This Will Make You Uninstall Pro Tools. 

This doesn’t make want to uninstall Pro tools. What does, however, is the way Avid is conducting their businesses.

someone with computer science background here, let me explain... or better to say, speculate this sounds like basic integer overflow folding, and i honestly think that is an overlooked bug, a conscious decision or even a compiler optimisation. basically, somewhere in the chain there is some code that converts the floating point number into an integer value. since 32 bit float effectively gives 24 bit of resolution between -1 and 1, that would be pretty safe to assume that a 32 bit integer will do fine. but! increasing volume is a multiplication operation. and woul you know it, in binary to multiply by 2 you shift the bits of the value (so, to multiply by 5 you shift 2 times and add to that the original value). and i guess in the channel strip they assumed that discarding several most significant bits of the integer would be fine. and seems it was not... not every piece of math done in dsp is floating point. sometimes people overlook things. or its the tools that try making decisions for you. that amount of gain looks kinda unreasonable tho :shrug: edit: i guess they did something like: convert float to 24 bit integer 32 - 16 - 1 (for sign bit) is 7 bits 7 bits (multiplying by 127 on hexadecimal) actually gives you 21.038dB of gain convert it back tbh, when i saw that 21.038dB i though it rings a bell, now im almost certain im thinking in the right direction edit 2: dont forget, Pro Tools is a prime specimen of "legacy codebase", im sure this could be coded for integer math originally, and now its just dangling in there. im pretty sure its all in the channel gain, and idk why i think that :3

I actually heard Andrew Scheps talking about this feature at NAMM a few years back. He uses that headroom to not worry about where his mix ends and just sends it off to his mastering engineer at whatever level his mix lands at. Thought that was interesting. His words were “A good mastering engineer should be able to master at whatever level you send him.”

Most people who have been using pro tools for years are actually engineers. And this will “never” be an issue.

Some people say the mix is ruined, other people say this is the rave generation tool

Wow. We did a similar test a while back in Ableton. 105dB over, then back. No distortion.

It's been a year since you made this video and I just uninstalled Pro Tools First. I thought that maybe I would learn Pro Tools because I only know Logic but you Sir have changed that plan. THANK YOU!!

You are correct. I just confirmed your test with different plugins and verified that HEAT was bypassed. I believe it is a feature not a bug. They sacrifice calculations that happen above 21db (headroom anyone in their RIGHT MIND should not be using! ) to give you a 48 bit mixer without other performance penalties. If you need to push a plugin 30db over 0 to get it to saturate, that seems more like the plugins problem. It also seems like a good safety feature because someone could also fry some gear at/above these levels (imagine accidently un-bypassing a cranked gain plugin when your speakers are cranked). I'm keeping Pro Tools. I think your approach here is a bit alarmist and that maybe calling AVID, searching their help forums and maybe filing a ticket is a bit more reasonable then hitting the fire alarm and scaring the crap out of everyone to benefit your channel with a "common man calls out the corporation" bit. The journey of finding out why this Pro Tools behavior is so and/or possibly getting it changed/corrected would provide you more long-term positive attention and support and would be a good learning experience for your viewers. You still can go that route, your choice.

The scary part isn't the harmonics, it is the reason for them. Pro Tools is generating a square wave over 160dB deep. This 'protection feature' was added after 12.8. Before that it did have 770dB of headroom. The idea is to protect you from extreme headroom deviations. If you truncate to 24bit at fs+20 could generate an extreme square wave and blow speakers, etc. Instead, they decided to do it for you. Instead of duplicating every sample at fs+20 to flatten the crest (clip), every sample above fs+20 goes to zero. So, at fs+20.1 you end up with 1 sample going back down to absolute zero. Every 6dB above that you lose 1/8 of your wavelength to nothingness. Perform this test and record the result in 32bit to see what it looks like.

