% identical or can there be instances where two signals null but are not identical.
Schrödinger's null test?

ie. Claiming that the ones and zeros in digital data can actually be indeterminate.

No, binary digital data is matter of fact.

Or was it a claim of supernatural? A "spirit" changing how the digital data was read?

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Old 03-21-2023, 12:10 PM   #7
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"He responded saying that nulls do not always mean the tracks are identical"
Rubbish.

"and that it is possible that the Reapers rendered output is different than its timeline playback."
Same possibility exists for Pro Tools, but more rubbish.

"professional mix and mastering engineer"
I guess if you get paid you can call yourself "professional". I would like to hear your friend tell Bob Katz what is what.

Do the same demo, but tell the class that the PT playback is from Reaper, and vice versa. PT will sound worse.

I love the automated tests idea, and there are plenty of scripters here that could make it happen.
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Old 03-21-2023, 12:26 PM   #8
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Better yet, provide provide two rendered files for listening that are either both from pro tools or both from reaper (without telling anyone) and ask the teacher/class to determine if they sound different and which is pro tooks and which is reaper.

Be interesting to see the results of this…
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Old 03-21-2023, 12:30 PM   #9
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Pro Tools may just be so professional it can violate the laws of physics...
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Old 03-21-2023, 12:44 PM   #10
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Wasn't Reaper 64-bit floating point right from the start, about 7 years before PT? Kinda neat that PT not only finally caught up, but went past since. I mean, beating DAWs even with perfect nulls is no mean feat.
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Old 03-21-2023, 12:50 PM   #11
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Wasn't Reaper 64-bit floating point right from the start, about 7 years before PT? Kinda neat that PT not only finally caught up, but went past since. I mean, beating DAWs even with perfect nulls is no mean feat.
Yes, there was a window where Reaper and Protools HD were not identical and Reaper [64 bit floating point] had better audio potential than Protools HD [48 bit fixed point]. Then PT caught up to 64 bit floating point after a time.

Genuinely ironic as well as silly!
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Old 03-21-2023, 01:04 PM   #12
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The tests were effectively blind. He sent me a video after I had left and when he cranked the level of the null test considerably it showed that they did not null perfectly. I was not there for that part of the test... but as I said I did initially think I heard a difference when A/Bing between PT and Reaper exactly where the others also heard a difference - in the lower mids.

My colleague records, mixes, and masters and he wants to keep industry compliant with TV and Film studios and so uses PT. He is a professional. He has worked in the industry for 20+ years, has a NEVE console, a hardware Manley Massive Passive, Telefunken U87, about 20k of monitoring, a treated studio, and so on. He's legit, but just like everyone else prone to bias.

The pan law might be a good call but afaik they are both as default which would be 3dB

An audio fact sheet would be useful to see under what specific conditions Reaper is completely neutral. It would save having these kinds of conversations.
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Old 03-21-2023, 01:07 PM   #13
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What is the audio properties? Format, quality etc.
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Old 03-21-2023, 01:09 PM   #14
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you have taken first tentative steps into discovering 'experts' are either not experts at all or have expertise + gaping holes in their knowledge filled with some nonsense a similar other person told them.

like the highly experienced live sound engineer with a folder of certifications at a tutoring interview who raved about transformers 'smoothing out digital steps' to fawning young dudes.

same place also thought you had to pick your project sample rate and bit depth at the outset to match desired output. e.g dvd 16 48.
as if downsampling wasnt a thing.
a quirk of PT cos it didnt resample in project media as reaper as always done.



Quote:
Originally Posted by AudioLemon View Post
Hello All,

A colleague, professional mix and mastering engineer and devout Pro-Tools user, is convinced Reaper sounds, not just different to Pro-Tools but bad. He is convinced it sounds different, and bad.

Today we put the same track into both Pro-Tools and Reaper, and we asked each other and the class if we could hear a difference during playback. Initially I thought I heard a difference in the lower mids but after repeated listens I determined I could not hear a difference. All but one in the class said they could definitely hear a difference. They said Reaper was muddier. I asked him to render the track from Reaper, import it into Pro-Tools and then phase null both tracks, to check. They nulled perfectly. I said that proves there is no difference. He responded saying that nulls do not always mean the tracks are identical and that it is possible that the Reapers rendered output is different than its timeline playback.

