Logic Pro 8 LE8 EQ sounds different in QT Player

Phos....

New Member
First post, newish user, diligent middle-age, tech-savvy student, recent upgrader from GarageBand. Please be gentle, and I'll buy the wine & dinner. I've dug through the user manual, and searched the net and these forums, but can't find an answer. I'm also aware that because of my inexperience there may be some details I will fail to mention in what follows, so I'll be happy to fill in any blanks...just ask away.

I used Zamzar to grab & convert my friend's band's video-a live recording from the early '80s. It's saved as a .mov file on my desktop. I extracted the stereo track and saved it by itself as a 16/44.1 .aiff file. My goal is to boost the gain, tweak the EQ, and open up the stereo-field space a little. Nothing fancy nor expert-I realize there's only so much shine you can put on a ball of earwax; it just needs to be a little more palatable, and louder.

I've dragged the extracted .aiff track into Logic. Channel inserts are basic & native...Gain, Channel EQ, & Spread, that's it. I've tweaked it well enough, and exported as a 16/44.1 .aiff file. Here's where the head scratching begins.

Monitoring the enhanced audio in LE8, it sounds decent enough for my needs; the overall volume (very little-to-no clipping), EQ spectrum and stereo spread is much better (to my ears, anyway), but when playing the exported .aiff file in a QT player, there's a marked difference in the EQ, i.e. more mid-to-high freq (say, in the 5-8kHz range). sizzle than I'm hearing in Logic. In A/B'ing the files, I've done the best I can in manually adjusting the output volume from each application, so they are reasonably similar in over all volume.

Am I missing some output &/or export considerations in Logic, or is there a reason why QT would interpret the file differently?

Many thanks in advance for your participation...I'm loving the learning process!
 
I'm confused when you say output volume in each application.

You should have the QT volume at full, and Logic fader vol (on the output bus) at unity (90 or -0dB) This will compare at the same volume. (also check Logic master fader)

This may appear a stupid question, but you are monitoring via the same interface for both QT and Logic? e.g. either an external A/D converter or the mac built in audio.
 
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Heya, Pete....Thanks for jumping in here.

Yes....QT Player UI volume is set at 100%; same with my Mac's OS-level audio. Sound panel in System Prefs balanced dead center. Logic's output bus is set at 0.0 dB; same with Logic's master fader.

I've got nothing fancy going on...no external D/A converters, no external amp, mixer or processing gear. I'm monitoring with both decent AKG headphones straight out of the Mac's jack and through a directly-connected pair of Alesis M1 Active MkII powered monitors. Using either, I can hear a distinct-though not radically shifted-difference in the EQ curve.

Before my original post I called a friend who has more experience with Logic than I to see if he had any clues to help me get this sussed. He asked the same questions. What is confounding to both of us is that it seems so odd that this is happening, considering that Logic and QT are both Apple products, and considering that an .aiff file is a professional industry standard. We both figured there should be absolutely no discernible difference.

Since the only variable seems to be which application is reading, then outputting the signal to the audio circuitry, my thinking was leading me to believe that maybe there was some setting I was missing in the Export process from Logic. I'm reasonably sure I have everything set to simple default-like I've said, 16 bit/44.1 kHz.

Maybe there's something I've overlooked?

Thanks again, Pete....and in advance to anyone else who chirps in.
(BTW, Pete...just checked your profile and clicked through to your site. You may be pleased to know that I'd already been there, a couple months ago after I first installed LE8. Your tutorials are most helpful. I haven't read them all yet, but I've had the site bookmarked since my first visit. Cheers!)
 
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I've dragged the extracted .aiff track into Logic. Channel inserts are basic & native...Gain, Channel EQ, & Spread, that's it. I've tweaked it well enough, and exported as a 16/44.1 .aiff file. Here's where the head scratching begins.

Monitoring the enhanced audio in LE8, it sounds decent enough for my needs;

How did you export the file from Logic? Is it possible you used the export track feature and didn't include the processing in the exported file? Or did you use Bounce or Bounce In Place - which would print the processing directly to the file.

And when you then monitored the exported file in Logic, how and where did you monitor it specifically? Did you by any chance place it back on the track that has the processing on it? Or did you monitor it form a "clean" track with a clean signal flow? Or did you use the Audio Bin or Sample Edit Window? Each of these could easily yield different audible playback results with the exact same audio file.
 
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Deleted, missed that the audio was AIFF.

Q: are you bouncing in real time or offline? I find that can make a difference, and make sure you turn off the normalize setting.
 
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Also, you can take your final bounced track..add it to the Logic session (make sure everything is lined up), insert a Gain plugin on the bounced down track and hit the invert phase box. If everything cancels out and you hear dead silence (may want to put an analyzer on the main output channel to be sure), my guess would be that the final bounce does reflect what you heard in logic and that there may be a difference playing it through QT. If not, it's probably going to depend on your bounce settings.
 
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