Sound is left heavy

[Gabriel_S]

Hi all,

Whenever I import a track into Pro Tools it plays back left heavy, for eg. the left monitor is louder than the right monitor. Checked my settings on the monitors, bounced to disk, sent the files to my band mates and they hear the same thing. I'm guessing it's the stereo pan law but I can't seem to find the settings anywhere.

A push in the right direction would be greatly appreciated :)

TIA!

[zedhed]

To clarify;

Is the mix on the whole louder on the left, or just imported audio tracks?

If it's just the imported audio, you may need to verify whether or not they were originally bounced down panned harder to the left.

Does the channel strip meter show a higher level on left channel?

[BobbyDazzler]

It shouldn't be a pan law issue, and I'd expect the problem to be on the analog side of things to be honest.
(Unless you've set up a session template that has some incorrect panning going on?)
I have also seen a setup that always pulled to one side, but the problem ended up being a time delay on one side of the stereo which caused a percieved image shift.

[Gabriel_S]

Originally Posted by zedhed

To clarify;

Is the mix on the whole louder on the left, or just imported audio tracks?

If it's just the imported audio, you may need to verify whether or not they were originally bounced down panned harder to the left.

Does the channel strip meter show a higher level on left channel?

Thanks for the reply Zed !

When I put the tracks through Cubase everything is panned accordingly. Don't think it's the files I was sent. With that said this only happens with stereo tracks. The Mono tracks from our guitarist and my keyboards sit dead center in PT.

Also yes, the stereo track meters are pretty level. I'm aware that PT prior version 9, the defualt stereo pan law is -2.5db. I'm pretty sure that is the culprit (would like to drop it to -3 or -4.5db) but can't seem to find the settings for it anywhere .....

Always my best
Gabriel

[Gabriel_S]

Originally Posted by BobbyDazzler

It shouldn't be a pan law issue, and I'd expect the problem to be on the analog side of things to be honest.
(Unless you've set up a session template that has some incorrect panning going on?)
I have also seen a setup that always pulled to one side, but the problem ended up being a time delay on one side of the stereo which caused a percieved image shift.

Thanks Bobby!

I'll take another look at the template and check if there is any wierd time delay going on anywhere.

Edit: Seemed to have found the culprit, using the Air Stereo Width plug in the Master Fader is what's causing the issue. If I disable it all the stereo tracks are dead center. Looks like I'm definitely going to need to upgrade to version 9 after I finish this mix.