What I thought was really interesting is that I played the same 32 tracks with no gain adjustments (other than insuring the master was not clipping) in both Cubase SX and ProTools LE and heard distinct differences.
They are both 32 bit floating point (Cubase's mix engine is identical to Nuendo), so I had assumed any sound differences would be negligible (i.e. no 32 floating versus 48 fixed issues).
The difference I heard was not so much in quality of sound, but that the "relative levels" had changed. The vocal track for example was clearly audible in ProTools, whereas in Cubase it was much lower. The only adjustments made were mono tracks that were intended to be stereo were panned hard left and right (in both programs).
No plug-ins, no individual track volume adjustments, actually I don't think I had to make a master gain adjustment either, and everything was going through the same converters. The only thing I could think of that was different was that Cubase was using the ASIO drivers to access the Converters whereas ProTools was being sent via 24 bit SPDIF to the converters. Obviously not a scientific study, but I couldn't figure out what would cause such a dramatic difference, so I eventually gave up. I thought math was math. Am I missing something painfully obvious?
There only other comment I would make is that when mixing tracks, ProTools LE would always sound like everything was congested in the high mids, making it difficult to differentiate individual instruments compared to Cubase. It's kind of like what Waves L2 does to a mix. It sounds more exciting (almost a little more harsh), but Cubase sounds like it has a more accurate representation throughout the dynamic range. You don't have to raise levels as much to hear certain instruments in Cubase, you can leave them lower in the mix and still hear them.
I've read many similar comments but I'm willing to chalk it all up to user error if there is solid evidence that the math is identical.
In the end, the direct comparison really doesn't matter because the user will use the different tools to create a similar end result.
I'd just like to know where I screwed up in my simple head to head comparison. I'm willing to look like a fool...any ideas?
JL
