TRY THIS - You won't believe it

[John McDaniel]

For a long time, I've been struggling with the "left heavy" thing on the ProControl monitor out. When I got my first ProControl, we were hooking up new monitors and trying new gear out in preparation for moving into an entirely new facility, so I wrote it off as my imagination or a result of throwing together a bunch of new gear. Then we moved into the new facilty (and added a second PC) and it still seemed to be there. At the time, my rep didn't seem to know anything about a ProControl's tendency to be left heavy on the monitor out as some people have noted here. We noticed that the placement of the computer keyboard on the sliding tray beneath the ProControl was off center due to the trackball on the right side of the keyboard. It seemed that we were sitting off center at times because we were centering up to the keyboard instead of the room/monitor setup. So... I wrote the problem off for a while longer. Well, I've still had this nagging thing about a left heavy perception in the monitors, so I called Digi Tech Support about it several weeks ago and the tech said that the ProControls WERE left heavy, but only and the furthest extreme travel in the attenuation. ie: at very low levels with the knob all the way to the left (turned down).
Wellllll... still frustrated, I tried this little test today: Mono music file duplicated onto two tracks panned mono. Insert Time Adjuster plug-in. Hit the phase button on one plug-in. As expected the signal cancels out completely. NOW, pan the two channels hard left and hard right. With the phase still flipped on one channel, hit the MONO button on the ProControl. Sweep the monitor pot through its range. You will find that the left heaviness of the monitor pot VARIES over the travel of the pot. Here are the amounts of gain required by the right channel to cancel (or as close to possible to canceling given the fader resolution) the left channel onmy PCs:

ProControl #1:

Monitor pot position / gain required on R chan
9:00 / +1.8 dB
12:00 / +1.5 dB
1:30 / +1.0 dB
3:00 / +0.5 dB

Pro Control #2:

Monitor pot position / gain required on R chan
9:00 / +1.8 dB
12:00 / +0.9 dB
1:30 / +0.5 dB
3:00 / +0.1 dB

Holy faderpack, Batman!! I'm not so freakin' crazy after all.

If you set up the monitor pot to null at 12:00 you can sweep back and forth and hear the variation in L/R balance.

The REAL PITA about this is that you CAN'T fix this by tweaking an amp gain setting or other part of the monitor chain.

I'M LOOKING AT MY INVITATION FROM DIGI TO 'UPGRADE' MY MONITOR SECTION AND IT DOESN'T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT FIXING THIS. Is this fixed in the upgrade? Digi?? Gannon??

Gee whiz.

Anybody care to try this and report?

later, j mcd


[This message has been edited by John McDaniel (edited February 20, 2001).]

[This message has been edited by John McDaniel (edited February 20, 2001).]

[Kenny Gioia]

I had a similar problem.

I called Digi and they sent me a new pot for free even though my warranty was up.

Pretty Cool.

I'm gonna try this test On my new pot

[PTPerson]

Yep,

Dressing to the left here too

[Jim Roberts]

Same thing. Thanks John!

Digi - how do I get a new pot? Easy to self install? Down-time?

[Jules]

Same here as well... I just hit dim to get centered sound at low levels. PITA

Is it fixed on the new upgrade pack?

jules

[Camilo Orozco]

Count me!

[airon]

Has anyone noticed this behaviour in a Procontrol that's less than a year old ? Or half a year ? I'm concerned here. Perhaps it's advisable to get a professional preamp with all the features ( Tomas Funk/Berlin for example builds stuff like that ).

We're getting our PC put up in the coming days. Won't we all hit the roof if this still happens!

Tony

[stevegalante]

I have the same problem too, I bought PC less tham one year ago. Hope the update (if any ???) will fix this.


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www.downinhollywood.com

[This message has been edited by stevegalante (edited February 22, 2001).]

[John McDaniel]

bumping this one up.

Also:

Does anyone feel that the mono summation performed by the MONO button on the ProControl is hot? I'm used to checking mono compatibility on analog consoles where the mono sum gave the perception of an image shift, but no change in perceived loudness.

Comments?

j mcd

[PTPerson]

Yep. there's definately a bump of about 3, 4 db when hitting mono here.

Just lufffffffly