VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[BenWils]

Okay, maybe I am a day late and a dollar (Euro for Philip) short here...

Anywho....I like my plug-ins in Pro Tools. One I picked up a while back that seemed cool was the L2007 Massey Limiter. I was banging my head against a wall because, while it sounded great in real time when listening back....meaning it would catch any peaks live etc.....however, when I would bounce down to a mono file from the stereo master fader set-up, it would be over-modulated in certain spots. Frustrating!!! So, I contacted Steve Massey, the plug-in designer, and he wasn't sure at first. Then he suggested that Pro Tools may not sum or scale down an extra 3db when going from the stereo master fader to a mono bounce. Meaning, it already scales down 3.01dB from stereo....and when bouncing down to mono, it would need to scale down to 6.02dB. It still would only scale down 3.01 dB. This would leave a 3dB bump in the audio levels and create areas where my voice track would distort in the louder areas instead of just being smoothly limited.

Here are Steve's comments to me in an email:


I just tested Pro Tools' mono bounce. Weirdly, it does scale down by
3dB (instead of 6dB!?) resulting in that +3dB bump you're talking
about. This doesn't make much sense to me. Probably a bug that was
there forever, so they've just left it alone, as to not disturb
people's workflows.

Anyway, this is probably the source of your clipping. Set the max
output of the limiter to 3.02 and you should be good.



So, since those of us using PT....and using a Limiter to catch peaks above and beyond compression etc....this may be of help to you. I know it has made a major difference in my level frustration. Now my limiter actually catches all peaks extremely well now that I set the max output to about -3.5db.

Thought I would post this in case some others were not aware of this mono bounce issue with PT.

As a side....this thread is meant to assist those that work with Pro Tools and could use this info and not to start a war about who likes PT and who doesn't. I think many of those opinions are well documented all over this board.

Also, Steve Massey is a great guy with some great plugs for PT. And when I contacted him about this at 11pm one night. He got back to me in only a few minutes and kept emailing back and forth till we figured it out. Great service and product from him!
_________________
Ben


"To be really good at voiceover, you need to improve your footwork and hip snap."

[Deirdre]

This.

Is cool.

Thank you for posting it— it's also always good to find out about other Capital-G Good Guys.
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DBCooperVO.com
IMDB

[bobsouer]

I quite agree. Thank you, Ben.
_________________
Be well,
Bob Souer (just think of lemons)
The second nicest guy in voiceover.
+1-724-613-2749
Source Connect, phone patch, pony express

[captain54]

[bobbinbeamo]

Ben, This is very interesting! Thank you for the info. In order to expedite the time to use bounce, I now mostly use, "regions: export regions as files" function to create a fast mp3 for auditions, as most of the time, I don't have time to wait for the bounce.
_________________
Bobbin Beam
www.bobbinbeam.com
blog.bobbinbeam.com

[Brian in Charlotte]