Looks like your video caused the headline change in the PT update that came out today! The first change listed is the ability to turn off the ‘feature’ you inadvertently discovered in preferences. Nice work sir - that might be the quickest turnaround in Avid history! Care to make a few videos about how Avid needs to add a midi drum editor window to PT? I’ve been waiting for that for years and apparently you have the magic touch!

I can confirm in Bitwig. Sine output at -1 on track, Raised +143 on Bus, lowered by same amount on Master. Result: -1dB, no harmonics.

In their defense, they responded to this pretty quickly, they just released 2022.10 and the first big update is what they call “noise burst peak protection preference” which seems to be the option to disable this clipping issue between tracks on their way to the output. They hear you and responded with a “big fix” three weeks later, not too shabby. I’m still on team “avid the company sucks,” but they’ve made it hard to extend that to seeing protools as an inherently inferior product. Where it counts for us to be able to actually use protools to do our work, they do the work. If only their product relations and marketing teams were as responsive and effective as the actual development teams.

It’s not a problem dude. It’s Industry standard 😂

​ @The Analog Vlog actually Reaper by default does have automatic (faded) mute on tracks that exceed +18 dB which you can configure or disable in Preferences -> Audio -> Mute/Solo

I Don’t see a point? 20db Headroom is not enough for you? Pro Tools have a 48bit summing Mixer. Not float. Always been. It can handle 32 bit float files. I never clipped pro Tools in a real world. That video it’s just clickbait.

Somewhere, an Avid admin just spilled coffee on his blue button down

Pro tools honestly just looks so ugly to me as a logic user and people say logic isn’t cute either 😅 I like it cause I started with garage band

Great video and thanks for pointing out this issue! I've always had a love-hate relationship with PT, and I only use it when I have to. I wonder if it's Pro Tools' aux tracks that are the problem here? I wonder what would happen if you put the gain compensation directly on the master fader? Hmmm....

Interesting; I'd like to know WHY this is happening; BUT and a big BUT! If someone is going 21.1dB over 0... they've got other issues they need to address;

Independent of the scenarios you point out, I find Reaper to be both more flexible and more intuitive than Pro Tools. I also use Linux as my daily driver these days which takes PT out of the running anyway.

But I mean, who's going +21db in their mixes anyways...?

So happy to have ditched PT long ago. Reaper is the ultimate daw IMHO!

There are no red lights anywhere on my mixes. That's how it should be anyway.

“Now let’s switch on over to ProTools… one of these days”… exactly! I’m just a home studio/hobby user but that’s why I got off the ProTools train a little over a year ago. Every time they did the slightest update, it was a month to get it running smoothly again. Ugh! So many wasted hours! Reaper boots up and is literally ready to record in 10 seconds and has been rock solid on my windows system. A bit of a learning curve, but I love it.

My instant thought was that this was intentionally put there as a warning or protection mechanism. No reason ever to be running that hot. Shoot i didnt even start mixing at 32bit float until a couple years ago. 20 something db of headroom above digital 0 is far and away more than enough. Anything approaching that and youve got a major issue somewhere. Thanks for thinking ahead avid.

Do you mean the extreme load times even into a blank template? Stock EQ that doesn't even do mid-side? If I didn't need it for post production, it would be gone.

Logic user so I find it interesting the cost of ProTools, ilock requirements, and the fact you have to pay money to have access to all plugin inserts.

Been done with pro tools since 2 year ago. Been loving Logic!

Beautiful. And you reconfirmed my love for Logic and Reaper at the same time. Suck it ‘Pro’ Tools

I don't understand why someone would pay so much money for a DAW when there's softwares like Cakewalk by Bandlab or Reaper.

This can definitely be a problem without proper gain staging. However... Logic Pro supremacy hehe😌✌ Seriously though, thanks for the video! Spreading awareness to a problem, no matter how small, is always important no matter what level engineers are using Pro Tools.

Remember the coke dealer in Boogie Nights with the twink throwing firecrackers in the house, going on about how Rick Springfield is the future of Rock and Roll? He also wrote Pro Tools. True story.

I just made the same test and it works as expected. I used Avid trim plugin to boost the signal 48db over the 0dbfs, and reduced for 48db on the way out, no distortion, no anything. Maybe you should double check your setup.

Hi, from Logic Pro specs page, it has 64 bit floating point summing engine, Reaper also has 64 bit summing engine (you can select also lower bit depth), also Cubase and Studio one have 64 bit internal summing engine, not 32 bit as you said in the description. I'm not sure about PT internal summing engine, but from your test it looks like PT is not using 64 bit floating point like Logic pro, I've read somewhere that PT is 48 bit integer, can't find some clear specs on that argument, but for a real world mix, it's not a problem, your test is showing us that 64 bit floating point has more headroom than the summing engine used by Pro Tools which is also enough for a proper mix without pushing to the limits intentionally.

Alright. If I ever had the sudden urge to boost any signal to +30db above 0, then i'll just use another DAW. Until then, I can't see how this is an issue for real world work? I am very interested to know the situations where exuberant amounts of dbs above 0 come in handy please.

Definitely interesting, although I am pretty careful in terms of gain staging so I’m not too concerned. And to be fair, there have been some fairly significant automation timing issues in Logic and a number of other DAWs which I find a bit more concerning in terms of potential real world issues. Curious if you tried this experiment with Reaper as well? Would love to know how it faired, although, again, while you have certainly demonstrated what appears to be a pretty glaring flaw (and thank you for that, btw) if one is generally careful about their gain staging when mixing, this seems like a bug you are unlikely to encounter. Still, canary in the coal mine and all - it seems weird that they got this wrong and didn’t catch it.

Nonsense. Learn proper gain staging! PT ist HiEnd stuff and a great working area. Stop this stupid PT bashing and learn to use your tools. You cant compare Logic and reaper with PT. PT has so many advantages in Post Pro, Dubbing, VO, ADR, multi channel, etc. etc. and with it's perfect integration of the great AVID controllers it is the best HiEnd DAW on the market. No doubt.

I was a 15+ year user of pro tools that's pro tools certified. I used pts from 7.3 to 2018.1 as my main daw to mix and make music for a living. The third time they tried to make me buy a lifetime perpetual lic I said F that! Especially since the only support I cld get or talk to was a Sweetwater rep that tried to get up w them but I don't pay for a service plan so they won't even talk to me, smh! Switched to logic pro x and hadn't been happier and more up to date instantly! Pro Tools upkeep is terrible that's why wjen I saw they were going sub only I spit my drink out laughing. U prolly still have to have snow Leopard tho hahaha

No problem with Bitwig studio ( and with pro tools 2023.12 if the protection is off --> Preferences / Processing / Misc / uncheck --> Noise Burst Protection )

If you’re not acutely aware of your gain staging, you should take an audio production 101 class.

Hmmmm A DAW that lets you go 80dB+ over 0 with no problem -or- A DAW that will react to digital overs in a way that will make you conscious of the horrendous gain staging IDK

Welp. Glad I’m off the Pro Tools train and onto Luna. As soon as Luna gets hardware delay compensation I will be completely happy with the switch.

It seems that ProTools uses int 32 instead of float 32, which is why you don't get those nulls. It rounds out the decimals.

If I'm doing it right, Studio One 5 can handle 24+24+24+9 = 81dB ....above that, it auto-disable the last plugin to avoid clipping.

ditched protools long ago, but lets be honest, if you are in any daw and not "acutely aware of gain staging", you should learn to mix.

