Peter--

I am sending the same digital source through my Yamaha DM2000 to ProTools and Vegas. The only difference is that the Vegas system gets its sound routed through ADAT optical cables through an EDIROL-UA 1000. The ProTools machine gets its sound through the digi 888 and AES EBU...

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that sound was supposed to be unchanged in the digital realm...

-cory

Techinically, yes, the signal is suppose to be unchanged. However there are many factors that control the quality of the digital signal. The more "clocks" the more chance for jitter and drift.

What you are telling me is that the exact same physical digital output of the DM2000 is routed to both PTools and Vegas identically (simultaneously?)


What I would be interested in seeing is the identical file recorded in both PTools and Vegas. If there is NO signal chain mucking up going on, then the files recorded should be bit for bit identical.

The weakest link in the chain is the hardware connected to Vegas. Digital or otherwise.

You have not defined to me what "sounds better" means in your world. It is too subjective.

Peter

the studio is all in sync using the same word clock.

What I meant by "sounds better" is that the basses seemed to be gone in the stem files, and the warmth of the music was also gone.

What I was attempting to do was route the sound playing out of ProTools through the DM2000 as stems. When I ABed the ProTools session with the new stems in Vegas, the ProTools session sounded brighter, warmer, and less thin. There seemed to be a crackly and harsh quality and the stems-- and they were definitely different than what I was hearing out of protools.

I have done a test and played the STEMS out of ProTools and Vegas, and they pretty much sound identical to me. When I am experiencing problems is when I am recording IN to Vegas. I am trying to determine where in the chain this is happening

Is it possible for the hardware (even though it is digital) to color the sound before it gets to ProTools. If so, is there a way to find out if it is EDIROL or YAMAHAs fault ? (Edirol UA-1000 and YAMAHA DM2000). It is very disconcerting to find that digital has the same change in signal problems that analog does...

--cory

Is it possible that the sample rate of your files don't match the sample rate of your vegas project? That would cause vegas to do a real time sample rate conversion, depending on your project settings this could degrade the sound...

Just an idea...

Jesse

thanks for the idea, but everything is locked at 48KHz 16 bit...

They have been brain-washed by the Digidesign Evil Empire, and they have you well on your way. Resist ! Think it through rationally - hope we can assist.


geoff

If you are listening thru different A-D and/or D-As (correct me if I'm wrong), then how can you claim to be comparing DAW software ? You are primarily comparing the converters!

Try again using identical hardware chains.

geoff

You have both DAW project setting sat 48/16, plus the source files are 48/16 ?

You have no plugins active on either DAW , on the tracks or master ?

geoff

How about the pan law?

A possibility.

However, cchoy states - as I understand him - that if you brings the file from PTools into Vegas, then the playback is fine. The problem is recording from PTools through the Yahama into Vegas.

Vegas records what the hardware gives it. It does nothing to the audio at the point of capture from the hardware. Yet, cchoy says that it "sounds better" in PTools vs Vegas.

My only conclusion is that something is altering the digital stream that Vegas is capturing. I have no idea what.


Peter

I also think that something is altering the digital stream that Vegas is capturing.

I'm just not sure what. And I need to figure it out in order to keep vegas in the signal flow instead of being forced to switch to ProTools.

to clear things up about my preferences between pro-tools and vegas, I think that pro-tools is much worse, and it is my hope that the audio end of Vegas stays alive and kicking. I have mixed and designed many films in Vegas, and I want to be able to take it to the next level in the mix studio and prove once and for all that it is a viable option.

it is hard, however, to convince master mixers in the studio who have never heard of Vegas to accept it. They prefer Sonic Solutions over ProTools, but tell me that since proTools is "industry standard" and that other professionals use it and that I should ditch Vegas. They say that ProTools is proven in the field. I don't want to. I would like to prove Vegas in the field. But I need help solving some tough issues, namely:

1) making sure audio quality is not compomised by going either IN or OUT of
Vegas
2) proving to the master mixer that I can stay in sync %100 of the time
3) getting the Vegas automation to work with the in-house mixing board
(yamaha DM2000). I am working with Francois Serras of MCmu on this issue,
and am about %85 percent there, but not quite. Yamaha tech support has been
elusive.

I really hope that the audio end of Vegas keeps on developing and maintains the tradition of supporting more formats and having more features than any other DAW. And i really hope that i can continue to use vegas...

thanks (especially peter) for all the continued support!

cory

Cory

I bounced between ProTools and Vegas on Death's Requiem doing some of the sound editing and premixing in ProTools LE and then bouncing the mixes to disk as broadcast wave files and importing them into Vegas using the Import BWF function using the embedded metadata (timecode) to place the audio in sync on the tracks.

