Does Pro Tools have a frequency response?

[barismanco123]

Hi all,

Just a general interest question that I can't seem to find the answer to. I don't need to know but would like to.

Does Pro Tools have a frequency response?

Forget about word clocks, microphones, monitors and all other gear which would have their maximum and minimum capabilities.

I want to know what is the lowest frequency that Pro Tools will play back and the highest it will play back? Can it play back frequencies higher and lower than the human threshold.

I was just thinking about harmonics etc and that they can exist way higher and lower than we hear.

Thanks

[netnoggin]

Originally Posted by barismanco123

Hi all,

Just a general interest question that I can't seem to find the answer to. I don't need to know but would like to.

Does Pro Tools have a frequency response?

Forget about word clocks, microphones, monitors and all other gear which would have their maximum and minimum capabilities.

I want to know what is the lowest frequency that Pro Tools will play back and the highest it will play back? Can it play back frequencies higher and lower than the human threshold.

I was just thinking about harmonics etc and that they can exist way higher and lower than we hear.

Thanks

You mean Pro Tools the software, or are you talking about your (yet unspecified) Pro Tools/Avid audio interface? Which one do you have? The interface will be the limiting factor, although you are correct that Avid is not exactly forthcoming about things like frequency response. On their spec sheets they usually show only flatness within the 20-20khz band (+/- 0.25db for the MBox 2 for instance.

[barismanco123]

Hi netnoggin,

Just the software, not hardware related.

Thanks

[netnoggin]

Well, it's kind of irrelevant, since you are tied to the hardware to make anything audible happen, but...

I don't know the actual answer, but here's some food for thought. Pro Tools will easily display any DC offset on your incoming signal, which means it goes to DC (or 0) on the low end. On the high end, the HD version of Pro Tools is capable of recording at 192khz, which implies an upper end of something around half that, if Harry Nyquist has anything to say about it.

But again this is all theoretical, as your limitation is the audio interface itself.

[barismanco123]

Well, it's kind of irrelevant, since you are tied to the hardware to make anything audible happen, but...

What if I downloaded a wave file of a recording of a low frequency noise capured on a scientific microphone, say of an under water soundwave. I am not tied to my hardware as I dragged and dropped it in, for example.

What would Pro Tools do with that sound, would it show on the meters even? Imagine the soundwave did not have harmonics that even hit 20 Hz so it was inaudible to humans.

I guess one thing would be to try it, but I'm just curious at this stage and wondered if it was a well known thing but maybe it's not...

Sorry for the silly questions, I'm just curious.

One of the programmers must know...DTS?

[netnoggin]

Originally Posted by barismanco123

What if I downloaded a wave file of a recording of a low frequency noise capured on a scientific microphone, say of an under water soundwave. I am not tied to my hardware as I dragged and dropped it in, for example.

What would Pro Tools do with that sound, would it show on the meters even? Imagine the soundwave did not have harmonics that even hit 20 Hz so it was inaudible to humans.

I guess one thing would be to try it, but I'm just curious at this stage and wondered if it was a well known thing but maybe it's not...

Sorry for the silly questions, I'm just curious.

One of the programmers must know...DTS?

As I mentioned in the previous post, Pro Tools does indeed go down to 0 (zero, as in DC), so your underwater soundwave scenario won't be a problem. Zero is much lower than 20.

BTW, they're not silly questions, at least not to me.

[guitardom]

You have a signal generator in pt. Instead of asking, go find out!!!!

[netnoggin]

Originally Posted by netnoggin

As I mentioned in the previous post, Pro Tools does indeed go down to 0 (zero, as in DC), so your underwater soundwave scenario won't be a problem. Zero is much lower than 20.

BTW, they're not silly questions, at least not to me.

Someone still needs to answer some technical questions though. For instance, DC doesn't show up on the level meters, I don't think. So that implies there is some sort of defined low-end for the meters anyway other than zero. But the waveform should be accurate.

[barismanco123]

BTW, they're not silly questions, at least not to me.

Well if I cant be a PT nerd here then it's nowhere I guess

You have a signal generator in pt. Instead of asking, go find out!!!!

I will, though I did think the lowest it went was 20Hz.

It does make me wonder still if there is an absolute lowest and highest. I suppose only the programmers know this.

Cheers

[barismanco123]

Someone still needs to answer some technical questions though.

I think that too.

Do people use PT for science, if not it may be for the inaccuracy as non human threshold frequencies?