PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

garyb wrote:

Mike Goodwin wrote:Also as for all the plugins in the scope environment sounding better than than the evil Waves empire (I truly do not like the waves company) I can say that the included compressor and limiter in Scope do not sound better than the high end native compressors that I own. JJP Fairchild, Sonnox Dynamics, or even the Cocos compressor. As for limiters the included limiter simply sounds bad to my ears. This is subjective and just my opinion. Have you listened to these? The waves SSL buss compressor, the API compressor and EQ's, eiosis Air EQ. Sonnox dynamics. They do sound very good indeed.

included compressor compared to those? no! who ever suggested such a thing?
besides, i don't compare to native, high end or otherwise, i compare to HARDWARE that i own. that said, what i posted in regards to your internet slander and bad vibes fest, was that the best native stuff tends to be very RESOURCE hungry and that WITH A FEW EXCEPTIONS, as good or better is AVAILABLE in the Scope platform.

I am sorry that you feel that I am hosting a "Internet slander and bad vibe bad vibe fest here". That is not my intend at all. I am just trying to have a logical conversation about the quality of going through the scope environment via ASIO in my case. It is not an attack on Sonic Core or Scope. As I have said already. Scome can do things that nothing else can.

As for the comment about native plugins vs. scope plugins. I am referring to when you said .. "my opinion is that, except for a few specialty plugins, waves and psp have nothing, nothing on Scope." I could have misinterpreted you. I am not looking to piss you off here and you will just have to trust me on that one. I am just trying to learn more about mixing in the digital world. I have no alterer motives.

more tests like this!
I often think alot of this marketing stuff is crap anyway.. and if it phasecancels, it's marketing crap. or a nice giu that makes you "hear" things as "goodsounding".
I have often thought about making the same test as you did, and its nice that somebody is finally doing it!
dotn get me wrong! i LOVE scope! especially xtc mode. it is the heart of my studio.

I have to disagree about the waves eq's. I generally think they sound harsh in the top. i like the stock peq's alot better! and the graphic eq as well.
but oh well.. its such a subejctive matter.

Happy phasecancelling

Shroomz~> wrote:

Mike Goodwin wrote:To: Jah Servant
I am not sure how I would avoid going through the scope enviroment and have a sample accurate recording to work with. As far as can see off the top of my head it would open up way to much room for debate, converter and so on. Anyone have any ideas how how one could do this?

Mike, I would suggest performing the test in the following way (anyone else can do it too), then reporting the results here.

Ab Live tracks > Scope > Scope mixer > Ab Live - Record incoming stereo mix
Ab Live tracks > Scope > Multi channel Sample delay (must load on 1 dsp) > Ab Live - sum & record mix in Live.

Compare.

If you can't find a multi channel sample delay, you can try summing the tracks in Live 1st before going out to a stereo sample delay in Scope or one of us here will make a multi channel sample delay that loads on 1 dsp.

The essence of this suggested test is that you do it simultaneously & record both the Scope summed stereo mix & the Ab Live summed mix at the same time with the source in both cases being the exact same ASIO channels coming from Live.

If I could do it here myself, I would, but sharc is working on our main Scope rig here & I wouldn't dare ask for access to perform this test, since FWIW I think it's pretty pointless (no offense)

regards,
Mark

LOL pointless I give you my word that there is no offense taken. Also thanks for your input. I will likely try that test out when I finish the mix I'm working on as I just cant resist this type of scrutiny at the moment.

Mike, it's all good.

i certainly don't mind the experiment(although it's been done before), and i'm sorry myself to get confrontational(there's a lot of irony in my harsh reply ).

i really just wanted to balance the discussion. i never doubted your results.

maybe 'pointless' was a wrong choice of word.

Shroomz~> wrote:Btw, I wouldn't use the dynamic mixer for performing these tests, since I personally do not think it's 100% reliable.

Interesting. It seems that the 2448 is the way to go with scope. I just have to get my head all the way around how it works. I find it to be a bit of a monster. But that is another thread

the19thbear wrote:more tests like this!
I often think alot of this marketing stuff is crap anyway.. and if it phasecancels, it's marketing crap. or a nice giu that makes you "hear" things as "goodsounding".
I have often thought about making the same test as you did, and its nice that somebody is finally doing it!
dotn get me wrong! i LOVE scope! especially xtc mode. it is the heart of my studio.