It is difficult to argue against 'feelings' so I was wondering if Reaper has an Audio Fact Sheet similar to the one Ableton provides - https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/audio-fact-sheet/

Also, does anybody know if audio Nulls means both signals are 100% identical or can there be instances where two signals null but are not identical. I cannot think of a situation but my colleague said that Dan Worrall put a lot of 'faith' in null tests but my colleague was unconvinced null tests told the whole story.

I could not hear a difference, the rendered audio nulled perfectly, but all but one student said they could hear a noticeable difference in the lower mids and that PT was much better - I would like an Ableton like Audio Fact Sheet that I could point too.

If a team for this does not exist I would be very willing to become a member of such a teams and develop some of the 473 automated tests that Ableton carries out. I have friends that work in Ableton and I am sure I could ask them for the details of the any non obvious tests that are carried out.
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Old 03-21-2023, 01:17 PM   #15
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What is the audio properties? Format, quality etc.
The formats were the same - both lossless wav. It is the second time we have had a quick and nasty test and tbh in both cases people did hear a perceivable difference in tone.

I will try a more rigorous test during the week. I'll try my best to make sure it's apples for apples, and report back.

If anybody can suggest a few tests for me, or if they have any caveats I need to consider, I would be willing to run a few tests. Otherwise the plan is to generate a white noise file, load it into both DAWs, render and export it from both DAWS using the same format, and then import the rendered files into both DAWs and test to see if they NULL.

I will ensure the pan law is the same, the format is the same. My colleague said 32 bit is not a useful test as they are not used outside of DAWs.
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Old 03-21-2023, 01:25 PM   #16
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The formats were the same - both lossless wav. It is the second time we have had a quick and nasty test and tbh in both cases people did hear a perceivable difference in tone.
Okay, maybe read what BenK-msx wrote about resampling. Also what were settings for render? Any dither, normalization? What version of Reaper?
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Old 03-21-2023, 01:29 PM   #17
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Okay, maybe read what BenK-msx wrote about resampling. Also what were settings for render? Any dither, normalization? What version of Reaper?
Excellent, thank you. These are all things I will consider when making my apples for apples pie.
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Old 03-21-2023, 01:51 PM   #18
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Just in case anyone is trying to be serious...

My experience with comparing files with a null test to determine if they are identical, close, or other.

A null of 100% really is matter of fact. It's the same set of ones and zeros to the last one and zero. Because even the noise in the signal is digitized absolutely, we can get an absolute yes/no.

A null down to -90 to -100db where you would have to crank the monitors up to extremely dangerous levels to hear any noise or hiss or whatever.
This comes about from a different noise floor profile in my experience. The result of an analog generation or a sample rate conversion. Or lossy compression (that isn't too extreme). It WAS the same identical file originally. It was copied analog or sample rate converted and the noise floor changed.

Actual 'different' different audio blasts through a null test. The difference is audible at normal monitor levels and you see plenty of level on the meters.

Try it!
Make a subtle eq alteration on a file. Try to make it within your perception bias to make it 'difficult'. The null from subtracting that from the original will be nearly full level audio and jump right out.
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Old 03-21-2023, 02:37 PM   #19
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I wonder if the null tests were even valid. e.g. in Reaper two identical tracks with one phase inverted will result in the master track indicating -inf. Anything else is not a null and proves nothing.

And listening tests need to be double blind, e.g. ABX. Anything else is invalid and proves nothing.


There's your fact sheet. Back to the drawing board.
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Old 03-21-2023, 02:52 PM   #20
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And listening tests need to be double blind, e.g. ABX. Anything else is invalid and proves nothing.

Absolutely.
It's not entirely clear from the OP how blind the original "experiment" was so there could be a source of social bias ie once one person reports "hearing" a difference then others may (unconsciously) be influenced to hear a difference too. The emperor's new clothes sort of thing, I suppose.
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Old 03-21-2023, 02:59 PM   #21
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Heh. Everyone who ever spent 20 minutes A/B'ing an eq move... only to discover the bypass button was on the whole time, raise your hands. (Mine is up.)

Perception bias is a bitch!

You know what though? If you are at the point of looking for something subtle within perception bias territory to poke at in your mix - ie. all the big issues are resolved - I'll suggest maybe the mix is finished?
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Old 03-21-2023, 04:40 PM   #22
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Heh. Everyone who ever spent 20 minutes A/B'ing an eq move... only to discover the bypass button was on the whole time, raise your hands. (Mine is up.)
You know it. Another classic move is duplicating tracks and then fiddling with the wrong FX window. “That reverb sounds perfect now…oh wait…”
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Old 03-21-2023, 05:13 PM   #23
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Adjusting an EQ, on/bypass and 'hearing the difference', and realizing the EQ you're playing with is on a track that's next to the subject track, and is just so quiet you can't hear anything (or the item on it is not at the same place in the timeline)!

