Question

Hi, I have an issue with DC offset when doing mastering. I did the mastering for a song. The PRE FX analysis shows DC offset "-inf" on both channels. But after plugins, DC offset show in the POST FX analysis "-80dB".

The last plugin in chain is the studio one LIMITER, but before I inserted de PRO EQ with a HI PASS filter set on 20Hz a 48dB/oct.

I tried to invert and leave at last the PRO EQ after the LIMITER, but DC OFFSET stay the same.

I have to worry about this??

Answer 1

Hi, I also have a DC offset issue.  It only appears on some of the songs I am mastering.  Most show negative infinity (which is the appropriate value) but some show -85db (or thereabouts).  It doesn't change whether the reading is Pre-FX or Post-FX.  I have tried inserting Mixtool in the signal path (with "block DC offset" checked) but that does not seem to make any difference.  I am not hearing any problem - but would like to remove the issue in case those with better ears than mine can hear something arising from DC offset.

Any suggestions?

thanks

Answer 2

There seem to be enough questions about this DC Offset / MixTool issue that Presonus would supply an answer or perhaps a short video addressing concerns. Having devoted the engineering time to giving users such detailed metering and the Mixtool that includes DC Offset settings, Presonus developers and support team must have some answers about proper use -- or at least the level of concern users should have in seeing less-than-ideal settings.

Many of us are learning as we go and as Presonus grows, which is one of the great benefits of the Presonus / Studio One platform, so please address this question that seems comes up quite a bit in searches.Thanks!

Answer 3

I had this issue since about 2016......I hate DC offset values in ProjectPage so I've spent a lot of time to try and try to understand why this happen. I'm not a professional guy so I can only contribute saying that I have encountered several cases (I think my mistakes) that originate this:

1) appropriate gain staging that means that often I did too much encrease  of the original signal in the channel strip in particular without paying enough attention to compressors

2) wrong EQ that generate frequency phase problems. For this issue, I usually mixdown one bus at a time, so I can identify in what group I have this problem. After identification I usually cut all unusefull low frequencies depending  of the instrument

3) DC stationary rumble in the sub frequencies. For this issue I put a HPF in the MainOut Q48 about at 40Hz. This HPF, combined with the operations at point (2) often it is enough to solve DC problem in the loudness analysis in the Project Page.

NB: I use Project Page only to analyze loudness values (and DC) and I don't use the Project Page to master the mix or other operations.

If the step 3 doesn't work, sometimes I disable all EQ only to see if some EQ generate some unespected phase problem.

This is my way to operate, and I know that some professional guy could have the solution to save time. . Unfortunately nothing is written in the documentation and nothing you can find in tutorials about this from Presonus.

I tried to speak about this with some Presonus guru but they find fairly normal to have values in DC offset.

Pls excuse my poor english.

Bye

Daniele