Pro Tools - Bounces Distorting

Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 9:55 am

Hey guys,

not sure what happened, but recently all of my bounces are distorting. I noticed it when i went through my regular process. I finished a mix and bounced it do. imported it into a new session for master. Did my limiting etc as usually. Meters looked fine, sounded fine in the monitors. When i burned a test disc it was super distorted. So I played back the original WAV file on two other pcs and that file was completely distorted. It sounds fine in the session, but bounced its ruined.

I also played back the original file before i imported for mastering, and that was noticeably louder and had a little distortion on it as well. there must be something in thats boosting the level during bouncing. Hopefully someone can offer some help.

here is a run down of my setup really quick

Running PTLE 6.7 on windows xp with a 001
Mackie 2408 is the mixer. Basicall all the mixing is done in the pc and all the outputs are set to the 001's channell 1 and 2 coming into the mackie on 1 and 2.

thanks in advance

RO Admin Joined: Mar 20, 2000 Posts: 4287 Location: Canada

sounds like you either lifted or limited the levels to hard or hot during limiting/ bouncing or... the overall combination of the multiple tracks made the overall level too hot after the bounce.

If you record your tracks all at a lower level and bounce do they still distort?

Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 10:35 am

...or you could just try removing the limiter all together and see if that aleviates the problem. Try mixing at a lower volume. You don't have to hit 0 on the main bus. If this is all old news, feel free to ignore this post.

Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 10:56 am

Just for poops and chuckles, try bouncing down to a stereo bus within your session.

Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 11:21 am

Why is the Mackie in the chain on burn to disk?

Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 1:06 pm

taxman wrote:

Why is the Mackie in the chain on burn to disk?

That's my question as well. Are you using Bounce to Disk? After that what are you using to burn the CD?

Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 7:36 pm

I removed the limiter and it was distorting but not as bad.

im using bounce to disk, the mackie is just for monitoring.

Im using nero to burn to cd, but i also copied the bounces over the network to two laptops and they were distorting as well.

Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 8:39 pm

You never want to see red in the master bus. You don't need to see the master bus hit 0. -6 is fine. The meters aren't fast enough to catch all the transients, so although you're only seeing -6 it's likely you're hitting a lot hotter than that at points. It would really help if you posted a clip.

Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 8:57 pm

Yeah, what they all said...

You're either running your tracks too hot into the master buss,
or you might have an effect or dynamic plugin that's being
driven too hard from an aux buss.

Somewhere you have a gain structure issue.

Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 8:37 pm

ill try and post clips, they only thing is i havent changed a thing, ive been doing it for years so something must have changed, but im not sure what lol. ill try and get a clip up.

Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2008 2:08 pm

Minor Update,

I had a mix and took it around to 3 different cars, sounds great in the cards and in my studio. but when i put the cd in my desktop computer or laptop its all distorted.

Any ideas?

im losing my mind lol

Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2008 2:26 pm

Do you use disk compression?
Anything running that shouldn't be running...in memory? Isn't this a different issue then the original "It sounds fine in the session, but bounced its ruined."? What about jiggling a few cables to better the connection? Is the burner/nero creating this fault due to some improper settings?

Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2008 2:36 pm

No disk compression, nothing in memory than what I'm running.

I took the raw wav made it an mp3 and emailed it to myself at work and it sounded fine.

The cd sounded fine in the car but not played back on a computer. I will investigate more when i get home to see what else i can find.

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