Specifications

DigiRack Plug-Ins Guide68
External Key Enables and disables side-chain
processing. Side-chain processing uses the vary-
ing amplitude of a separate reference track to
trigger limiting. See “Side-Chain Processing” on
page 22.
Key Listen When enabled, this lets you listen to
the reference track controlling the side-chain in-
put. This is often useful for fine tuning the
Gate’s settings to the Key Input.
Expander/Gate II
The Expander/Gate reduces noise by decreasing
the gain of signals that fall below a user-select-
able threshold. Expanders are 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 cutting off
noisy low-level signals than the typically abrupt
cutoff of a gate. If you want, however, you can
actually use this plug-in as a gate, simply by set-
ting the Ratio to its maximum value and using
short attack, decay, and release settings.
Expander/Gate Controls
Phase Invert Inverts the phase (polarity) of the
input signal to change the frequency response
characteristics between multi-miked sources or
to correct for miswired microphone cables.
Reduction Meter Indicates the amount of signal
reduction in dB.
Threshold Sets the threshold level. Signals that
fall below the threshold will be reduced in gain.
Signals that are above it will be unaffected.
(When adjusting the Threshold slider be sure
that audio material is playing through the Ex-
pander/Gate to see changes reflected in the Re-
duction meter.)
Ratio Sets the amount of expansion. For exam-
ple, if this is set to 2:1, it will lower signals below
the threshold by one half. At higher ratio levels
(such as 30:1 or 40:1) the Expander/Gate func-
tions like a gate by reducing lower level signals
much more dramatically. As you adjust the ratio
control, refer to the built-in graph to see how
the shape of the expansion curve changes.
Attack Sets the Expander’s attack time. This de-
termines how quickly a signal’s level is reduced
once it falls below the threshold. Use this along
with the Ratio setting to control how soft the
Expander’s gain reduction curve is.
Hold Specifies a duration (in seconds or millisec-
onds) that the Expander/Gate will stay open af-
ter the initial attack cycle. This can be used as a
one-shot function to keep the Expander/Gate
Key Listen is not saved with the other plug-
in settings.
Expander/Gate II plug-in