I could have sound edited completely in Vegas but chose ProTools running on a Mac in preference to Vegas probably out of habit. I had to merge the stereo files which ProTools output as separate mono waves .L and .R using the Audio Tool in EDL Convert from Cui Bono Soft before importing them into Vegas but they retained metadata and sync. Happily EDL Convert will batch convert multiple files quickly.

The 5.1 mix for Dolby Digital was completed in Vegas this included additional sound editing during the mix as well as laying up the music and music editing where needed... nothing ever arrives as it should be. The Final mix consisted of 36 premixed tracks submixed in batches from Dialogue, Spot SFX, Atmospheres and electroncially generate synth tracks created using midi based plugins in ProTools, a combination of dedicated mono and dedicated stereo premixes depending on content, as well as three stereo music tracks plus a couple of additional tracks for stuff edited and tracked in Vegas during the mix. In all the original source tracks stretched to around 90 tracks to create the 36 premixed tracks imported into Vegas. It was a reasonably big sound design effort for a 30 minute short feature.

By running the Preview window on my second monitor, I have two Dell 24" LCDs, simultaneously to an external video monitor fed via firewire through a Sony DSR30 DV deck I was able to view accurate sync on the computer screen and acceptable, quite often accurate, sync on the external monitor.

In the end I rendered a polyphonic WAV file out of Vegas for the 5.1, imported it into ProTools and split it into separate mono tracks with idents. Vegas and ProTools tend to lay out 5.1 in different track order so having separated mono files named and idented seemed a safer way to go because somewhere down the track a lab has to encode these into a real Dolby Digital 5.1 signal for film... when a budget for a 35mm print is found. Meantime I encoded an AC3 file for DVD and mastered the DVD in DVDA4 and a stereo submix for HD video rendered out of Vegas.

It's having it's first public screening in Sydney on 6th February.... though I'm not sure if the stereo mix I downmixed from Vegas is being played off the HD tape version or they are using the DVD with 5.1 mix... that's all in the hands of the director and producer. My guess is they'll go for vision quality over sound as that's par for the course.

I may be going deaf in my old age but I don't think the bounce between ProTools and Vegas or Vegas and ProTools caused any degradation of the audio signal that anyone but an audio purist... a breed I can't personally take a liking to even though I'm an audio professional... would claim to notice.

regards
Steve

Thanks for the very detailed replies. I am working on the hardware issues as we speak.

I wanted to know if anybody knew if perhaps AES-EBU to ADAT conversion could cause some problems... do you think that that might be what's causing the problem?
Can optical cables degrade signal?

Cory

I think optical cables fail fairly obviously when they fail. Once one ADAT cable sounded very scratchy but I the problem was dust. Other than that it's pretty much all or nothing.

Jesse

>>>I am working in a sound house, and have been receiving a lot of flack for using Vegas instead of ProTools. I like Vegas' user interface much more than ProTools, but people keep telling me that it isn't a "professional" mix program. They also claim that ProTools just "sounds better" than Vegas<<,


Nonsense. Pro tools = garbage, along the lines of cheaper AVIDs, software that has been stuck in early to mid '90s frame of mind for too long.

>>>The only difference is that the Vegas system gets its sound routed through ADAT optical cables through an EDIROL-UA 1000. The ProTools machine gets its sound through the digi 888 and AES EBU...<<<<

That is the difference that invalidates the whole test. If you want to test something, all variables, other than the two compared, have to be EXACTLY the same.

Edirol is not exactly the best sounding hardware. Try RME instead.

>>That is the difference that invalidates the whole test. If you want to test something, >>all variables, other than the two compared, have to be EXACTLY the same.

I am not looking for a taste test between the outputs of Vegas and ProTools, I am wondering why there is a definite problem with the way the audio is getting into my Vegas system...

The difference in quality I am experiencing is not a small one. It's not one that a person would need refined ears to notice. It is a very big difference. Much of the warmth is taken out.

>>Edirol is not exactly the best sounding hardware. Try RME instead.

Do you mean to say that even if the information is coming in digitally that the sound is going to be colored by the hardware?

>>>>Do you mean to say that even if the information is coming in digitally that the sound is going to be colored by the hardware?<<<

If that weren't the case, then they'd all cost the same. But the difference should not be as great as you describe it, so there is also something else going on here.

>>>> They also claim that ProTools just "sounds better" than Vegas. So I wanted to test it and prove them wrong<<<<

As far as I know, hardware determines the quality of sound, so in theory Vegas can sound better or worse than Pro-tools, depending on what kind of hardware you use with it. Saying that Pro-tools sounds better than Vegas makes no sense.

Thanks for the help and advice.

I'm now looking to upgrade my system. I wanted to have a dual Pyramix/Vegas system, but the Mykerinos cards don't play well with ASIO 2.0.

Anyone have any ideas for a card or interface that will do a good job supporting both (with at least 16 AES-EBU ins/outs?) My friend over here says not to trust lightpipe connections...

cory