Is the PT12 monitor down-mix wrong?

[The Cargo Cult]

Is it just me?
I have pink noise on a mono track, with a 7.1 output.
On my laptop it auto-maps this 7.1 to my usual stereo output.

Here's the bug:
If I pan to the side or rear it's waaaay louder than when panned to front - like about 8db.
If I pan to centre it's louder still, something like 10db

This is very very bad.
I'd say a sensible downmix would drop the surrounds -6dB, so you could say there's is about 14dB too much level in the surround channels when downmixed by the Pro Tools monitor section.

Using PT12.2.1 with various stereo outputs and a handheld level meter to guess at the level differences.

Anyone else?

[originalscottyg]

There should be preference settings for the auto-downmixing. It would seem like they could just tap into the down-mixer plugin presets (hopefully allowing user presets as well) in a dropdown menu in the preferences.

[originalscottyg]

Ideascale post here:

http://protools.ideascale.com/a/dtd/...12/234424-3779

Thanks!

[Postman]

Originally Posted by The Cargo Cult

Is it just me?
I have pink noise on a mono track, with a 7.1 output.
On my laptop it auto-maps this 7.1 to my usual stereo output.

Here's the bug:
If I pan to the side or rear it's waaaay louder than when panned to front - like about 8db.
If I pan to centre it's louder still, something like 10db

This is very very bad.
I'd say a sensible downmix would drop the surrounds -6dB, so you could say there's is about 14dB too much level in the surround channels when downmixed by the Pro Tools monitor section.

Using PT12.2.1 with various stereo outputs and a handheld level meter to guess at the level differences.

Anyone else?

Not doing that here, on 12.4HD. Surrounds are -1.5db (which I admit is a little unusual), but nothing crazy like you are seeing.

[Postman]

Oh, hey, I just noticed this is an old thread. Good idea about user preference though!

[The Cargo Cult]

still broken AFAIK.
I've just started putting a Spanner on the 7.1 bus to do my own downmix to stereo.
Like having a pref but better.

[MIKEROPHONICS]

If it's like the Omni down mix, then in my humble oinion it is wrong.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Postman]

The monitor downmixer seems very useable to me. Athough I personally have no need to use it at all it seems perfectly good for editing or working on big productions with headphones or a makeshift speaker setup. Why Avid has chosen non-typical surround downmix levels will be a mystery, but you could simply insert a Spanner or the built-in downmix plugin to take control.

Bah, but really, I don't want to be argumentative. I just don't see a huge problem, certainly nothing like the OP saw.