I have to disagree about the waves eq's. I generally think they sound harsh in the top. i like the stock peq's alot better! and the graphic eq as well.
but oh well.. its such a subejctive matter.

Happy phasecancelling

Hey thanks for the positive feedback. I am very happy with this thread. I have learned quite a bit from it. I now have a much better understanding of how things may in fact work differently in different digital mixing situations. As for the Waves EQ's I do think some of them sound pretty good. I like the SSL EQ but I would not call it "smooth" it is actually pretty harsh. I have no idea if that is what a SSL sounds like as I am a poor man and cant a/b them. Quite a few people think that they are pretty close and I remember they claiming a 95% phase cancellation result. If that is indeed true it is quite an amazing feat. That being said I have to say that my fave "digital" EQ is the eiosis Air EQ. It takes almost no CPU to run. It is zero sample latency and it sounds better than any other EQ I have ever worked with. This being said I have to admit that I have not sat down and A/B'd it with the scope eq's. Hmmm Who knows I might be over looking my best tools!

for a GREAT comp, try D-comp. found here on planetz.
it's free and better than many others!

[quote="Mike Goodwin"]I think that you guys are missing my point. Many people feel that there is a more accurate, more musical result from summing in Scope due to the way it is crunching numbers. I am not saying that the mixers in Scope should colour the mix.

I've read this thread with interest. For the last 7 years I used a soundtracs topaz 24 channel mixing desk as the heart of my studio. I tried unsuccessfully to use the cubase (vst 5.1) mixer to replace it and failed. I eventually found some VST eq's that I liked but I was never fond of the sound of the mixer when A/B'd with the topaz. After taking the plunge with a 4 dsp pulsar card, I was so impressed with the sound and routing that I sold the topaz to fund my 34 dsp scope setup. I only use scope for mixing. Does it sound better (to me) than the cubase mixer and my old soundtracs mixer? Yes. More accurate and musical? possibly. Is this because of summing? Doubtful. I built a analog summing box and used it with cubase via the 8 outputs from my soundcard and heard an improvement in sound. I haven't felt the need to do that with scope at all. I read this forum for 6 months before going the scope route and all the theories about the 32 bit integer maths v floating point v whatever. Or scope v cubase or logic or PT. I think your test is valid if it proves that scope sums the same as another digital mixer. That's exactly what it should do. But mixing is much more than summing, every aspect of the signal path, processing and listening environment will contribute to the mix not to mention the person mixing and the source material.

I use Wolfs mixer and various plugins on my mixes and honestly feel it was a step up from my old mixer. The scope system sounds excellent to my ears. It must have to you as well otherwise your probably wouldn't have used it for mixing. What I don't understand is this - Now that you've proved to yourself that there is no magic summing going on and it really is a great sounding uncoloured and accurate mix environment, are you going to stop using it?

garyb wrote:

mpodrug wrote:

garyb wrote:yes, that may indeed be so. still, in ACTUAL use, there is quite a difference in sound between sequencers, soundcards and platforms. summing is summing yet cubase sounds nothing like an ssl or euphonix console even with no processing. cubase alone sounds different than run through the Scope mixer. this is ALSO undeniable. there is a missing factor here, and i'll admit, something more than just "summing" involved when one speaks of how much better summing on a is over b.

Gary i am surprised (since i know you for a long time and i know you have some experience) you are comparing cubase (or similar) to ssl or euphonix in this kind of thread. They are different worlds even if ssl is digital desk. Totally different world. There are much more factors in ssl digital desk, really way more factors (whole signal path have different technical layout for example) and it is totally different platform. But we are talking about digital summing in our DAWs not in SSL desk. You can be sure that SSL digital desk is doing very same type of digital summing like in your host/platform but there are more things involved there which gives ssl desk ssl sound.

