advertisement
Compressor graph
The Compressor graph below the Compressor
section (Figure 9-5) provides a thumbnail visual
indication of the current compressor settings for the input channel. It is for visual reference only and cannot be edited directly. However, you can click it to open the full-size Compressor graph in a
separate window (Figure 9-6), which provides
graphic editing of the Ratio and Threshold controls.
LEVELER
The Leveler™ (Figure 9-7) provides an accurate
model of the legendary Teletronix™ LA-2A® optical compressor, known for its unique and highly sought-after Automatic Gain Control (AGC) characteristics.
Figure 9-7: The Leveler module.
The Leveler is available on the Main Mix bus and all Group busses, including the Reverb bus.
A model of an optical compressor
An optical leveling amplifier works by shining a light on a photoresistor. The intensity of the light source is proportional to the audio signal, and the resistance of the photoresistor is in turn inversely proportional to the intensity of the light. Photoresistors respond quite quickly to increases in light intensity, yet return to their dark resistance very slowly. Thus, incorporation of the photoresistor into an attenuator followed by an amplifier which provides make-up gain produces a signal which maintains a constant overall loudness.
Automatic gain control using light
The AGC circuit of the LA-2A uses a vintage optocoupler known by its model number T4. The T4 contains an electroluminescent-panel (ELP) and photoresistor mounted so that the emission of the panel modulates the resistance. An ELP consists of a thin layer of phosphorescent material sandwiched between two insulated electrodes to form a capacitor. Making one of the electrodes transparent allows the light to escape. These devices are essentially glow-in-the-dark paint on a piece of foil covered by metalized glass or plastic, and are the same devices used in low-power night lights. Unfortunately, these devices need high voltages to operate, and are best driven by tube circuits which can supply voltage swings of several hundred volts.
Response characteristics
Once the light has faded away, the photoresistor then decays back to its dark state. The shape of the decay curve varies depending on how bright the light was, and how long the light lasted. A general rule of thumb is that the louder the program, the slower the release. Typically, the release can take up to and over one minute. One thing to keep in mind when using these types of devices is that the typical concepts of compression ratio, attack, release, and threshold do not apply. The light intensity is determined by the highly non-linear interactions of the input signal, AGC circuit, and
ELP, and thus exhibit a strong program dependence that is impossible to describe without the mind-numbing mathematics of statistical mechanics. The actual results, however, can be almost mystical: even when you feed the same material (a loop perhaps) through the Leveler twice, you’ll often see a new response the second time through a loop, complete with unique attack times, release times and compression ratios.
Furthermore, two different input signals with the same RMS levels may be leveled in a drastically different manner.
75
M I X E R E F F E C T S
advertisement
Related manuals
advertisement
Table of contents
- 11 Overview
- 11 It’s not on your hard drive
- 11 Use your favorite web browser
- 11 Control from multiple devices
- 11 Run the installer, get the app
- 11 Make hardware and network connections
- 11 Launching the web app
- 12 Device tab
- 13 Device tab (continued)
- 14 Device tab (continued)
- 15 Routing tab
- 16 Mixing tab
- 17 Aux Mixing tab
- 18 Mixer input channel strips
- 19 Main Mix and Monitor channel strips
- 20 Aux bus channel strips
- 21 Group and Reverb channel strips
- 27 Packing List
- 27 System Requirements
- 27 Please register today!
- 29 Overview
- 29 USB audio class-compliant operation
- 29 Software installation
- 30 Audio drivers
- 31 MOTU Discovery app
- 31 MOTU Pro Audio WebUI Setup for Windows
- 31 AudioDesk workstation software
- 31 Working with host audio software
- 33 Overview
- 33 Thunderbolt audio interface setup
- 33 USB or iOS audio interface setup
- 34 AVB Ethernet audio interface setup
- 34 Setup for two interfaces
- 35 Setup for three to five interfaces
- 36 Setup for a multi-switch network
- 37 Setup for multiple interfaces
- 38 Setup for web app control
- 40 Setup for AVB Ethernet audio interface operation
- 43 A typical 828es setup
- 44 Audio connections
- 46 Connect MIDI gear
- 46 Connect a foot switch
- 46 Synchronization
- 47 Syncing S/PDIF devices
- 47 Syncing optical devices
- 48 Syncing word clock devices
- 48 Syncing to SMPTE time code (LTC)
- 49 Syncing an AVB network
- 50 Syncing multiple AVB audio interfaces connected to a Mac
- 53 Overview
- 53 Audio interface
- 54 Stand-alone mixer
- 54 Interface + mixer
- 55 Live recording with monitor mixing
- 55 AVB Expansion
- 56 Optical converter
- 57 Overview
- 57 Dual LCD displays
- 57 Three LCD screen sets
- 58 Menu Navigation
- 59 Push-button Knobs
- 59 Channel focus
- 59 Monitor controls
- 60 Talkback
- 62 Net ID
- 62 Headphone volume
- 62 Stand-alone operation
- 63 Overview
- 63 Preparation
- 63 Run the web app
- 64 Choose the MOTU Pro Audio driver
- 64 Reducing monitoring latency
- 67 Working with the Routing grid
- 69 Working with on-board mixing and effects
- 69 LTC-to-MTC conversion
- 71 Overview
- 71 High Pass Filter
- 72 Gate
- 72 Four-band parametric EQ
- 73 Compressor
- 75 Leveler
- 76 Reverb
- 77 DSP Usage
- 79 Installation
- 79 Device menu
- 80 Analysis menu
- 80 Left/right input
- 80 FFT and Spectrogram display
- 82 Oscilloscope
- 87 X-Y Plot
- 90 Phase Analysis
- 95 Overview
- 95 About AVB
- 96 MOTU’s AVB implementation
- 97 Networking examples
- 98 A quick guide to networking
- 99 Setting up a MOTU interface for networking
- 99 Mapping audio to network streams
- 99 Mapping computer channels to network streams
- 100 Device presets and AVB stream connections
- 100 Bridging to Ethernet
- 100 The MOTU AVB Switch
- 104 Customer Support
- 104 Technical Support
- 109 Mono input channel
- 110 Stereo input channel
- 111 Group bus
- 112 Monitor bus