And you REALLY think you hear a difference...you'd SWEAR to it.
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Old 03-21-2023, 05:45 PM   #24
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In the real world on a "real project" with mixing & effects, etc., it's almost impossible to get the same results twice, even when using the same DAW. And if one person is using REAPER and another person is using Pro Tools they are probably using different plug-ins.

If a null test gives you silence it IS valid. It's subtraction and if subtraction gives you zero (silence) that proves there is no difference.

But a "failed" null test doesn't prove a difference in sound. "The sound OF the difference isn't the same as the difference IN the sound." The most obvious example is a time shift. Add a few milliseconds of silence to the beginning of one file. That makes no difference when you listen to the files, but in a null test you get a "huge" and "loud" difference file with comb filtering. And although you might recognize comb filtering as the result of a time shift it doesn't sound like a time difference.

A proper ABX Test has to be level matched and blind. It's also statistical, which means you need multiple repetitions and you don't get proof. You get a probability that you are (or are not) hearing a difference.
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Old 03-21-2023, 06:36 PM   #25
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Quote:
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Today we put the same track into both Pro-Tools and Reaper, and we asked each other and the class if we could hear a difference during playback.

After rendering an audio file, 9 times of 10 a mixed song in Reaper, I usually open it in Adobe Audition and I always believe I can hear a subtle difference. Imagination or not I prefer the way it sounds in Audition.

Is there a possibility a mix can sound just that little amount of different played in REAL TIME in Reaper (or any DAW) compared to a final rendering from the same DAW?
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Old 03-21-2023, 06:57 PM   #26
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Unless there is intentional active digital processing of a file, what you are listening to is your DAC decoding the stream of 24 bit audio data.

So... the claim of different sound just from playback alone is actually an accusation that at least one of these DAW apps have some behind the scenes audio eq or compression processing added. That's a strong accusation that demands strong evidence.

Record the digital output from the same audio interface from the same file played back by each DAW app in question. Null them in the same DAW (either one). That suspected variation will either be there or the files will null 100%. Post the 2 source files that produce a difference when subtracting one from the other if you can prove it.


Of course many rogue media player apps have suck buttons engaged by default. It's a form of "copy protection gone wild". ie If playback is corrupted, then the copy someone tries to make will be corrupted.

So always vet media player settings to be 1:1.
A DAW app doesn't usually pass altered sound unless asked to though. Unless it's something like Harrison Mixbus which very explicitly does so. They tell you all about it matter of fact on the brochure.

So that's a pretty strong accusation that demands explicit evidence!
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Old 03-21-2023, 07:13 PM   #27
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Is there a possibility a mix can sound just that little amount of different played in REAL TIME in Reaper (or any DAW) compared to a final rendering from the same DAW?
yes, if the playback settings are different to the render settings (samplerate, bit depth etc) then of course it's possible for them to be different.
Most likely to happen with items that resample on the fly, oversampled stuff etc.
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Old 03-21-2023, 07:34 PM   #28
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It is absolutely possible that the playback in ProFools sounds different than the playback in another DAW, Reaper included. But its easy enough to definitively prove.

Just use a file record VST (like Voxengo's) placed as the last thing on the main out, i.e. placed post everything. Play back something and record the output. Then do same for the other DAW. If the files null, the outputs are identical. Period. End of story. Why? Because you've captured what is to be sent to the DAC via ASIO, not something that still may or may not have additional processing before it goes to DAC. EDIT Or do as suggested a few posts up and record the digital out from the card using the same device each time.

That said, the bigger question is do they render the same. And that discussion has been going on for decades now and once everything went 64 bit the answer in all the published tests has been "yes" with the caveat the mixes were pretty simple in terms of functionality used.

Bottom line is if you can't make a decent mix in Reaper, you still aren't going to make a decent mix in ProFools or anything else. And if you can? I'll go out on a limb and say doing it competently in each DAW using the same plugins and doing a blind A/B with a group of qualified listeners is going to give a 50/50 result for which sounds better....

