I am big proponent of acknowledging the Placebo effect.

But nearly every time I recognize something using an actual diagnostic tool and mention it here I am admonished to use my ears. I am left bemused when that happens.

When I asked Cakewalk for technical specifications for the PC I was advised to enjoy how it sounds (a.k.a. Use you ears)

I find the entire ProChannel bemusing.

We have had more than one golden eared member report here they really liked the sound of Pro Channel and were busy enjoying adjustments and such and then they admitted that they realized they were working on some other track than the one they heard all the good sounding changes in.

What more can you say.



Most people seem to sincerely enjoy the fact that the stuff is "right there and easy to use".

My perspective is that there is this useless, not so good VST choice  being shoved in my face... but I am learning to not care about the intrusion into my consciousness.

It is difficult to ignore that more and more people are observing confusing behavior in Pro Channel... I have finally come to the opinion that it was included for entertainment purposes... and it has proven to be somewhat entertaining.

I'm buying the gate too... And I predict it is gonna make trouble shooting the "auto on-off" thing even more challenging. How are we gong to know if we hear the gate or the PC switching the signal in and out?


Anyways, sorry you are having troubles... I can tell you that I was sincere about the analog comment... the analog compressors generally just do what they do... spending a lot of time looking a meters on analog compressors can make you crazy.

I like the fact that digital metering in VSTs works really well. For example; I personally find the Sonnitus compressors GUI feedback to be excellent and very useful.

I remain somewhat curious to learn if the metering, or parameter scaling in PC mimics the real 4k and deviates from our digital expectations for some "modeling" reason.

Anyways...

all the best,
mike

mike_mccue


I like the fact that digital metering in VSTs works really well. For example; I personally find the Sonnitus compressors GUI feedback to be excellent and very useful.

I remain somewhat curious to learn if the metering, or parameter scaling in PC mimics the real 4k and deviates from our digital expectations for some "modeling" reason.

Mike, I completely agree with you on the Sonitus.  The fact is that it is not metering vs. ears, it is metering AND ears.  How else can you confirm what you are hearing from a frequency domain perspective without being able to train your ears based on accurate settings?  Sure, I know, guys used only their ears for years.  But we have better tools now and most of us need to work much faster than in the past.  Having the metering to confirm what your ears are telling you is a feature I am not about to give up.


As far as the "modeling" issue...well, this thing is just broken.  12 db off on the threshold is NOT a modeling issue...as I am sure you agree.  Of course, I should have bee suspicious when I saw a threshold upper limit of +20 db.  I compared this with other plugs that are supposed to emulate the same compressor and all the others are in the same ball park on the settings and how they treat the audio.  This one isn't even close.  So, either all the others got it dreadfully wrong, Pro Channel is modeled after an extremely atypical unit, or Cakewalk got this thing wrong.


Not bashing the product here...still using it.  Lots to like.  But this piece of kit is not one of them.

It's possible that Cake wanted to keep the hardware nomenclature but thought that the upper db range of 0 to +20 wan't really useful in digital audio and so set an actual digital 0db level on the threshold knob of around 12db. Disclaimer: The previous statement is pure speculation and, even if true, I have no particular opinion on it's merits.

I wouldn't be surprised if something like this is a factor. But then it should have been made very clear in the Help that this is the case.


Also, the actual discrepancy can vary from about 6 to 20dB, depending on Attack and Ratio settings, and the Ratio setting seems to work in reverse - lower ratios produce more compression. This makes me think there's more going on than just a simple offset to address the difference in the definition of "clip" level between digital and analog hardware.

Oh...just to illustrate the above, this is from the SSL comp manual:

It should be noted that the knee point of the compressor, set with
the THRESHOLD control, purposely changes depending on the
setting of the RATIO control. Decreasing the RATIO setting lowers
the effective threshold, hence maintaining the perceived ‘loudness’
of the compressed signal.

brundlefly


Very interesting. That could definitely explain some of the behavior. If they're going to model hardware that faithfully, maybe they should include a PDF of the hardware manual in the documentation for the unfortunate among us who have not had the experience of working with the real thing. 


Thanks for the info.

I was thinking along these lines. That CW was slavishly adopting all the idiosyncrasies of the hardware. I also found the compressor in PC not as easy to use as it ought to be because of this. Not that I knew all this at the time. It was just a guess. It would be nice if CW would comment on this.

Totally agree Dean.

I have given up on the PC.
 
I just click through some appropriately named presets. If I like what I hear, well and good.

If not, I have no time to waste trying to understand something that deliberately emulates old analog gear that cannot be fully understood.

Why the heck are these ProChannel components not just plugins, for goodness sake?

So you are saying the Sonar X1 Power book is wrong here?
Could you submit an errata to Scott? (I've found a few fiddly issues myself which will hopefully go up sometime soon).

http://www.garrigus.com/powerbooks/SX1P/SX1PErrata.asp

All books have issues and mistakes.... so does software... and so do human beings :).
It's a lot easier to fix books and software. It's up to all of us to help each other improve as human beings..

in summary, the pk4 compressor compresses even when the threshold is set higher than the highest peak

he said "summarize" lol ;)

:-)

Good thread this one...it really explains this whole compression issue to me rather well.

Couple of questions...

1-when would you leave compression out?

2-I know that I could go with what my ears tell me in terms of what works for me when it comes to compression but is there a ratio range that could be used as a good range?

great diagram

Hi All,

Sorry for the confusion on this.  It is exactly right that the challenge, when modelling hardware, is that 0dB full scale in the digital domain represents hard-clipping, but on an analog desk, 0dB is "nominal-level" - kind of like a musical mf or f.  Clipping, OTOH, can be anything the manufacturer wants it to be (often around +20dB).  The original, analog-board threshold ranges make no sense for a DAW.  While many plug-in manufacturers have left the original ranges, they also include an Input Gain, and an Output Gain, on the entire channel strip to allow users to force the signal up into the dB range that the plug-in is looking for.  Since we didn't want to have these extra controls on every modeled ProChannel module, we opted to break from tradition and push the working threshold range down below 0dB-FS where it is sensible for a DAW.   As other posters pointed out above, a setting of 0dB should produce a slight amount of compression for input approaching 0dB, due to the soft knee starting to engage.

FWIW, there was a bug reported by users (in X1C and earlier) that, for the Bus Compressor, the tooltip range on the threshold knob made no sense - it still displayed the original analog range (+20dB max).  This was fixed in X1E/Expanded/Production Suite.  Important:  The compressor processing didn't change with this fix - it was only a tooltip issue.

So again, yes, the threshold range doesn't match the original hardware, but it's that way for the convenience of SONAR users.  One last note - the hardware doesn't act quite as "sensible", or predictable as plug-in dynamics processors.  In the electronics, there seems to be "interesting" behaviors for Threshold, Ratio and Internal Make-up Gain. Since this is circuit-modeled, our plug-in has the same "character".  :-)

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
~Bob