Hi Steve,

there are many reasons why this can be the case, and most of them are actually part of the concept.

- As soon as "Distance Dependent Scaling" of the dry signal is On, an Icon that's positioned far away from the Main Microphone will be considerably quieter than in its near vicinity, much like in Real Life. ;-)

- This effect might be even more obvious when the "Air Absorption" filter is switched on for the dry signal

- Format and setup of the Main Mic will influence the behaviour of the dry signal significantly.

- If you use "Natural Volume" settings, they might be as low as -15 dB or less.

For testing I would create a simple setup with a "legacy" 1st Order stereo output format (e.g. MIR Pro's "Default"), switch off all Dry Signal Handling options and put a source Icon with a basic Cardioid Directivity pattern one or two meters in front of the Main Mic. Please tell us what happens in this scenario. 

Kind regards,

Well in Studio One I don't have that issue.  Everything is as I would expect. 

So I'm going to do a little more experimenting in Dorico which is where I had the problem. 

.Steve

I think I'm getting the hang of it now.  You pointed me in the right direction so I"m observing things now I hadn't paid attention to before. 

My last question would be should I bother using instrument profiles for the Synchronized-SE library?  If I use an instrument profile it brings the natural volume way down as opposed to Cardoid which I think is the default profile when the various instruments load.  

thanks again for your patience.  

Steve

Ok that makes sense and confirms what i'm seeing.  In the meantime I found another helpful thread on volume/expression and how that affects MIR so i'm doing some testing in that regard as well. 

Thanks again for your help. 

Steve