-3dB Pan law/ Gain drop after bounce clips

I'm really facinated by the differences in the pan laws (for no real reason, I guess) and would also love to know the answer to this.

ORIGINAL: danhazer

Why would one want clips to drop in level by 3dB following a bounce?

Because if the track you are bouncing is panned, then the pan law is invoked. The resulting new track will reflect what you are hearing, and you are hearing the pan law. In the case of the -3dB pan law, bounced clips which are panned will be -3dB. The clip will have a different physical appearance, but will sound the same as the original.

Thanks,

Thanks Dan.
This, I understand - but should it happen to a mono clip panned center? It does. Please test it out for me 'case I've got a cupboard full of boggarts!

You knew I had to chime in, right?
I'll try to word myself better this time around...


In 5.0, applying a Bounce to Clip on a mono clip causes the gain to change if the panning law is anything other than one of the 0dB options. On testing, it seems if there is any mono context in the chain, (be it the clip and/or the track) the clip bouncing will follow the pan law. The problem is that on a mono clip in a mono track, the only desired effects when bouncing are to apply any clip FX, fades, envelopes, and combining of selected clips... we don't want the volume of the clips to shrink.

In this scenario, any clip pan envelopes should be ignored (even though using any would be pointless anyway), since the TRACK is set to mono, so therefor the pan law should have NO bearing at the clip level, since it is being applied at the track level. It is redundant to do so.

This happens to mono clips on stereo tracks as well, but the gain change here is wanted... the only problem is that the resultant clip (from bouncing) should be a STEREO clip. That would prevent it from being effected by the pan law again as it's played through the stereo track after the bounce. (Note: if a track is set to mono, bouncing a stereo clip in it results in a mono clip. However, bouncing a mono clip in a stereo track currently does NOT, but SHOULD, result in a stereo clip.)

I'm no programmer, but I would think all you'd need to do to fix this would be to add two conditional lines to the Bounce to Clip code:
- IF the track is set to mono, do not apply the pan law during the bounce, and make the resultant clip mono.
- IF the track is set to stereo, apply the pan law during the bounce, and make the resultant clip stereo.

Note: if a track is set to mono, bouncing a stereo clip in it results in a mono clip. However, bouncing a mono clip in a stereo track currently does NOT, but SHOULD, result in a stereo clip.

Swoosh!!! Right over my head on this one...

What do you mean by a track being 'set' to mono? And what do you mean by 'bouncing a stereo clip in it?' These are not terms I am used to hearing.

Here's what I DO know.

Bouncing a mono clip while the interleave switch is set to mono = mono NEW clip.

Bouncing a mono clip while the interleave switch is set to stereo = stereo NEW clip.

At least that's the way it works in a freeze operation - I assume a bounce would follow suit (I think I mentioned before that I almost never bounce anymore now that freeze is available).

As far as the arguments you guys have about the reduction in volume of bounced clips if pan law not equal to one of the 0dB options; I still have not tried it for myself - but I will and I'll get back to you. I've never experimented with pan laws before. I've always been able to get what I want out of a mix with the default one - and I've never had to worry about a project that I get from someone where they specifically used a different pan law for me to worry about...

Thanks,

Tracking a guitar in mono, but placing it in a stereo track with other guitars (to use the same track effects), and panning the guitars to different positions via clip pan envelopes

I tend to do that...Not always, but often enough. And I usually will have some type of panning going on. It's mostly a screen real estate thing for me, though CPU comes into play too since the clips share the same FX.

Bumping to see if anyone else wants to give their preference, thoughts on the proposed fix.

what happens with this, when you bounce tracks with the 'what your hear' setting?


aren't you hearing the panning correctly balanced at that time?
and this is what you get on bouncedown?

I can see bouncing to tracks, though there should definitely be an option to have it ignore pan law when you do that as well. But to do it (without option to turn it off) even when just consolidating the clips of a track after comping or punching in, that makes not sense at all. 

But either way, there should always be an option not to apply pan law, because so often it's just not desired. It's often not the case that final pan positions is not known when tracks are bounced anyway. They may just be getting a run through outboard gear.

When I freeze a soft synth, the resulting audio is always hotter by about 3dB.
How do I keep it the same, frozen or unfrozen?
This has been bothering me for quite a while.