FabFilter User Forum
Fabilter Q4 mutes audio
Hi,
A really strange and annoying feature with the Q4 happened today. In the final stages of a film mix it decided to start to mute audio in (hopefully only) one dialog channel. Bypassing the Q4 back and forth, it resolved the audio for a while, before randomly muting it again. Nothing over fancy eq wise, just normal automation. And no output level automation, all fabfilters are at 0,0 output. Could not find any reason why. Moving the audio to a next identical channel resolved it, but the trust for Q4 is surely gone. The whole session is of coarse full of them Q4`s, being the go-to eq, now a bit of extra tension with the muting audio feature in the final stages. Took a way the dynamic plugin processing in the playback engine, which of coarse would be a nice feature on a full blown session, but the problem was still there. Re-organizing the dialog to avoid (hopefully) the one "dirty" channel was not the highest on the wish list at this stage. Been getting maybe more than usual of the audio processing errors for the Q4 than normally in the session, maybe the dynamic processing is not a fabfilter thing? And that would be nice to get sorted out, fab filters feels like the only plugin getting those.
Fabfilter version 4.02
Protools 2024.10.2
OS Ventura 13.7.5
3,2 GHz 16-Core Intel Xeon W, 192GB memory
I think this bug is the same bug I'm experiencing and posted, slightly different wording. But essentially audio is not getting through the Pro Q4 until I toggle on/off the bypass. Super annoying especially if you have many instances of Q4, sometimes I will thing I have a track solo'ed, but really it's Q4 preventing audio from getting through on most of my busses!
This is a terrible bug that I hope is fixed soon. This happens to me too. It seems to happen after my Ableton session has been open for several hours. I'm on Apple Studio MAX Sequoia 15.6
Hi guys, sorry for the late reply on this. Is this an issue can can be produced with a specific session? If so, could you send that session over to info@fabfilter.com? We can have a look and see if we can reproduce.
I am also experiencing this issue frequently. Seems to happen most often when the session is idle for a while and I come back to it. Very annoying!
Circling back to say this is continuing to happen and on sessions with many instances of pro-q 4 the bug happens with most of them but not all of them. In large sessions it can take nearly 30 minutes to go through every track and toggle the plugin off and on to fix it. Sometimes I have to do it twice because the first time doesn’t fix it. I’ll leave it off for several seconds longer the second time and that seems to do it. Please fix this! It’s basically happening on all my sessions and only when I leave it idle for a while or when I open it fresh. It hasn’t happened when I’m actively working.
Hi Marc,
I'm afraid we first need to be able to reproduce the issue before we can address it. So far we have not been able to. Would it be possible to send us a small session in which you have had this issue, and any possible steps to reproduce?
I've been dealing with Pro Q4 audio issues for 7-8 months now. I even experienced the issue when I took my session to FOX to mix it. So it's not hardware specific. Basically at random times ProQ4 goes completely mute. My only solution is to close and reopen the session. No need to fully close PT. Just restart the session. But I had days when I had this same experience 5-10 times. Sometimes it happens in one particular section within the session, which is very odd.
The way it shows up for me is when I try to play with the EQ settings on a sound, being in preview and loop mode, adjusting settings and then either that track or the entire session goes silent. Basically all tracks that have Q4 on them are silent from that point on.
This problem is showing up a lot and it's getting really tiring. Any chance for a fix soon?
Hi Csaba,
That's a strange issue. What are your system details?
The issues we're seeing now aren't specifically pointing to Q4 - but Q4 is on the Pro Tools 7.1.2 Routing Folder involved - and only the center channel is cutting out. We usually get the signal back by making the whole folder inactive/active, but also sometimes have to switch the folder to DSP and back again. In some cases we heard a loud POP - sort of a "DC offset" sound. We don't have a repro case, though it happens far less frequently on a Mac Pro Intel 2019 than on a Mac Studio M4. As we don't really know if it's Q4 we have this escalated with Avid right now as it's happening on a final mix.
Is everyone here seeing this only on Pro Tools? Those who are, please list versions. We've seen it on 26.4.0/Tahoe/Mac Studio M4 ultra, and 25.12, Mac Pro 2019, Sequoia. Maybe we'll find an intersection somewhere.