"Mike Rivers" wrote in message news:znr1089319430k@trad...

I assume that the Finalizer was connected to a digital output of the
console, and Masterlink was connected to a digital output of the
Finalizer?

Yes.

If so, there's no way that you could feed an "overload" to the Finalizer,

I guess I'm headed for a music store to play with a Finalizer. I would
have thought not, but the 'soft limit' indicator was definitely flashing
with some transients.

so unless it was doing something that you were unaware
of (pretty easy, actually, unless you found the BYPASS button and
pressed it) that path should be pretty clean.

Believe me... I won't be so "unaware" in the future.

Please note that monitoring through the desk during mixdown and during
playback from the Masterlink, did *NOT* reveal the severe degradation

You could mix to the
Masterlink, play back the mix from the Masterlink hard drive, and it
sounded OK?

It sounded just like what went in... which buy our ears at the time, was OK.

I cannot explain the resulting loss of frequency content. I took my own
monitors and phones and three of us were involved in the mix. None of
the resulting symptoms became noticeable until we had left the building
with the final mixes. The degradation was not discernable, even on play-
back while on this equipment.

I'd suspect the monitor system, either the acoustic setup or some
unknown equalization in the monitor amplifier.

My first thoughts (other than shock and humiliation) were that the product
could be repaired in mastering, cleaning up the mushy bass and adding
some 1.6 to 3Khz or so for clarity. There are 13 songs which all suffer
exactly the same symptoms.

Sure sounds like a monitor problem, and that's one of the things that
good mastering engineers encounter every day (and do a pretty good job
of fixing).

Well... the room was probably 8 x 20, parallel sheetrock walls, with the desk
placed along center of a long wall. No acoustic treatment what so ever. The
ceiling was sheetrock and typical house height... 8ft (?).

I'd blame the monitoring first.

I tried to keep the volume modest, pushing my 6.5s with a Krell. I had
my Sony phones. I don't want to blame the monitoring, but if we got
up above 80dB I could definitely start to hear the room.

If you weren't hearing what was actually there, you can think
you're doing it right and be doing it wrong.

That's sorta' why I feel kind of bad about this. This is not something
that I don't normally make allowances for. I think a lot of the problem
was pilot error (only to a degree because of the circumstances) and
the potential unknown DSP that could have been happening in both
the Finalizer and the Masterlink. Once I was told these were both
set up as 'passive' devices, I didn't page through the possibilities.

I just don't have a good grip on how much, if any, of this mess should
actually fall on my shoulders. I feel bad, but we agreed on each mix
as they were finished, and we all took the owners word that the TC
Finalizer and the Masterlink were harmless. I still can't explain the
monitoring.... it sounded right at the time, but was grossly wrong.

DM