Impact Twin User’s Manual English Version
IMPORTANT SAFETY INSTRUCTIONS The lightning flash with an arrowhead symbol within an equilateral triangle is intended to alert the user to the presence of uninsulated “dangerous voltage” within the product’s enclosure that may be of sufficient magnitude to constitute a risk of electric shock to persons. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Read these instructions. Keep these instructions. Heed all warnings. Follow all instructions. Do not use this apparatus near water. Clean only with dry cloth.
EMC / EMI EMC/EMI This equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits for a Class B Digital device, pursuant to part 15 of the FCC rules. These limits are designed to provide reasonable protection against harmful interference in residential installations. This equipment generates, uses and can radiate radio frequency energy and, if not installed and used in accordance with the instructions, may cause harmful interference to radio communications.
IMPACT TWIN INTRODUCTION Impact Twin is a state-of-the-art audio interface featuring ground-breaking technology to ensure that the music you record sounds as good on the inside of your computer as it does on the outside. With the built-in preamp, converters and recording tools, Impact Twin offers a pristine path for your music to follow. Two Microphone Preamps Featuring IMPACT III™ Technology With these two pristine microphone preamps, you’ll never have to worry about recording quality again.
QUICK SETUP GUIDE Up and running in ten minutes This quick guide will help you set up the IMPACT TWIN in a typical application. For further details and other usage scenarios, please refer to the following section of this manual. Unpacking • Open the box from the top and remove cabling. • Remove Impact Twin from the plastic bag. • Inspect your Impact Twin for signs of transit damage. • In the unlikely event of transit damage having occurred, inform the carrier and the supplier.
FRONT PANEL OVERVIEW 1 FireWire/Power LED Indicator When Impact Twin is hooked up via FireWire, the blue LED can indicate the following states: Steadily lit: Flashing: Sufficient power Uploading firmware, hardware error or FireWire communication error. Off: The Impact Twin cannot establish a connection to the driver, maybe because the driver is not installed. Device Identification: The blue LED will flash a couple of times when the “Impact Twin” tab in the control panel is selected.
FRONT PANEL OVERVIEW – – – Now turn the ADJUST dialer to set the compression amount. Press the ADJUST knob once to bypass the compressor. Turning the ADJUST dialer again will automatically reactivate the compressor, and the compression amount can be adjusted again starting from 0 %.* * This feature prevents you from accidently setting an extreme compression amount while the compressor is bypassed. Example #2 – Compression Mode A/B Listening: – Press the function selector (10) and select compression mode.
TC NEAR CONTROL PANEL – MIXER PAGE Patchbay Module Channel Strip Presets Info (mouse-over) tips - on/off 12 Channel Sections 1+2 Line 3+4 Module S/PDIF Module ADAT/TOS Module Reverb Module Master Module File Menu 13
TC NEAR CONTROL PANEL – MIXER PAGE Let’s take at look at the different sections of the TC Near Control Panel’s mixer page. The following parameters apply to the HMF and LMF bands: FREQ: Sets the center frequency to be boosted or attenuated by the Gain control. GAIN: Sets the amount of boost or attenuation of the selected frequency. BW: (Bandwidth) Determines the frequency range to control around the selected frequency.
TC NEAR CONTROL PANEL – MIXER PAGE you need to press the INST switch on the front panel of Impact Twin. Example 3 With an XLR plug inserted into MIC input 1 or 2, the display will show “MIC”. In addition, the input can show: PAD: You have pressed the PAD switch. PH: You have pressed the phantom power switch. Precise indication of meter values: If you place the mouse over any meter, you will see a precise value indication in the Control Panel’s info line.
TC NEAR CONTROL PANEL – MIXER PAGE Reverb Parameters PRE DELAY Knob A short delay placed between the direct signal and the reverb’s diffuse field. By using pre-delay, the source material is kept clear and undisturbed. Range: 0 to 100 ms DECAY Knob The Decay parameter determines the length of the reverb diffuse field. The length is defined as the time it takes for the reverb to decay approximately 60 dB. Range: 10 ms to 20 seconds COLOR Knob Varies the “color” of the reverb.
SETUP EXAMPLE: “STUDIO” SETUP EXAMPLE: “STUDIO” 1 Impact Twin Rear The Impact Twin’s rear panel. 2 Active Speakers In this particular setup we illustrate the Impact Twin in use with a set of active monitors (You may of course use a standard amplifier and passive speakers if you prefer). 3 Keyboard A keyboard is connected to Line In 3/4 for monitoring/ recording purposes. The MIDI connection can be used to control software instruments in your DAW.
SETUP EXAMPLE: “MOBILE STUDIO” SETUP EXAMPLE: “MOBILE STUDIO” TC Near Patchbay Example: Mobile Studio This is a basic example where you want to monitor the TC Near mixer’s master out on your headphones. working space will now show the following parameters: – – This is a typical small mobile setup with just a guitar, a microphone and a laptop computer. • • • • 22 Connect the guitar to CH1 using a standard 1/4 inch jack mono-mono, and set the PAD/inst button to “in” position.
