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

Oh, I know you were Mike. No problem

 and "My perspective is that there is this useless, not so good VST choice  being shoved in my face" they should, if they are going to make a "go-to" compressor, at least make sure it actually works ACCORDING to the instructions. 


 Especially for someone like me that is still trying to learn how these dynamics tools work. I guess I am forced to go back to my plug-ins that are at least accurate and feel reassured that I can learn without 2nd-guessing if the plug is working or not. 

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.

Hi folks,
As far as whether the threshold is a holdover from the hardware, it is...sort of. 

I happen to be looking at the hardware as I write this and I think the origin of the problem described here has to do with the emulation. On the hardware the threshold settings sweep a range from -20db to +20db. In analog-land those values mean something specific in terms of voltage which is different than what we see on a digital meter in software (better audio nerds than I feel free to chime in here with details). When Cake modeled the compressor they used the same threshold marking system (though Cake did +20 to -30 for some reason....maybe a different version of the compressor than the one I have) even though levels over 0db in digital audio aren't particularly common. You can certainly get away with levels greater than 0db as long as you compensate down for them later in the internal gain staging, but, again, not terribly common that I'm aware of.

In any case, the threshold db markings on the PC4k seem to be attempting to emulate the hardware. 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.

All of that said, the threshold behavior of the PC compressors has always seemed a bit touchy to me and is certainly different than the hardware SSL bus comp and the 1176's that I own. I still use the PC comps sometimes, but you have to know how they behave.

Dean

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.

Hi Brundlefly,
Yeah, certainly no argument from me about whether it would have been nice to not be speculating here and instead be referring to a manual. 

Re: the lower ratios producing more compression thing, you may be seeing an intentional aspect of the emulation. On the SSL hardware changing the ratio changes the threshold and may produce more gain reduction as a result.

On the other hand, it may just be broken :)

Dean



Edit for spelling

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.

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.

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.

Hi John,
Yeah, more/better docs on this stuff would certainly be nice. And even though I'm trying not to inject my opinion of Pro Channel into this (frankly because my opinion is not very interesting), I think it could be accurately said that one man's "slavishly adopting" is another man's "faithfully reproducing"...just kind of a matter of perspective...not to get too Gerald Seymour about the whole thing :)

Dean