EDIT - Hope Op's buddy makes sure to tell George Massenburg that he needs to stop using Reaper because it sounds bad, lol. There was a piece floating about a year ago where GM stated he uses Reaper for I believe it was Ambisonic work.

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Old 03-21-2023, 10:07 PM   #29
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It sounds like you are contesting his religious belief in the sacredness of ProTools. I find it simpler to allow such people to continue to be wrong.

There is very little upside to becoming the idiot whisperer.
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Old 03-22-2023, 02:20 AM   #30
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So true, Philbo. Once they have drunk the Koolaid often enough, no amount of harsh reality changed the minds of people, sadly myself included. ..... unless I force myself to be truly objective....
As has already been said many times, a GENUINE comparison using the reverse polarity on one track against the other is the only way to really establish what is going on.

Plus Pro Tools has just as many different controls that might affect the tracks as Reaper does.... Just sayin`
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Old 03-22-2023, 05:09 AM   #31
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There is very little upside to becoming the idiot whisperer.
That made me laugh! I used to be on Samplitude and decades ago it had the reputation for sounding better (it was 32 float when others were less than that) so I'm very familiar with all of the discussions and arguments. To me if someone argues work flow, industry compatibility and those sorts of thigs, they have valid arguments. Sounds better? Not so much....especially when rendered....
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Old 03-22-2023, 05:38 AM   #32
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Yes, there was a window where Reaper and Protools HD were not identical and Reaper [64 bit floating point] had better audio potential than Protools HD [48 bit fixed point]. Then PT caught up to 64 bit floating point after a time.
I don't know if it has been fixed since this video was made, and I didn't renew my Pro Tools license this year to check myself. But there must still be some fixed point code inside of Pro Tools.
https://youtu.be/f3uALK_Qtqw
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Old 03-22-2023, 09:56 AM   #33
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@Sekim - Thank you, I will do as you say. BTW I like how you call it ProFools - I tend to call it SlowTools.

Thank you all for engaging with the topic. We have planned to run a few tests on Friday morning and we will try our best to find out if there is a difference. I will report back.

So far the steps are:

Make sure same format, bit depth, sample rate, and pan law, are identical.
Update Reaper to latest version.
Do an ABX test - although it might not be so useful as we just want to identify a difference, not judge the quality of the difference.
I will do as Sekim says and use Voxengo Recorder

I must admit I am somewhat confused about the 32bit internal verses 16 or 24bit files. I can see from the SRC test that another commenter posted that PT and RP do SRC differently. (killer link btw thanks for that) My colleague suggests 32bit matching is not worth doing as he is only interested in real world playback situations. He even suggested that while the rendered file might be identical the playback from sounds bad. He believes this difference will affect his mixing decisions negatively.

If there are any audio engineers here that could suggest a standard testing method I would really appreciate some guidance. We have all the equipment we could possibly need so whatever is suggested we will be able to carry out the test.


EDIT: http://src.infinitewave.ca/ - I might have found the SRC comparisons elsewhere - anyways - here they are for the nerdy - pretty cool.
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Old 03-22-2023, 11:53 AM   #34
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I must admit I am somewhat confused about the 32bit internal verses 16 or 24bit files.
Reaper's 64-bit internal processing isn't about audio quality, same as 32/64-bit processing in PT.
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Old 03-22-2023, 12:11 PM   #35
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It sounds like you are contesting his religious belief in the sacredness of ProTools. I find it simpler to allow such people to continue to be wrong.

There is very little upside to becoming the idiot whisperer.
^^^

This!
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Old 03-22-2023, 12:37 PM   #36
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I must admit I am somewhat confused about the 32bit internal verses 16 or 24bit files. I can see from the SRC test that another commenter posted that PT and RP do SRC differently. (killer link btw thanks for that) My colleague suggests 32bit matching is not worth doing as he is only interested in real world playback situations. He even suggested that while the rendered file might be identical the playback from sounds bad. He believes this difference will affect his mixing decisions negatively.
There's a lot of computer science behind floating point numbers. Let's see if I can distill down a couple facts.

Every 24-bit integer value maps exactly to a 32-bit floating point number. That is, you can take a 24-bit audio file convert it to float, and then convert it back, with no other processing involved, and get exactly the same numbers back. That's not true for all 32-bit integers, but since non-float audio is usually 24-bits or less, it works out well. The signal to noise ratio of 24-bit audio is 144 dB. That covers anything you'd ever want to represent for playback. (16-bit gets you 96 dB, which really is more than sufficient.)

