User Manual

Core Avid Audio Plug-Ins
982
Expander/Gate III — Dynamics III (RTAS and AudioSuite)
The Expander/Gate III plug-in applies expansion or gating to audio material, depending on the
ratio setting.
Expansion decreases the gain of signals that fall below a chosen threshold. It is particularly
useful for reducing noise or signal leakage that creeps into recorded material as its level falls, as
often occurs in the case of headphone leakage. Expanders can be thought of as soft noise gates
since they provide a gentler way of reducing noisy low-level signals than the typically abrupt
cutoff of a gate.
Gating silences signals that fall below a chosen threshold. To enable gating, simply set the Ratio
and Range controls to their maximum values.
The following table lists the Expander/Gate III plug-in parameters:
Parameter Description
Levels panel
Phase invert button Inverts the phase (polarity) of the input signal, to help compensate for phase
anomalies that can occur either in multi-microphone environments or because of
mis-wired balanced connections.
Input/Output level meters Show peak signal levels before and after processing.
• Green indicates nominal levels
• Yellow indicates pre-clipping levels, starting at –6 dB below full scale
• Red Indicates full scale levels (clipping)
n
Unlike scales on analog compressors, metering scales on a digital device
reflect a 0 dB value that indicates full scale (fs)—the full-code signal level.
There is no headroom above 0 dB.
The clip indicators at the top of the Output meters indicate clipping at the input or
output stage of the plug-in. Click an indicator to clear it.
Threshold arrow The orange Threshold arrow next to the Input meter indicates the current threshold.
You can drag the arrow up or down to adjust the threshold. For more information on
threshold, see the Threshold row below in this table.