Also what do you mean when you say "cubase alone sounds different than run through the Scope mixer. this is ALSO undeniable." This one is really confusing. By reading this one can believe that cubase mixer is coloring sound while in reality it is not doing this. I believe you did something wrong if you tested this once back in time, though with your experience i doubt.

Any chance you can give some example on how to set up test to reveal this? I am really interested.

as astro said, send individual tracks out of cubase and combine them in the stdm2448. listen
playback stereo mix from cubase mixer. listen.
don't do any level changes(well, the stereo mix can be adjusted to be sure of identical listening volumes) and use a good pair of monitors in a reasonably well tamed room. the difference is pretty substantial. i have multiple confirmations. if YOU don't hear the difference, that's fine too. in that case, don't mix in Scope.

actually, Scope, SSL and Euphonix are all based around the same basic Analog Devices algos, afaik. they aren't different worlds at all. that's the point. people using those digital desks may very well be using Cubase...

Gary with no disrespect intended i have no clue what you are talking about. I know you and you are super nice,helpful and skilled user here so "your the difference is pretty substantial" is suprising me even more. I will quit here as i see there is some force coming from you guys. I dont want to be party breaker, if you enjoy to hear difference that is fine with me.

I actually did same thing as you described in series with other test things and my results are very different then your and they just confirm my previous results. I even have some shocking news but i again i wont spoil community myth party.

Since you are the same one claiming in thread week ago that 96khz is useless sine "it will be on 44khz anyway" i clearly see i am speaking in wind...

To some other people, please spare me "you must have nice room treatment and superuber monitors to hear difference..."

See ya!

seven five wrote:

Mike Goodwin wrote:I think that you guys are missing my point. Many people feel that there is a more accurate, more musical result from summing in Scope due to the way it is crunching numbers. I am not saying that the mixers in Scope should colour the mix.

I've read this thread with interest. For the last 7 years I used a soundtracs topaz 24 channel mixing desk as the heart of my studio. I tried unsuccessfully to use the cubase (vst 5.1) mixer to replace it and failed. I eventually found some VST eq's that I liked but I was never fond of the sound of the mixer when A/B'd with the topaz. After taking the plunge with a 4 dsp pulsar card, I was so impressed with the sound and routing that I sold the topaz to fund my 34 dsp scope setup. I only use scope for mixing. Does it sound better (to me) than the cubase mixer and my old soundtracs mixer? Yes. More accurate and musical? possibly. Is this because of summing? Doubtful. I built a analog summing box and used it with cubase via the 8 outputs from my soundcard and heard an improvement in sound. I haven't felt the need to do that with scope at all. I read this forum for 6 months before going the scope route and all the theories about the 32 bit integer maths v floating point v whatever. Or scope v cubase or logic or PT. I think your test is valid if it proves that scope sums the same as another digital mixer. That's exactly what it should do. But mixing is much more than summing, every aspect of the signal path, processing and listening environment will contribute to the mix not to mention the person mixing and the source material.

I use Wolfs mixer and various plugins on my mixes and honestly feel it was a step up from my old mixer. The scope system sounds excellent to my ears. It must have to you as well otherwise your probably wouldn't have used it for mixing. What I don't understand is this - Now that you've proved to yourself that there is no magic summing going on and it really is a great sounding uncoloured and accurate mix environment, are you going to stop using it?

Hi Seven Five

Thanks for your post. One of the things that I have learned from this thread is that there is much more to digital mixing than summing. As you said it is all the other things going on. From what I understand by staying in the scope you avoid all the.. internal upsampling and bit depth conversions that come from using various VST's. It is not to say that the VST's sound bad as many of them sound great it is just that mathematical errors, or rounding occurs. I could be wrong here but that seems to be one solid argument for mixing all in scope. There are other things as you mention such as the quality of all the other parts of the mixer, sends returns aux send sub buss summing and so on. As mentioned different software works these things differently. Such as Cubase having issues with going into the red on busses. From what I am understanding and hearing it the Scope mixers deal with these factors very well. So the topic here is summing and it seems that all digital summing results in the same output. This is great to know. It is also great to know that it is all the other factors that do indeed make the difference.