Nothing like a mixing board to tape or a digital recorder

I've noticed something interesting as well in PT Studio. I'm running UAD Appollo 16 converters set at +4 on the inputs. Once I went from my PT Perpetual License to the subscription PT Studio, I could not get the same input level from my Mic Pres. The levels were 6 db lower in PT Studio now after the PT Studio update. I would try the exact same settings in Logic with healthy input levels from both of my Avalon 737s. Something is very wrong with the code in PT Studio. I've now after nearly 22 years on ProTools professionally, moved to Logic for this and many other PT reasons. One glaring reason is the constant UI issues with PT Studio on Mac M1 machines. I've also read and experienced the the ridiculous CPU error PT Studio throws out on very basic sessions with only 1 plugin on Mac M1 Ultra and Max machines. I'm done with Avid / PT as the subscription feels more like I'm paying to be a beta tester each month and I'm required to submit issues. Logic may not be the best audio editor on the planet, but it's way better than PT issues.

This vid makes me miss my 4 track. We have lost the plot. Just make good music.

Sorry homie but nothing can make me uninstall Pro Tools. You can't uninstall something that you've already uninstalled

Considering 0VU is -18dBFS... I would never run into this issue or even come close to it... remember this is PRO tools not AMATEUR Tools. If people don’t know how to calibrate and align their system and gain stage their signal path correctly then they should use logic and leave pro tools for the people it was designed for... the PROS!

This is another wasted time video that mislead people into thinking they are going to make better music with a “better” DAW. Love Pro Tools? Keep it. Like Logic? Go for it. It is you commanding DAW, not the other way around.

WOW! I knew avid was a dinosaur but not this ancient.

that's why some people are still using the old protools with tdm 3 plugins with the 48bit summing mixer , it's the perfect combination all the good high end ADC are in 24bit perfect bit anyway and you gotta preserve those precious samples at all cost, the bidepth for me is the most important aspect if you know all the science behind this you'll discover a lot of things in the computer science and electronics it's quite complicated you need years of studiying the different areas, building a good studio with the perfect audio path is not possible for everybody buying from the shelf is not enough ,like elon musk said Breakdown the problem into its fundamental principles and go up from there

After using Avid since 2003 I'm fed up that they continue to rape our pockets ever year.....Studio one looking more and more amazing packed with a lot of features I wasn't aware of! Thanks for exposing these crooks....

Just an FYI, ProTools has been made aware of this for years. I have had discussions with engineers there and at shows. Many, somewhat jokingly (or sometimes not), assert that this is actually a "protection feature", designed to keep you from going too loud and blowing your speakers. Many say that people have learned to work around this, but that it means that you have to deal with higher noise levels with certain types of gear, lots of extra intermediate gain staging, and an inability to do certain types of hard driven effects in the box. A few people have said that at some point they will likely address this issue with a new audio engine for Pro Tools, but that it is not trivial, since their engine is used throughout their entire DAW, Carbon, HDX and related product lines. The fact that some try to assert with a straight face that it is a "protection feature" is ridiculous for so many reasons (and why some of them joke about it)-- not the least of it being that virtually all other DAW's (intro level to advanced beyond ProTools in many ways like Pyramix and Reaper) all do it the right way. Either 32 bit is 32 bit, and 64 bit is 64 bit or they are not. Only AVID has the chutzpah to even try to paint this problem as a "feature". First, many devices need to come in at unity gain and are left with 20dB of actual headroom. That is a major issue. Second, if it was to only be on the output side(i.e. where it goes to speakers and headphones), why not put a default hard limiter set to on by default in the Preferences on just the I/O side, instead of truncating and skewing bits inside of the DAW's engine far away from any I/O? Obviously, they should allow pro users to do what all pro users can do on virtually all other DAW's. Also, most monitors have protection, and the truth is that at even 20 dB, underlying gain would still be monitor limited in any case. In actual point of fact, as some have shown, the type of distortion that ProTools introduces with that "feature" is actually more likely to do damage even within a "safe" range-- at least to your hearing, which I believe that most actually care more about-- even if their distortion "feature" was really necessary to protect features.

