Why is there this DC Offset in "Levels"?

[Atomisk]

Ok, so we've all heard levels. We all know how it goes. This picture is a screenshot of the waveform centered around ~1:00, when the song breakds down momentarily before the lead comes in (you can see it on the right side of the pic). Does anyone know why there's such a massive DC offset from that pad/riser/synth thing that peaks during the middle of the pic? Is it just the synthesizer (seems pretty odd... It totally kills the headroom of the track.) Is this some crazy alien mixing concept. I've always wondered why the waveform looks like this whenever I see the waveform in Traktor or a DAW. Any input? :\

PS: I'm not trying to recreate this or anything. I'm just really curious as to why it looks so weird in the waveform. I've never seen anything like it in any other song.

[quayquay17]

I'm interested as well.
My assumption is it's the result of slamming the breakdown into a maximizing plugin, which is why the peaks stay similar while the content drifts so much.

But I am not certain, we need someone who has had this happen before!

[Bronto Scorpio]

I don't know the track but I guess there is just some very low (inaudible) sound going on.
Send the whole thing through a high pass filter with a cutoff freq of ~20hz and it should be "fixed".

The low sound doesn't do any audible things to the track by the way (it does eat up headroom though).
And there is no DC offset, the waveform is perfectly centered.

Cheers
Dennis

[Codehook]

I don't know the track but I guess there is just some very low (inaudible) sound going on.
Send the whole thing through a high pass filter with a cutoff freq of ~20hz and it should be "fixed".

The low sound doesn't do any audible things to the track by the way (it does eat up headroom though).
And there is no DC offset, the waveform is perfectly centered.

Cheers
Dennis

Confirmed, if you filter out below around 20hz then the waveform looks like it sounds...side-chained pad at a consistent volume.

And yes, this isn't DC offset at all, the waveform is perfectly centered as Dennis said. It's just that the sub-audible content distorts the waveform, causing less headroom...although headroom isn't a problem at this point in the track as everything is so quiet anyway.

Interesting spot though, I would never have thought to notice this.

[Atomisk]

Thanks for the input guys. What I meant by "DC Offset" was that the waveform was just jumping around so much.

I'm aware that running it through a hpf will fix the waveform, and I know that it's way too low to be audible, I was just wondering why it's there. I've been thinking that it might be something to do with the synthesizer patch... but I guess it could just as easily be a maximizing plugin.

[Codehook]

Thanks for the input guys. What I meant by "DC Offset" was that the waveform was just jumping around so much.

I'm aware that running it through a hpf will fix the waveform, and I know that it's way too low to be audible, I was just wondering why it's there. I've been thinking that it might be something to do with the synthesizer patch... but I guess it could just as easily be a maximizing plugin.

Ah I get where your question was coming from now.

It's from the sub downlifter he has going on at that point. You can hear it (might be better to listen in headphones), it's a 'boom' that just keeps decreasing in frequency, probably custom made if he hasn't filtered it out when it gets that low in frequency. Although I'm not sure if the Vengeance packs (and similar) have booms that go that deep. They may do, especially if they contain higher frequencies that are still audible even when the lowest bass regions aren't.

[BertKoor]

Synth patches based on block waves with the pulse width other than 50% will have more energy on either side of the line.