Hardware/Sound Quality/Clarity

Support and feedback for Acoustica's Mixcraft audio mixing software.

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bigaquarium
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Hardware/Sound Quality/Clarity

Post by bigaquarium »

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Last edited by bigaquarium on Sun Sep 01, 2019 4:48 am, edited 2 times in total.
mick
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Re: Hardware/Sound Quality/Clarity

Post by mick »

The crispness will shine through if you use a decent EQ, the Mixcraft mixer high frequencies are suppressed for some reason.
rrichard63
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Re: Hardware/Sound Quality/Clarity

Post by rrichard63 »

mick wrote:The crispness will shine through if you use a decent EQ, the Mixcraft mixer high frequencies are suppressed for some reason.
Are you referring to Mixcraft 6, Mixcraft 8, or both?
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Starship Krupa
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Re: Hardware/Sound Quality/Clarity

Post by Starship Krupa »

There should be no correlation between the processing power, RAM and drive speed of your Windows system and the frequency response you are getting in final mixes. The overall capability of your system will affect mostly the recording latency you are able to set before hearing problems with playback, also with the number of tracks and effects you are able to use.

My personal recommendation for someone buying a computer to run Mixcraft 8 Pro Studio would be an i7 system with 16G of RAM and an nVidia graphics processor.

I don't know what mick means by "the Mixcraft mixer high frequencies are suppressed." I have personally run tests importing frequency swept audio test files to Mixcraft, performing mixdowns, and analyzing the results, and they showed no rolloff of high, mid, or low frequencies. Pro Studio comes with a couple of capable EQ plug-ins, including ToneBoosters' Parametric EQ.
-Erik
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bigaquarium
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Re: Hardware/Sound Quality/Clarity

Post by bigaquarium »

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Last edited by bigaquarium on Sun Sep 01, 2019 4:48 am, edited 2 times in total.
rrichard63
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Re: Hardware/Sound Quality/Clarity

Post by rrichard63 »

bigaquarium wrote: ... I was thinking along the lines of whether my integrated audio is truncating the frequency response for some reason ...
I should have looked up Toneport UX1 but didn't. How do you have it hooked up to the laptop? If it's headphone jack out to line in, then you will definitely experience some loss of audio quality. Or are you using the USB interface? In that case, I would suspect that it's the UX1 that's lacking in frequency response.

UPDATE: on the UX1, is there a way to turn off the amp emulation entirely? If so, check the frequency response that way.
bigaquarium
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Re: Hardware/Sound Quality/Clarity

Post by bigaquarium »

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Last edited by bigaquarium on Sun Sep 01, 2019 4:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
mick
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Re: Hardware/Sound Quality/Clarity

Post by mick »

Clarification of "suppressed mixer high frequencies"
It looks like I chose the wrong wording here- or maybe not. If I put something on an audio track and turn up the mixer high frequency or the main out track h.f and go all the way up to +15db there is virtually no difference, If I go -15 to +15 totaling 30 db there's still not much difference, this what I mean by "suppressed"
However, If I use a parametric EQ where I can dial a frequency to pinpoint an instrument its a different situation altogether, isn't this the purpose of a parametric EQ? if you dial a frequency of around 5000HZ it isn't going to do much for a kick drum or if I dial a frequency of around 300HZ it will do nothing for a cymbal crash, in each case the tuning of the mixer control misses the tuning of the instrument and any adjustment will make no difference whether its 15db or 100 db. The Toneboosters parametric EQ included with pro studio may be all that's needed.
mick
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Re: Hardware/Sound Quality/Clarity

Post by mick »

Answer to rrichard63 is Mixcraft 7 standard.
rrichard63
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Re: Hardware/Sound Quality/Clarity

Post by rrichard63 »

mick wrote: ... If I put something on an audio track and turn up the mixer high frequency or the main out track h.f and go all the way up to +15db there is virtually no difference, If I go -15 to +15 totaling 30 db there's still not much difference, this what I mean by "suppressed" ...
It sounds like you are talking about the built-in EQ (Hi, MId and Lo tone controls). I've never used them, and would prefer that the screen real estate be used for something else instead. Specifically, macro controls that can be linked to the user's choice of plugins (EQ, compression, whatever). In fact, I have the built-in EQ hidden by default.

As someone said in a previous post, if these controls are centered, Mixcraft's frequency response should be flat, just like any modern DAW.
mick
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Re: Hardware/Sound Quality/Clarity

Post by mick »

rrichard63 wrote: It sounds like you are talking about the built-in EQ (Hi, MId and Lo tone controls).
Yes that's correct!
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outteh
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Re: Hardware/Sound Quality/Clarity

Post by outteh »

I think we may be overlooking the hardware factor of the laptop/PC audio system and enhancements. We are comparing audio output of a Mac and a Windows system. Both of these systems are at best minimal sound quality where the Mac maybe being slightly better in it's audio reproduction. You need to compare through the same audio system to determine if there is any software issue. Windows also has enhancements that will effect the audio quality. If possible you could listen on the same Audio interface through the same set of headphones through the Mac and the Windows system. :D
rrichard63
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Re: Hardware/Sound Quality/Clarity

Post by rrichard63 »

outteh wrote:I think we may be overlooking the hardware factor of the laptop/PC audio system and enhancements. We are comparing audio output of a Mac and a Windows system. Both of these systems are at best minimal sound quality where the Mac maybe being slightly better in it's audio reproduction. You need to compare through the same audio system to determine if there is any software issue. Windows also has enhancements that will effect the audio quality. If possible you could listen on the same Audio interface through the same set of headphones through the Mac and the Windows system. :D
Yes. I'm so used to using ASIO drivers, which bypass all of the Windows "enhancements", that I forget about this part of the signal chain. If the Line 6 interface is fairly old, it might not support ASIO.
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Mark Bliss
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Re: Hardware/Sound Quality/Clarity

Post by Mark Bliss »

We could back up three subjects and I would still be lost in this thread honestly.

But as to Mick's comments about the mixer EQ-
I have used Mixcraft since v4.5 and quite often use the mixer/EQ, and have always found it to work as expected, for broad frequency moves and not precision or pinpoint moves.
Mostly cuts, rarely boosts, and mostly the low or high band, rarely the mid. *Though I think that might be different if there were either: A second mid band (low mid/high mid) or an option (right click on the mid band and select highmid/lowmid) or the option to "shift" the mid band frequency.
This combined with a HP filter with a switchable cut point, like a decent good old fashioned mixing console would be my desired solution.

Anyway, rant/repeat feature selection aside-
As far as not hearing the change of the high band as described, I have seen this comment before, and it turned out that either the OP had been trying to EQ audio content that had little or no content in that freq range, or they simply didnt understand the function.

Here is a spectrum analysis of a portion of audio with the high band at full cut:
HF Full boost.png
HF Full boost.png (121.78 KiB) Viewed 6849 times
And the same audio segment at full boost:
HF full cut.png
HF full cut.png (125.3 KiB) Viewed 6849 times
Clearly, the HF is rolled off or boosted as expected.

There was a previous post where I tried to graphically show the range of the EQ controls, but its slipped away and I cant find it now. It's old......
Stay in tune, Mark

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bigaquarium
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Re: Hardware/Sound Quality/Clarity

Post by bigaquarium »

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Last edited by bigaquarium on Sun Sep 01, 2019 4:49 am, edited 3 times in total.
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