DP7 bouncy meters

[audiobrad]

Here's a weird one: when playing back audio files, the channel and audio monitor meters seem to bounce in wide (10-12 dB) swings in disproportion to the audio content. They also tend to hit the peak meters about 6-8 dB too soon. The content I am using was mastered on a ProTools rig with an L1 set at -1 dBFS, so I know it doesn't clip. But when these files are imported into DP, the meters clip until I reduce the channel fader to about -6. The meters seem to pulse wildly (even on a synth pad section) even though the fluctuation is only a few dB on PT, Dorroughs, or other meters. It's as if the amplitude is being modulated by a sine wave independent of the music. (But there is no audible pulsing and outboard meters read fine).

So the next thing I did was check some 1kHz tones at -20 dB and -1 dB. These playback perfectly at correct levels in DP. BUT HERE'S THE KICKER: when I stop playback of the tone, the meters almost always jump before settling to zero. So I took the tone and chopped it into 500 ms bursts with 500 ms space between - and the meters jump at the cutoffs and a 2nd smaller bounce (like an echo of the first bounce) in the silence between tone bursts. Note that I deactivated all track inputs to be sure there were no feedback loops. There was no processing and no MIDI - just a single track of audio playback (Mac Pro).

I should add that this may have been going on for a long time - I'm the studio owner and don't often use this system. The primary user is not as tech oriented about such things. We plan to upgrade to DP8 soon - maybe this will fix itself. Any ideas? (Sorry for the long post!)

[ccrane]

I have run into this a couple of times, a computer restart fixed the problem both times.

[audiobrad]

I wish rebooting worked in this case.

[Releaux]

I came across this post after a google search for "DP8 bouncy meters." I was experiencing the same issue described in the original post, though I didn't try all of the additional tests.

In my case, the restart fixed the issue. Just wanted to add an additional data point in case others come across this.

[audiobrad]

We suspect it was some kind of processing problem. It is gone in DP8.