In short to answer your question about weather or not I will continue to use the Scope mixer, yes I will continue to use it. In my case I will still most likely use it even for straight up summing as I like having a separate mixer page for Ableton Live. Something the program lacks on it's own. I can also say that I am curious about all these other elements of the mixer and if anything it has had the opposite effect. I am thinking about moving more into the scope environment for mixing. Just trying to see how much I can get out of it. I will need to get my hands on some better software for scope to do that though. I will be looking for all the free dynamics and EQ's I can find I know there are other threads about that and there have already been a couple of suggestions

Off topic.... Can someone pm me with a link to the reverb that is emulating the classic lexicon? I think it is the 90 or 91.

mpodrug wrote:I even have some shocking news but i again i wont spoil community myth party.

I'd like to hear the shocking news actually. I think discussing any possible problem areas in dsp based mixing is a lot more worthwhile & relevant than churning over the old summing argument. Discussing the likes of mixer design which resides on more than one dsp is very relevant, as is discussing introduced delays when inserting effects in a mixer even if that mixer is designed to run on 1dsp excluding inserts etc. Such introduced sample delays will have a much more severe effect on the sound of ANY MIX than the difference between summing in Scope or summing in something like Logic or Cubase IMO.

Mark

......the difference in sound is atleast for me due to the complete different workflow on a scope mixer.If all levels are properly matched to 0.1db jadda jadda then you shouldnt hear any difference.I just get the result i want way faster using the stm 24/48 mixer.Its all in all a matter of taste.

Shroomz~> wrote:

mpodrug wrote:I even have some shocking news but i again i wont spoil community myth party.

I'd like to hear the shocking news actually. I think discussing any possible problem areas in dsp based mixing is a lot more worthwhile & relevant than churning over the old summing argument. Discussing the likes of mixer design which resides on more than one dsp is very relevant, as is discussing introduced delays when inserting effects in a mixer even if that mixer is designed to run on 1dsp excluding inserts etc. Such introduced sample delays will have a much more severe effect on the sound of ANY MIX than the difference between summing in Scope or summing in something like Logic or Cubase IMO.

Mark

Dam! Good post. Count me in Mark. I would love to know what you are talking about Shroomz. Like I said I am just trying to understand what goes on in digital mixing. And in this case it is differences between The scope mixers and "native host" mixers if you will.

Mike, as you may or may not already know, when you insert an effect in a Scope mixer, there is often (although not always) a delay introduced in that channel. This delay can be anything from a few samples up to quite a few samples in some cases. If you're inserting more than one effect in a channel, say 3 FX, then this can lead to a significant delay depending on the effects used. It's important to note that this can obviously be compensated for, but that doing so is not always easy or indeed the best option. It really depends on what you're mixing & how much the introduction of such delays in a given channel's alignment with others changes the sound of the material your mixing. For some material/some mixing tasks, it won't be an issue, but for others it may well be. As others have said so many times already here, you need to use your ears, although what I'm suggesting is that your ears probably shouldn't be concentrating on whether there's any differences in Scope V Native summing as such, but rather if there's any differences in channel alignment when applying effects, no matter whether you're mixing in Scope or mixing in a native application. Maybe you can even devise some tests for comparisons on this.

Mark

i'm prepared to be shocked.

mpodrug, you don't have to agree with me. i do see that you carry a grudge about 96khz and that's fine. i'm quite happy to not use what everybody else uses. see you at the Grammys.

Some things never change (and I'm not talking about plugin placement on dsps).

right, those DO change.

on such an international forum, there are bound to be misunderstandings of intent and language issues. i would hope that no one takes anything TOO personally...

garyb wrote:on such an international forum, there are bound to be misunderstandings of intent and language issues. i would hope that no one takes anything TOO personally...

Nobody here would do THAT !!

Shocking news is that here are some utterly fanboys waiting to be busted. Just kidding. But gary...this is way beyond your level. I will prepare audio examples in line with files and screenshots so once for all we will kill this summing myth. I am really interested to read your comment after that. But today is the day and i will have some party just as you guys. Then i have my birthday soon etc.etc.. So see ya soon in a week or so.

I am glad that here are people that actually know technical side. Thank you Schroomz...