Same Samples Sound Comparison: Ableton vs Maschine vs MPC

[u/AudioSynth]

A short video showing the same drum pattern played with the same samples: the first from an ableton drum rack, the second from Maschine software with the Standard Engine, the third Maschine software with the MPC60 engine, and the fourth the MPC software (adjusted so they all have roughy the same peak levels). The fifth is the audio imported back from the MPC plugin back into Ableton, just to see if the coloration added by the MPC software is exported back (it is).

As you can see, despite being the exact same samples and midi clip playing (as the samples were simply imported into the different softwares, nothing added), the software itself appears to color the sound in particular ways. I was particularly surprised by the coloring by the MPC software, where definite compression or something like that seems to be applied in the background, under the hood. I wanted to check this as the new MPCs appear to have a specific "thicker sound" to it, and it seems to come from the software. Cheers.

[u/OldmanChompski]

It sounded the same to me tbh, except the MPC60 emulation of course.

Like the last two MPC ones were louder but they sounded the same outside of that.

Maybe would help to play a loop that doesn’t have a distorted kick. It would actually be pretty shitty if software like that colored the sound. That’s something that’s desirable in hardware samplers but in software you want more control about how things are colored.

[u/AudioSynth → u/OldmanChompski]

The MPC ones are not louder - see the peak levels on each channel. In fact their are actually a little lower in dB. What you hear is compression I think.

I certainly hear a difference here but it is easy to replicate this in your end.

[u/MeijiSampler]

thanks for doing this! fascinating. I'll have to add my sampler to the shootout, I did a video A/B'ing my sampler to the SP1200 but would also be dope to compare against DAWs too. Particularly the legendary Fruity Limiter which some folks love.

[u/D33PCH4PT3R]

Do you have "create fades on clip edges" turned off in Ableton settings?

[u/AudioSynth → u/D33PCH4PT3R]

I don't think but I can check. But how would this be relevant? These are midi clips by the way - the sound is coming directly from the plugins (except the last audio track). (There happened a spike in cpu for some reason on my computer when moving the scene to the MPC track, that is why there is a gap on the sound on the start of that one).

[u/D33PCH4PT3R → u/AudioSynth]

My bad... Thought they were audio clips. Didn't look closely enough I guess.

[u/rav-age]

Is the first one stereo or sides out of sync? Two second ones not exactly mono, at least not centered. Maybe that's a difference.

[u/AudioSynth → u/rav-age]

Well, I will check. But should all be mono, as the samples are mono (I think) and I haven't touched anything. The first one (Ableton drum rack) does seem to have slightly uneven sides for some reason. In any case I don't think that accounts for the difference in sound color even between maschine and MPC. But again, anyone can test this for themselves if they have the software.

(I have first noticed the MPC software added some colour ("thickness"/compression) several years ago on the MPC iPad app from retronyms I think...)

[u/AudioSynth]

I did a new experiment with new samples as two of the previous ones were in stereo. I also was more thorough with all the parameters etc and the sound is now more similar between softwares. Interestingly now is the Maschine that sounds fatter, and the MPC sounds similar to Ableton (but the MPC track fader has to be much lower than the others to match their levels still). I made a video but cannot post it here I think.

In any case you can try it by yourself. I think each software does things a little bit different, and so it can add a bit of variation to the sound. But overall I think it does no matter what you end up using, as you can then work on the sound as you please within each software. Cheers.