Pro Tools Distortion

Bruce Hamilton · Post by **Bruce Hamilton** » 19 Mar 2009 7:17 am

I have been bouncing down tracks on the project that I have mentioned in another thread and have been testing them in different systems including my daughter's boom box,the home stereo, my P.A.sytem and my car. At first the only thing that seemed to stand out was the bass tracks were too boomy however I corrected that with some EQ. What I noticed after that but only in my car stereo which is a high end 370rms system, is a distortion whenever a LLoyd Green scale with the 5 and 8 strings is played. I play steel cd's all the time through this system and it has not been a problem. The levels in Pro Tools are not in the red anywhere so that I am assuming it is something particular to the car system however I would like to correct this. Would compression or EQ be something that could rectify this? Again this is my first crack at self recording and I apologize if the answers should be more self evident to me. Thanks

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 20 Mar 2009 1:55 am

Levels not in the red ? those are the independent track levels not the final sub mix. If possible add some overall compression ( soft ) to the final submix and drop the output faders just a tad , the problem the way I see it is that the final output feed is being over driven and wherever you are sending that final stereo signal is being struck by peaks it does not like. It could also be as simple as just too much EQ gain .

Try a few experiments, write it all down, do a mix well down with the final gain, do a mix a little lower , do a mix with a bunch of compression and then again with a small amount of soft compression. Also EQ gain. What you are experiencing is common. You just need to play with the final mix a bit and learn what works best for your situation. remember, this is all digital now and digital saturation of peaks sounds horrible, there is no forgiveness like the old analog days.

Less is more.

t

Bruce Hamilton · Post by **Bruce Hamilton** » 20 Mar 2009 8:10 am

Thanks Tony. As luck would have it I have been making bounced cd's after each mixdown experiment and labelling them. The first mix had all the track levels too low. The next mix had the tracks with raised levels without EQ on the bass. On this mix there is no distortion so it would seem the EQ is the culprit! I have the day off today and hope to make some progress finishing this project up. Thanks again.

Jon Moen · Post by **Jon Moen** » 20 Mar 2009 4:39 pm

You might find this interesting:

http://recforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/t/15038/0/

Recording close to the red doesn't give you much headroom in your plugins.

There is an enormous amount of information on those forums by people that know what they are talking about.

Addictive (for me anyway).

Jon

Bruce Hamilton · Post by **Bruce Hamilton** » 20 Mar 2009 7:11 pm

Thanks Jon. This is a really interesting site. After reading this I realize I may have crossed over to the dark side-- along time ago. Thanks again

Randy Beavers · Post by **Randy Beavers** » 23 Mar 2009 7:21 am

Bruce, do you have a "master fader"? If you don't you can't tell what the sum of all your tracks are. I think that is what Tony is referring to.

If you want to hear your tracks up to the levels of finished CDs, try downloading the free version of "Massey Plugins" and insert the mastering limiter as a plug-in on the master fader. www.masseyplugins.com

Bruce Hamilton · Post by **Bruce Hamilton** » 23 Mar 2009 6:02 pm

Thanks Randy. I do have a master fader on each session and the way I have been setting it up is I run the master almost to the top then run the all the track faders as low as possible and still keep a good overall level. The master never runs into the red however I have noticed that if I play one verse in a song by myself it does not distort but when the second verse comes up with the rest of the instruments the steel distorts on certain notes. I would assume the final output is being overloaded but it does not show up as the master going into the red. What I have been doing is removing some of the plugins I had running and that seems to have helped quite a bit but there is still the odd note or phrase that distorts. So if I have got this right the Massey plugin will give the master output a lot more headroom. I think I will give it a try.

Ben Strano · Post by **Ben Strano** » 23 Mar 2009 6:59 pm

I can't believe I don't know this off of the top of my head but does the master fader start at 0db and go down or at the top is it 12db?

If it is +12db you are adding 12db to the overall level. The meters show "pre-fader" levels and you would be adding 12db to that.

Very easy to get distortion if that is the case. I will look at work tomorrow and make sure I am right.

b

Randy Beavers · Post by **Randy Beavers** » 23 Mar 2009 7:56 pm

Yes, at the top it is +12db. I'd leave the master fader on 0db. Just hold down the alt key and left mouse click while the cursor is in the fader gain window to bring it to 0.

And yes, the tracks are probably set to pre fader metering rather than post. As long as they are set at pre the meters only show what is recorded on the track before any plugins or variance set by the sliders.

The Massey plugins are amazing. The 2007 mastering limiter in its free version is better than anything else I've heard.

Now we need to teach you to mix those tracks in-the-box to a new track, then you can export those files rather than "bounce to disc". You'll hear the difference.