There are an additional 8 bits in a floating point value, that function as an exponential scale. So you can halve or double that 144 dB of dynamic range 127 times smaller or larger. What this allows if for the preservation of very small or very large values, while you're working. So you can turn the level of a track down 140 dB, and then turn it back up 140 dB later on, and still have the same signal. This is definitely useful for mixing, or exchanging audio between different people or programs. But once a mix is being output to speakers, those bits of "signal" below -144 dB, are just noise and can be discarded, rounded, or dithered out of existence without anyone noticing.

As for 64-bit floating point, that's like having 48-bit integer audio, which has a noise floor of -288 dB, and then 16 bits of scaling to you get 32767 times smaller or larger than that. For when you just can't get enough overkill.

So really, go ahead and compare 24-bit to 24-bit. As long as the signal is in the -1.0 to 1.0 (max of 0 dBfs peak to peak) floating-point range, the differences should be only in rounding (the IEEE computer science people have some rules about how that's supposed to happen too) or dither. If there were 24-bit files being imported, the difference will only be if there's dither on output.
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Old 03-22-2023, 09:55 PM   #37
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Thank you all for engaging with the topic. We have planned to run a few tests on Friday morning and we will try our best to find out if there is a difference. I will report back.
I would encourage several avenues to check out. One, whether the live playbacks are different (i.e. Voxengo recorder post everything, or digital out recording), and two, whether rendered files are different. And finally whether DAW X has differences between its live playback and its render. Personally, I think Reaper sounds great, and ProFools probably does as well since it has such a healthy market share. But I've never used it. So I'm not spending my time on this sort of thing other than posting here, but look forward to your findings!
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Old 03-23-2023, 05:44 AM   #38
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Quite a few plugins have settings whereby you can use higher quality settings/Oversampling etc on renders .

This means the render will be slightly different from playback and is intentional.


This isn’t the same issue though with your pro tools friend.

If a file nulls it the same …..period.


Pan Law in Reaper isn’t 3db by default it’s 0 by the way.


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Old 03-23-2023, 10:49 AM   #39
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[short answer]
I think you are wasting your time, unfortunately.
If your friend is convinced that Reaper sounds not only bad, but worse, than Pro Tools it will be almost impossible to verify the opposite.

Confirmation bias is a terrible thing we all suffer from to some extent and whilst many here have given good advice on how to approach the issue scientifically (-ish) I doubt any of it will help your friend overcome his conviction.

[long answer]
I was a Pro Tools user from 1997 to 2021 and have spent more hours than most with it. Initially, my transition to Reaper was tricky and there was a lot of head scratching. One of the most obvious pitfalls (as has been mentioned) is pan law which caught me out more than once.

Another time I was re-creating a PT project in Reaper and could not make it null. It turned out that it worked once I consolidated the files from PT again rather than using the original PT WAVs (I never found out why and never updated my forum post...oops). When little things like that happen it can be difficult not to think that there must be something wrong with Reaper. It can feed doubt, distrust, and insecurity about the other platform.

Bear in mind that there was a time when different flavours of Pro Tools could sound different: When AVID introduced HD Native with its 32bit floating point architecture Pro Tools HD's DSP mixer was 24bit fixed point running at "double wide" 48bit fixed point resolution internally. There could be problems where a session that was running fine on HDN would be clipping the mixer inside PT HD and so would not translate/sound different with all else being the same.

Add to that a near religious belief by many of its users that Pro Tools is infallible/stable/the best DAW/industry standard and it makes it very hard to maintain any level of objectivity. I am not suggesting that your friend falls into that category at all but, hand on heart, I was one of those people for many years - eyeing every other DAW with suspicion, contempt or ridicule. That was just the paradigm 20 years ago but times have changed.

Pro Tools is, of course, a powerful platform but the reason why it still has a high market share today is that people my age and older are reluctant to change and also have to recoup expensive hardware investments. Things may be different in post production but in music the "industry standard" is WAV files. None of my younger clients make music on Pro Tools.

My studio is hardware agnostic in the sense that both, PT and Rp connect to the same converters and outboard via MADI so that when I changed DAW that was the only thing I changed (and the fact I was going from a DSP based system to a native one).

In my experience there are a great many differences between Pro Tools and Reaper and "the sound" is definitely not one of them.

I wish you and your friend the best of luck with your experiments and am interested to hear the outcome
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Old 03-23-2023, 11:59 PM   #40
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