Yes, the FX are “Send” FX and mixed with the analog dry signal. The conversion does NOT happen until the end, either via your sound interface or via your Elektron machine’s AD converters into the USB connection. So naturally, there is a difference because you’re using 2 different pieces of hardware to do the conversion.
Why do people spend more money on expensive sound interfaces like UAD or Metric Halo if there’s no difference? Whether you should care is subjective of course and depends on many factors including the fidelity of your interface, your ears, your setup, etc. So let’s not debate. I simply wanted to offer and alternative for those of us who care more about high fidelity than saving 10 mins recording via streaming.
Also, my latency is actually lower when I go directly out vs Overbridge. But that’s probably my setup. Either way, this is the best of both worlds for me
I haven’t noticed any difference with one of the inputs being active to be honest. Latency is about 3 ms for me using my RME card which is not perfect of course but pretty damn good and easy to offset in Live or whatever DAW you use
3ms is perfect and way better than the usual 25-30ms when using audio through OB. And my MH 2882 might indeed sound better. Time to experiment
Live mode sounds great btw. Is the main problem the midi/sync roundtrip? So when not using the perfect OB sync it would be more like average soundcards? I have more clocks, some are pretty tight so that would make me very happy.
This, so much!
People get their panties in a bunch over so much ridiculous stuff sound wise, but at the end of the day no one in their right mind should care too much about stupid a/b tests. Then end is a full mixed track, not statistics about how warmer x or y none sense sounds!
I used an UAD apollo 8 first (Some time ago) and noticed a drop in quality when using OB. With recent Rytm OS and overbridge updates, I have compared, but really can’t hear any loss in sound quality any more, apart from a slight hiss that is not really that noticeable anymore.
AFAIK, no one in this thread has taken the time to conduct “stupid A/B tests” than me. Or maybe they have but are not saying/stating they have.
Furthermore, I made the A/B by comparing two summed mixes, not only individual sounds. That time, I could mot discern a clear diff between the two, but saying “you can never hear that in the mix” is oversimplifying things, if we state something like that as a global phenomenon. It has been shown many times in the history of audio engineering that certain attributes of audio do have a cumulative effect. Researching into how big mixing consoles affect the sound of a mix etc will undisputedly show there is merit to this line of thinking.
Saying this is splitting hairs and is inconsiquential is ingorant IMO. YMMV as always. Some people are very fussy wrt sound quality issues, and it is totally cool IMO if they want to be. Try to look at it from all sides of the fence, there is no single right way or dogma to any of this.
Like I said I didn’t care to A/B initially. I was just exporting via stream and then wondering my kicks lost their bottom end and punch . And OB conversion was the culprit in my setup . If this topic doesn’t interest you , great. This thread isn’t for you. Some of us care so let us be
The first A/B test I did was when Overbridge first came out and there was a significant difference in both low and high end sound quality when comparing with my UAD apollo 8. Kicks that where smooth sounding on the UAD sounded slightly rough through Overbridge and highs sounded slightly dull with Overbridge, but quite vibrant through my apollo. I tried the same A/B test recently and both units sound identical.
Yeah, I might have come off too strong on that, and I am not arguing the effect of analog gear like old mixers on sound, I first hand worked with old ass studio gear, it is different for sure.
I also think in a lot of ways the stuff has more disadvantages than the sound makes up for.
Anyways, I wasn’t aiming at anyone in particular, but I do think that in a lot of ways the focus is on the wrong things often, like the sound of analog vs digital, or I even heard someone argue till they turned blue that reason sounded worst than vsts and that they could hear the difference in popular songs, without ever giving concrete examples.
Back on topic thought, how do the dacs work in the a4 if you are using the digital effects? Shouldn’t that have been part of the tests too?
Not arguing it, just asking.
Cheers
I believe the same signal flow is present on both analog machines. As in, the analog synthesis signal path is 100% analog if you use the physical outputs. All the fx are only summed (after DA conversion obvs) into the analog siganl path at a certain point.
This is very interesting to hear! So you reckon overbridge sound quality has improved after a certain version? This might be possible if ob driver code was somehow subpar initially…
It definitely started out sub-par. Tons of people has issues with latency / buffer pops and stuff causing adverse audio issues. I have no complaints with how it is now.
I have a high regard for sound quality but also am willing to sacrifice some for functionality.
With my Rytm I find it sounds best directly through an analog mixer. 2nd best is through Apogee Ensemble TB at 96k. Third best is OB, but is still plenty fine enough…
I don’t use OB, but similarly I feel the Rytm looses something going through the OT, but what it can do outweighs that for me so I leave it in… If my goal was studio tracks instead of live, maybe I’d record more AR stuff separately, and just record the OTified AR parts from OT, but I would use the apogee instead of OB.
Personal opinion from someone with pretty high end converters, I’m sure dance floors can get hot from OB recorded tracks no problem…
I don’t think this is the most important reason for the degradation.
What really screws up the audio is the re-sampling that needs to be done to synchronize the electron DACs to the computers audio stream.
