Playback : Dorico vs Cubase

[Rob_Tuley]

@klafkid

If you use a VST with a round ribbon system, it’s not guaranteed that the same sample will always be triggered at the same point. This and other randomnesses (algorithmic reverb) that can be implemented make it quite unlikely, that you will have a sample-exact copy with each render.

This is getting into the weeds of exactly how VST playback is initialized and terminated.

I would be very surprised if there is no way to start playback from a known, repeatable state - otherwise software debugging (and QA regression testing!) would be next to impossible.

[klafkid]

@Rob Tuley

This is getting into the weeds of exactly how VST playback is initialized and terminated.

I would be very surprised if there is no way to start playback from a known, repeatable state - otherwise software debugging (and QA regression testing!) would be next to impossible.

I think to find out if Cubase and Dorico create the same audio file, a good place to start is to export a Dorico file twice and see if it is exactly the same. If this is not the case, you know that it will be impossible to determine the original hypothesis.
(Although it doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t SOUND the same)

[theoretical]

@Rob Tuley

I didn’t say you could hear anything above 20kHz as “a frequency”. But that doesn’t mean your brain doesn’t react to it.

The frequency content of musical instruments up to 100kHz is sound-through-the-air transmission. Otherwise, microphones wouldn’t detect it.

The point is that ears are not the only human organs that act as a sound transducers.

Uhmmm… unless I’m missing something cochlea is the only human organ which converts vibrations to what we hear as sound*.

While true that sound can travel through bone (in fact, inner ear beyond the ear drums ARE just bones), the question is what frequencies cochlea is able to convert to signals which we interpret as sound, and then if brain is able to interpret those signals as well.

But the fact that sound can travel through skull does not also mean that opens up the frequency spectrum. Same goes for the fact that mics can detect broader range. I mean, cameras can see IR (if you remove the filter), doesn’t mean that your eyes do as well

*sometimes it also produces signals with no inout whatsoever, yeah tinnitus is no fun

[Derrek]

I once told my doctor that I could hear better when he put a tuning fork to the bone behind my ear than I could when he held the tuning fork next to my ear.

He sent me to have my tonsils and adenoids removed.

[Peter_Roos]

@mducharme

You mean 96kbps (kilobits per second) vs 48kbps? As in MP3 encoding (or some other compressed format)? 96kbps MP3 sounds pretty awful.

MP3 is compressed audio, a different animal altogether. You can’t compare the numbers for uncompressed wav audio against mp3.

In film / TV, 24 bit / 48kHz is the current standard.

CDs are 16 bit / 44.1 kHz (uncompressed audio).

MP3 can be anything. 320 kbps is pretty decent, though compressed most people won’t be able to hear the difference.

[dan_kreider]

320 is better than “pretty decent”! It’s insanely high-quality for compressed audio. I doubt one person in a hundred could tell 320 from 192, let alone 256.

[mducharme]

@Peter Roos

MP3 is compressed audio, a different animal altogether. You can’t compare the numbers for uncompressed wav audio against mp3.

I realize that, but Rob’s original post was comparing 48kb with 96kb. He edited it afterwards to correct it. He kept saying “kb” in his post which means kilobits (instead of “kHz”), so I was a bit confused regarding what he meant.

[klafkid]

@dankreider

320 is better than “pretty decent”! It’s insanely high-quality for compressed audio. I doubt one person in a hundred could tell 320 from 192, let alone 256.

In fact, an average Bitrate of lossless compressed spoken word can be easily under 320kbps.

[Mute]

@klafkid

@Rob Tuley

Forget about listening tests. Just export the audio and compare the two files. Either they are identical, or they aren’t.

this might work insufficiently, because MIDI clock isn’t as precise as a samplerate. Depending on where your samples fall, as well as MIDI jitter, they can differ in their waveform.

Roger.

[Mute]

@klafkid

@cmbourget

The professional standards (in classical music) today are 32/96, if not sometimes 192 kHz. Still, there was supposedly no difference (especially between 96 and 44.1, because 32 bit is technically useful).

The main reason for the switch to 96/24 (I haven’t seen 32bit in classical music recording yet, honestly…) is that it sells better, and hard drives got cheaper and faster. Also there are some technical reasons, which are minor though.
Classical Music Enthusiasts are also very often audiophiles, which love 96k/24b recordings (or even higher), the reason is beyond my understanding

Long discussions…

That said, my mistake: 24 bits for recording. I wrote too fast. 32 is for mixing, of course.

[Mute]

@Rob Tuley

There is a solid technical reason why 96k samples/sec gives more accurate audio than 48k. In any digital system there is noise caused by quantizing each sample to an integer value. In 96k that noise is spread across frequencies up to 48kHz and therefore at least half of it is inaudible.

For 48k, the same amount of noise energy is all contained below 24kHz, so it has twice the amplitude and almost all of it is audible.

In fact, using noise shaping algorithms you can get much better quantization noise reduction for 96kb than the explanation above suggests, but the details are beyond the scope of a “non technical” explanation.

A different argument is that the assumption that “you can only hear audio up to 20kHz” is not really true. You can only hear audio up to 20hHz using your ears, but that ignores sound transmission through bone, etc. The simple experiment of holding a mechanical watch between your teeth demonstrates how efficient sound transmission through bone is, compared with transmission through air.

Some musical instruments generate a significant amount of audio at frequencies up around 100kHz (i.e. well beyond the 48kHz limit of 96kb digital data), especially in the transients at the start of each note.

All this is true (after corrections made).

[Mute]

Hello everyone, I just did some comparison tests between:

Dorico
Cubase
Reaper
Pro Tools
Samplitude

All with two measures of violin and piano using Sacconi Quartet by Spifire with Kontakt 5 full, but also with few nuances and other techniques not to complicate the playing.

Anywhere in 24 bits, 48 ​​kHz, stereo, with - 3 db depth.

The same Altiverb 7 by default with a Send at -16.

In short: everything the same in configuration.

Results: all the same when listening. You don’t even need to compare in opposite phases.

Note: I only had difficulty making Dorico work like a simple DAW (and that’s its strength), but you can hear that nothing is significant.

For my part, I can therefore work on playback (before mixing) in Dorico with complete confidence. And even with great pleasure.

Wonderful news.

I am therefore awaiting the next developments such as the possibility of seeing several rows of controller per instrument in the same window.

[windbag]

I was hoping that the new version of cubase would have a button - export to dorico. and likewise there would be an option in Dorico to preview in cubase - with a shared access to vsts and audio engine.

[Mute]

@windbag

I was hoping that the new version of cubase would have a button - export to dorico. and likewise there would be an option in Dorico to preview in cubase - with a shared access to vsts and audio engine.

It would be perfection, but we have to wait. I just wrote at least this yesterday:

XML file from Dorico into C11 : A good thing corrected.