SETUP EXAMPLE: “ABLETON LIVE – DJ” SETUP EXAMPLE: “ABLETON LIVE – DJ” TC Near Patch Bay Example – DJ pre-listen The object here is sending a) the track you want to pre-listen to your headphones and b) the main mix for the audience to a separate channel set. In the TC Near Patch bay, we send FW 1-2 to Line (main) outputs 1-2 and TC Near’s Mixer out to line outputs 3-4. This example illustrates how Impact Twin can be perfectly integrated into a live setup.
SETUP EXAMPLE: “STAND-ALONE” SETUP EXAMPLE: “EXTERNAL EFFECT” TC Near Patchbay Impact Twin can even be used without being connected to a computer. As a stand-alone unit, it still provides both the excellent mic pre-amps and Hi-Z inputs on channels 1 and 2. In stand-alone mode, you also benefit from all channel strip settings, EQ, Compression/De-Essing and Reverb. • • Connect the microphone to CH1 and the guitar to CH2 on the front panel. If you are using a condenser microphone, activate phantom power.
SETUP EXAMPLE: “TO EXTERNAL MIXER WITH ADAT IN” IMPACT TWIN AS MIC PRE & A/D CONVERTER + FILE MENU Here, we are sending channels via ADAT to an external mixer with ADAT inputs. You can use Impact Twin as an excellent AD converter. In addition to using the TC Near Control Panel’s Effects Send to feed an external effects processor using the S/ PDIF in and out jacks (as explained in example #4), this routing also allows you to send eight channels via the ADAT out to an external mixer with ADAT in.
SYSTEM SETTINGS Access the System Settings page by clicking on “System Settings”. SYSTEM SETTINGS Buffers and Latency “Buffer size” and “latency” are commonly used terms in the audio computer world – so let us give a short introduction to these important concepts. “Latency” is a small delay measured in milliseconds (ms) introduced by the fact that you computer needs time to work with the audio signals that come in and go out.
SYSTEM SETTINGS SYSTEM SETTINGS B: Drop-outs caused by DPC spikes If you increase your buffer size but still experience audio dropouts, DPC spikes may be the cause of the problem. DPC spikes typically occur if one or more hardware components in your system (e.g. network adapters, wireless network adapters or optical drives) have poor drivers. Operation Modes First of all, you should check your system using the DPC SPIKE CHECKER TOOL that is installed in the same folder as the TC Near Control Panel.
SYSTEM SETTINGS • SYSTEM SETTINGS “Peter’s Impact Twin” (as it is the physical Impact Twin unit that will determine the clock master). “Sync Source” is set to “ADAT” (as this is the bus on the Clock Master unit that you would like to sync to). • On the TC NEAR Control Panel’s “System Settings” page, “Impact Twin” is selected as Clock Master and “Sync Source” is set to “TOS”. INTERNAL LOCK Indicates that the system is locked to the Impact Twin unit set as clock master.
ABOUT PAGE / FIRMWARE UPDATE Firmware Updates • • • WDM PAGE (WINDOWS ONLY) In the “Advanced Audio Properties” dialog, select the type of setup you are using. In the following example: “5.1 surround” is selected: Example: Once you have run the installer (see above), the latest version of firmware is placed in the “TC Near” folder on your hard disk. You will now need to update the firmware for each Impact Twin unit in the setup. Go to the “About” page for the unit you wish to update.
THE IMPACT TWIN TUNER Impact Twin comes with an excellent tuner that provides various modes for stringed instruments. The Tuner page holds all relevant parameters as well as the tuner display. The tuner works on both channels 1 and 2. THE IMPACT TWIN TUNER 3 The Tuner Page Mode Selector Click to switch between Strobe mode and Normal mode. In Strobe mode, sections of three red LEDs will slide from right to left when the played note is too low, and from left to right when it is too high.
APPENDIX – BUS POWER NOTES APPENDIX – ASIO CHANNEL NAMES Bus Power This page describes how the Impact Twin’s ASIO channels are distributed according to the selected sample rate. Impact Twin can be operated using FireWire bus power. With FireWire bus power, the device is powered directly from the FireWire connection, and you do therefore not need to use the external power supply (included with Impact Twin).
APPENDIX IMPACT TWIN - SIGNAL – SIGNAL FLOW FLOW IMPACT TWIN APPENDIX – MISC APPENDIX – DICE BACKGROUND TC Near Prevents Computer Standby Mode Before setting your computer to standby mode, the TC Near control panel must be shut down. Computers handle standby mode and hibernation in different ways. To prevent instability on the audio interface after the computer is turned back on, the TC Near control panel must be closed. Most likely you will also need to close you host application (e.g. Cubase or Logic).
APPENDIX – TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS Digital Inputs and Outputs Connector (S/PDIF) Formats (S/PDIF and TOSLINK) Connector (ADAT® or TOSLINK) Format (ADAT®) Digital IO Engine Clock and Jitter Internal Sample Rates External Sample Rates Jitter Rejection Engine Jitter Rejection Filter (4th order) DIO Interface Jitter AD/DA Conversion Jitter Digital Output Phase (stand-alone and across network) Input Slip Sample Tolerance(all DIs) RCA Phono, 75 Ohm S/PDIF (24 bit), IEC 958, Pro-status bits Optical Pipe 8-ch.
