Issues with Audiosuite Gain

[Matt_Jones]

Hello. I've been using Pro-Tools Since 9, but this is the first time I've posted in a forum. I'm just curious if anyone else has noticed extreme inconsistency with the Gain plug-in in the Audiosuite menu. I use it quite a bit to set levels and help keep my compression even. It also helps to limit how much I have to automate and is great for VO work across multiple tracks where I need everyone talking about the same level but don't want heavy compression.

What I do is I select my clip and then in the Gain plugin in peak mode click analyze and then use the clip gain fader to get the peak level to read around -3 to -2 dB or so in the gain plugin. By using peak mode and setting clip gain manually instead of actually rendering through the plug-in my goal is to keep the dynamics alive, but compression and overall level fairly even.

My problem is in my latest session I can't get a good read in the Gain plug-in. It'll read at say -9 dB so I adjust the clip gain up 6 dB, but when I analyze again the Gain plug-in will still show -9 dB or a small change like -8.8. This has always been a bit of a problem, but before I could always adjust the clip gain by an extreme amount like + or - 30 dB and it seemed like it would reset the plug-in analysis and give me a good readout. Now with 2018 no matter what I do I can't get the darn plug-in to read my clips accurately and consistently. some clips work fine, but others not so much.

I tested with one clip that I pushed up 23 dB until the Gain plug-in read -3dB and it was way louder than the clips around it which also read -3dB and was uber distorted. I can use my trusty ole ears to get things where I need, but this was a super quick workflow that just isn't working anymore. Anyone else deal with this and have a solution or work around?