User Manual

Chapter 43: Clip Gain and Clip Effects 961
Depth Sets the amount of gain reduction that is ap-
plied regardless of the input signal. For example, if
the Limiter is set at a Threshold of –20 dB and
Depth is set at 0 dB, up to 20 dB of gain reduction
is applied to the incoming signal (at 0 dB). If you
set Depth to –10 dB, no more than 10 dB of gain
reduction is applied to the incoming signal.
Release Sets the length of time it takes for the
Compressor/Limiter to be fully deactivated after
the input signal drops below the threshold. Release
times should be set long enough that if signal lev-
els repeatedly rise above the threshold, the gain re-
duction recovers smoothly. If the release time is
too short, the gain can rapidly fluctuate as the com-
pressor repeatedly tries to recover from the gain re-
duction. If the release time is too long, a loud sec-
tion of the audio material could cause gain
reduction that continues through soft sections of
program material without recovering.
Knee Sets the rate at which the compressor reaches
full compression once the threshold has been ex-
ceeded. As you increase this control, it goes from
applying hard-knee compression to soft-knee com-
pression. With hard-knee compression, compres-
sion begins when the input signal exceeds the
threshold. This can sound abrupt and is ideal for
limiting. However, with soft-knee compression,
gentle compression begins and increases gradually
as the input signal approaches the threshold, and
reaches full compression after exceeding the
threshold. This creates smoother compression.
Gain Lets you boost overall output gain to com-
pensate for heavily compressed or limited signals.
Side Chain Processing
Dynamics processors typically use the detected
amplitude of their input signal to trigger gain re-
duction. This split-off signal is known as the side
chain. Compressor/Limiter and Expander/Gate
processing also features filtering on the side chain.
By filtering the side chain, you can make dynamics
processing more or less sensitive to certain fre-
quencies. For example, you might configure the
side chain so that certain lower frequencies on a
drum track trigger dynamics processing.
Source
The Source selector lets you set the source for side
chain processing:
Internal or All-Linked.
Internal Uses the amplitude of the input signal to
trigger dynamics processing. With greater-than-
stereo multichannel processing, the input signal for
each stereo pair effects only those same channels,
and likewise mono channels are effected only by
their own input signal. For example, with an LCR
multichannel format, the processing for the Center
channel is only triggered when the Center channel
input signal reaches the threshold. However, when
the input signal reaches the threshold on the Left or
the Right channel, processing is triggered for both
the Left and the Right channel.
Side Chain controls