Does it sound the same?
We open real projects in Transcend, render them, and compare the result with the original DAW's own render of the same project. Measured, not promised. Results as of October 16, 2026.
216 real songs, against FL Studio's own render. Instruments only FL has are rendered by FL in the background, as they are when you import.
Listening test, 216 songs: 108 sound the same, 37 a little different, 71 audibly different.
831 projects with sound, against REAPER's own render. 557 more are silent in both, so there is nothing to compare. Much of the far end is effects that only run inside REAPER.
Listening test (partial), 94 songs: 55 sound the same, 3 a little different, 36 audibly different.
Whole-song comparison coming. Live’s devices are matched one at a time against Live’s own exported stems.
Whole-song comparison coming. The mixer, sends, fades and Pro EQ, Limiter, Compressor and Gate are measured against Studio One’s own exports.
How this is measured
- Both renders are split into low, mid and high bands. A project's score is its largest band difference in decibels. About 1 dB is hard to hear; 6 dB is obvious.
- A band quiet in both renders (under −60 dBFS) is left out, so a difference in background hiss doesn't count.
- The listening test compares the two renders half a second at a time and flags passages that are louder, quieter, missing, extra or out of time.
- The projects are public ones from GitHub plus our own songs. Every project in each set is counted, the worst ones included.