I was expecting you to introduce Reaper...pointing out the sonic possibilitys of Reaper will make you uninstall Protools

Great detective work! Been out of garbage PT for years.. F Avid

ouch didn't realize this! I rarely clip channels anyway, but sometimes I'll clip between plugins for saturation effects, but this is interesting. Also i noticed you are running an older version of pro tools than what was just released weeks ago. update and try again, but I'm sure it's there. I always knew PT didn't handle overs well, but didn't realize that logic and reaper handled them soo well! glad i do all of my master bus processing in reaper where I'm usually pushing overs slightly between plugins (looking at you tape plugins and clippers). I am gonna try testing this in cubase as well. this is a really interesting test! thanks! Edit: confirm still happens in the latest version of Pro Tools. upon further investigation what is weird is that i did all of my tests using Q3 as the booster for the gain. it seems PT has 20db of headroom, BUT what was weird was inter plugins were fine. so that's good news! well i guess for fab filter?

Still making money from music played on radio/film/television….about 14 years strong Protools. Nothing bad to say about the others. Use what works for you. Make great shit, doesn’t matter the tools at this point

Something seems amiss. I don't use PT and have never used PT, but I wonder if there's a configuration setting that's set incorrectly. If not and this is real, then I just can't figure out what they're thinking when they make it behave this way. True, most engineers won't ever run into this, but it shouldn't be possible to run into this.

hmm what smells so sour in the comments? and I guess everyone have known at least 2 DAW yeah? oh look reaper rise their hands

Interesting. Thank You. Subscribed.

If you are mixing any signal 20db over digital zero you have bigger problems than the DAW you use

This looks like the mixer is still running old code for the older 48bit fixed point engine from the older HD system. Pre-Protools HDX. Avid use to use a 48bit fixed point mixer but that was supposedly gone with Pro Tools 9 and with the HDX cards in Pro Tools 10 and up. I stopped using PT at version 11 and sold my HDX cards. You could check your auxes and masterbus with a bit depth plugin like the Free Stillwell audio Bitter and see it the auxes are fixed point or floating point. This inter-sample peaking distortion is a GIANT RED FLAG, and a very bad sign for AVID.

Never mind the DAW, I wouldn't run that hot because I wouldn't trust my plugins to handle it properly.

Woo let’s go Logic 👍

RIP All hit songs and movies mixed in protools. Who is mixing above 0 dBFS

That is shocking and in the same time disgraceful! Avid as a monopolist on the sound engineering and post-production market established a position where industry professionals describe Pro tools as an industry standard. Whereas so many fat lazy coders who can't manage proper coding and optimization make more and more mistakes, software engineering requires an ability to learn from previous mistakes and rewrite the code in order to restore stability and overall quality of the software. According to the sources no wonder that the majority of ex-pro tools users swapped Pro tools for Studio One Pro by Presonus which offers higher stability, higher headroom and nearly 80% more optimized code for third-party plugins.Avid should learn more from competition and build something stable and affordable, not shady corporate product that cost ultimately $1000 lol

My one reason I uninstalled- when u subscribe, you’re not allowed to cancel. So you’ll just pay a monthly fee for something you don’t use, every month for a year. Sounds like punishment lol

That's amusing, because if you bounce a signal above 0dB in 32 bit float processing, import it back in, and turn down the gain, you will just see a sausage. Say what you like about gain staging, but Apple's snake oil game is still going strong.

Seeing as you didn't compensate with bus 1-2s master fader I'm not surprised, it's not a correct understanding of the PT mixer and not a valid test. I just tried and got considerably more channel level over 0 before it distorted by compensating NOT on the aux channel plugin (post bus 1-2 master level), but on the bus 1-2 master fader.... Also, if I'm that bad an engineer to allow my channel level THAT far over 0dB, then I would probably not notice any distortion that resulted from it, presumably because I'm not only deaf, but blind as well! I shall keep pro tools for now thanks.

My initial instinct is that this is a Studio vs whatever HD/Ultimate is called these days sort of limitation. I wouldn’t be too surprised… but I also wouldn’t be shocked if this was some sort of mistake. Either way, it’s the Avid way!

