Will any plugin alter the sound at least a little?

[overeasy]

The answer is probably embarrasingly obvious, but I have to ask...

Lacking any decent metering for my at-home ITB PT rig, I was forced to instantiate the BF Essential Meter Bridge thing across my master fader - just to get some idea of energy levels L to R on a mix I was busy slaughtering.

I swear to god it did something to the sound - like higher frequencies felt the teeniest bit ameliorated, and the mix felt slightly more cohesive. I had to walk away when I found myself kinda LIKING the mix better.

Am I simply hearing the result of non-compensated plug-in delay?

OK. Someone tell me how dumb I am. Could be the ol' expectation bias working against my ability to perceive, real-time, just what the hell is happening when I listen?

[RWC]

bounce the mix out with and without it then see if there is any sound playing them side by side with the phase flipped on one track.

[Bob Olhsson]

Changing CPU loads have been known to change the jitter spectrum of the clocking which can subtly alter the tonality and imaging. We mastering engineers used to go nutz with this stuff until D to A converters that could rejuct the clocking problems finaly became available.

This is why high quality monitoring D to As are a huge deal to some of us. That way we won't ever be reaching for signal processing to correct problems that are actually being caused by clocking.

[3rd world order]

Changing CPU loads have been known to change the jitter spectrum of the clocking which can subtly alter the tonality and imaging. We mastering engineers used to go nutz with this stuff until D to A converters that could rejuct the clocking problems finaly became available.

This is why high quality monitoring D to As are a huge deal to some of us. That way we won't ever be reaching for signal processing to correct problems that are actually being caused by clocking.i used to notice this a lot with protools LE bounce to disk mixes with material with a lot of distortion harmonics... the bounced mix would always sound different than the normal playback.. but i couldnt prove it because they'd null. i only really noticed it when there was a lot of harmonic content in the mix tho.

[overeasy]

.. the bounced mix would always sound different than the normal playback..

Something I've wrestled with for a long time, even on a TDM rig. Lead vocals, in particular, always seem to detach from the instruments during - and while playing back - a bounce to disk. I don't know how many hundreds of times I've had to abort a bounce only to go in and re-seat the LV cause it jumped way the hell out from where I spent a day putting it. Crappy DA/clocking, as well?

thank you all for chiming in. Sounds like I may just be fighting inferior gear...

...:Roll eyes:


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HURRAY IT'S NOT MY FAULT!!

FUCK THE INDIAN IT IS THE ARROW THIS TIME!! :grin: :grin: :grin: