Panning Causes Distortion in Tracktion

[hitmeister]

I recently installed Tracktion V2. I can record tracks and play them back with no problem. But, when use the panning filter to pan a track to either the right or left, playback becomes distorted. The distortion is the type that, with a guitar track, sounds like I'm adding an overdrive effect.

I checked the levels, and the meters are nowhere near the red. Also, if I render an audio file that includes a panned track, the rendered file contains the distortion.

I'd like help figuring out what's causing this and how to stop it.

My system is an Athlon 2400 processor with 768MB of RAM.
I have Windows XP with SP2. I'm using an Echo Gina 3G sound card with Echo ASIO PCI drivers, V6.13 (latest version).

[voidar]

Are you sure the meters are nowhere near clipping?
Tracktion has a +3db panning-law which means signal will be twice as loud when hard-panned to the left/right in regards to centre.

try to lower vol by 12db and see if the problem still exists.

[Lunch Money]

Something sounds off. You can "clip" your track without hearing any distortion anyhow. And digital clipping doesn't really sound that much like an overdrive pedal.

You sure it's not passing through another track (instead of the default output) or through a filter in the master area first? Is the master level meter clipping? What effects are in place after the pan filter, if any (this includes master area)?

You could always upload an edit (without the actual audio files, just an edit) for people to peek at if you need other eyes to have a peek.

Greg

[bk]

Yep. Panning can cause this. Actually, T uses a -6dB center pan law. What this means is that when centered, the level will be 6dB lower than it is when panned hard left or right.

It's an attempt to keep the actual audible levels consistent while tracks are being panned back and forth. Without this, centered tracks would sound way louder than panned tracks.

It seems crazy at first, but every hardware mixer I've ever used operates similarly. The difference is that with hardware mixers, we're almost never anywhere near the ceiling of headroom (good hardware manufacturers build in plenty of headroom), but in a DAW we tend to run everything right up against the ceiling. If you operated a hardware mixer the same way, you would get the same result...distortion.

Just remember to back down the levels a bit when doing hard panning, and you'll be fine.

[Lunch Money]

You shouldn't be able to clip within a T track, though. As long as your master output isn't clipping (thereby causing a clip at the D/A conversion stage) it shouldn't be an issue.

[bk]

You shouldn't be able to clip within a T track, though.

While this is theoretically true, I've run into several plugins that refuse to take a high level audio signal (without crackling and distorting), and have to be used with a volume fader in front of them to reduce the level going into them.

Besides those situations, you are correct that only the output can clip, however, if your master fader is set at zero, then anytime your track crosses zero, your output will clip....I think.

[Lunch Money]

Yes, that's correct. Which is why I was recommending that he check his master fader and list his effects.

[valley]

While this is theoretically true, I've run into several plugins that refuse to take a high level audio signal (without crackling and distorting), and have to be used with a volume fader in front of them to reduce the level going into them.

Yup. This is pretty poor coding on the part of those plugin developers as most operations will work just as well with values > +/- 1.0f as they will with values -1.0f .. 1.0f. If a plug has a specific requirement for -1/1 normalised values, it should at the least feature a clip indicator at the input stage to alert the user to potential issues.

if your master fader is set at zero, then anytime your track crosses zero, your output will clip....I think.

Watch the master VU. This shows the final level post master fader. If you are clipping at this stage you need to simply back the master fader off a little until you have a little headroom. If you don't, you will get digital clipping in your final output, and ears, like sensitivities, are precious things.

[bk]

Yup. This is pretty poor coding on the part of those plugin developers

Agreed. Those plugs were all "freebies". (no slam meant on freeware devs as a whole. I use a ton of it and am extremely pleased that it exists!!). I either live with the limitations as is, or shit can them immediately.

btw, what was this thread about again.....?
Oh yeah, panning. Sorry for the thread derail.

Back on topic:
Yep. I like panning. Nothing can beat panning for when you need to ... erm... uhh... pan something!

[hitmeister]

Thanks for the replies, everyone. After days of scratching my head and talking on the phone with Mackie Tech Support, it turns out that the problem was due to a rather mundane cause - a bad cable. For some reason, the signal came through OK when it was centered, but when it was panned, the cable caused the signal to distort.

It's kinda strange, because I could listen to pre-recorded stereo tracks with no problem, but with tracks recorded and panned in Tracktion or other editing software, I had this problem. Anyway, it's fixed now.

Thanks again!

[Mr. Tingle]

Mackie tech are pretty good to have spotted that!

[bk]

it turns out that the problem was due to a rather mundane cause - a bad cable.

Wow. That is a truly bizarre cable failure!

Glad you got it sorted.

[Lunch Money]

wacky

[jamesridge]

Props to Mackie tech support!

[hitmeister]

It was a process of elimination. We determined that the problem only occurred when the output was routed through a particular connection.