Cool video, but do people seriously mix like that? Even when I was a total noob I don't think I would have ever pushed 10dB over 0...Happy to announce I do gain stage and am a total wuss about it, Can't beat my workflow in PT.

To all those claiming that the 'Avid Pro Tools' comment pinned under this post was them making an 'excuse' for a 'bug', they've since released a version as promised that allows users the option of turning off the " Noise Burst Peak Protection" feature.

I guess since I’m not a complete idiot I’ll go ahead and keep using PT as it’s workflow suits me best

Its probably intentional, to prevent damage to your equipment

this should absolutely never be a problem but i guess

I use studio one. Bouta test this on it.

If you mix in any daw … and go 21 db over digital zero… you dont need to change your daw … you need to get some mixing lessons 😅

Out of curiosity (I've switched to Reaper years ago), was your session set to 32 bit float ? The PT documentation is quite unclear and lets one think that this setting only affects audio files and therefore should not have any influence on the mixer, but it also states that : "Using a 32-bit floating point bit depth for audio files in Pro Tools sessions and projects (...) can also help avoid rounding errors in signal processing (which can occur during bit depth conversion for file playback and real-time plug-in insert processing). " (reference guide 2022.9 page 169) Besides, the plugins you used may look the same, but I honestly don't know if there might be signal processing differences between AU and AAX formats. Ditch Pro Tools anyway, this is basically too old computer code for current machines 🙂

Nuendo also works, perfectly, of course :)

somebody give me one practical reason to ever go 21db over digital zero during mixing please

this dude when he can’t make crazy loud noise:😡😡😡😡

Interesting , i didn't know that

I just want something that can do Dolby atmos and run all my vsts and have the stereo mastering suite like studio one pro has. Plz help

3:00 what makes you thin VUMT can handle full 64 bits?

Wow!! I only use protools as a tape machine BUT also for mastering - I mix in Nuendo - and you have made me want to master in Nuendo from now on as this is unacceptable!!

So, what I think you're saying is that you can't use Pro tools any longer because it's not as capable as they've lead you to believe? Despite the fact that many recordings and mixes, using the same software, will be released by major artists. Possibly go Gold or Platinum. And some will be nominated for Grammys. You can't use THAT software with confidence any longer.

What version of PT are you using ? I‘m testing this on my old 12.5 PT system when I get to my studio. My primary DAW is Reaper though thankfully.

Dude just say you a Logic FanBoy No one Will uninstall Pro Tools

Don't fear the Reaper

The lack of support that AVID offers is insane. It’s like applying for a job at the pentagon with a criminal record. I cannot get anyone to answer one question about why the software won’t open…… when I try to contact support , the site loops me back to my current open case which gave me zero help And answered no questions. I am Going to let my subscription expire, and go to another DAW. Whata waste of time and money.

Using Pro Tools and is like eating vegtables, Its terrible and you hate it, but you just have to grin and bear it.

So.... I'm... I'm ok if I don't go 20 dB OVER ZERO, right? I mean, I'm.... pretty sure we were all taught proper gainstaging at some point, and if not, this is a great place to start - I mean a few dB here and there over zero, ok.... and you're telling me that's fine, right? Just not 20 dB? Because that is in a whole league of gain staging issues that we really shouldn't be dealing with, ever.

Before you hit bounce or a plug-in that doesn’t like being baked.

Sorry if this sounds like a silly question. But when we sum out stems out to a out gear summing device, do we eliminate our DAW headroom all together?

"Most people who have been using pro tools for years are actually engineers. And this will “never” be an issue"….. let me repeat….. this statement from user before…so now you know...

You're complaining about the free bitcrusher Avid provided you with?

no one ever pull up till 21! clipping meant becareful with 20+ above

Wait seriously that’s gotcha? As someone who takes mixing seriously, proper gain structure is without question. Thus this video means I will continue to use pro tools. Wow.