User Manual MD4 HD NATIVE MULTIBAND DYNAMICS EQ, versatile 5-band Compressor and True-Peak Limiter Based on the Legendary and Award-Winning System 6000 as a Native DAW Plug-in for Mixing, Mastering and Post-Production 2021-03-12, Rev.
MD4 HD NATIVE User Manual Table of Contents Important Safety Instructions....................................... 3 Legal Disclaimer.............................................................. 3 Limited warranty............................................................. 3 1. Introduction................................................................. 4 2. Plug-in Installation..................................................... 4 2.1 Installation on a PC..............................................
MD4 HD NATIVE User Manual Important Safety Instructions Terminals marked with this symbol carry electrical current of sufficient magnitude to constitute risk of electric shock. Use only high-quality professional speaker cables with ¼" TS or twist-locking plugs pre-installed. All other installation or modification should be performed only by qualified personnel.
MD4 HD NATIVE User Manual 1. Introduction Congratulations on the purchase of your MD4 HD NATIVE Multiband Dynamics Processor. Originally launched in 1999 and available in Music, Mastering, Broadcast and Film variants, TC Electronic's Flagship System 6000 processor is recognized as an industry standard for mix, mastering and post-production applications.
MD4 HD NATIVE User Manual Click ‘Next’ to begin the installation. When installation is complete, click ‘Finish’. Note: If your DAW fails to detect the newly installed plugin, this can often be fixed by adding the following paths to the Plug-in Manager (or similar) of the DAW. The default paths on a PC are "C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST2" and "C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3" for VST2 and VST3, respectively. 2.2 Installation on a Mac Double click the installer (.pkg) file. 3.
MD4 HD NATIVE User Manual 4. Connection and Setup 4.1 Inserting the MD4 HD NATIVE plug-in in your DAW project 4.2.3 Bypass Press the BYPASS button at the top to bypass or engage the MD4 HD NATIVE. 4.2.4 Automation Once you have downloaded the plug-in, you can now apply it to a channel in your DAW to begin using the effect. This process may vary slightly depending on your software, but generally should require these steps: • Select a channel or bus in your DAW to which you would like to add the effect.
MD4 HD NATIVE User Manual 5. User Interface Meters 5.1 Overview • Gain reduction meters for compressor: these show the low, low-mid, mid, high-mid, and high for left/mid and right/side. The meter range is (+/- 15 dB). Note The horizontal orange line on the gain reduction meters indicates the offset of each band. In Normal, Parallel and Parallel UL mode, the GR meters are offset by the Makeup Gain of each band.
MD4 HD NATIVE User Manual 5.2 Main Page Input (orange controls) EQ can be linked or unlinked. Normalizer Gain In Mid/Side mode, the left meter shows the Mid channel, and the right meter shows the Side channel. Range: -18 dB to +18 dB in 0.1 dB steps The Normalizer Gain is the first gain stage in the plugin, used to adjust the overall level of the input signal. Trim Gain (L/R or M/S) Range: -12 dB to +12 dB in 0.1 dB steps Trim the gain level for the two input channels to the EQ.
MD4 HD NATIVE User Manual Lo Cut Range: Off, 2 Hz to 200 Hz, with increasing step width as frequency increases. This Low Cut filter is used to remove potential noise at low frequencies Click on the PIN Icon inside the ASSIGN button, and the Assigned Focus Fields will remain when presets are changed. The numeric values within the Focus Fields will change to the new preset values.
MD4 HD NATIVE User Manual 5.3 EQ Page Introduction • Press FREQ again, and the Focus Fields will return to their assigned fields This page features a 6-band parametric EQ, switchable between Notch and Parametric filters. The outer bands can also be changed to Low/High Cut or Low/ High Shelving. • Select GAIN, and the Focus Fields show the gain in dB for each band. Adjust the values in the Focus Fields as desired • Select LOW, and the frequency, gain, and type of the LO1 and LO2 bands are shown.
MD4 HD NATIVE User Manual Type /BW Selector • Select TYPE/BW and use the Focus Fields to select filter types and vary the parameters. Click and drag on the numeric value to scroll through the types and their available values • LO1 and HI2 filter options: Notch, Parametric, Shelve, and Cut • LO2, MID1, MID2, HI1 filters options: Parametric and Notch • Typical graphs of the different filter types are shown below: Notch Filter - Narrow Type Parametric Filter - Broad type • Bandwidth Range: 0.
MD4 HD NATIVE User Manual 5.4 Compressor Page Stereo or Mid/Side Stereo Operation The configuration control in the MAIN page allows you to select Stereo or MID/ SIDE for the compressor setup (as well as the EQ, Trim Gains and Meters). If Stereo configuration is selected in the MAIN page, then the top section of the Compressor page shows STEREO, and the gain reduction meters are shown as LEFT and RIGHT.
MD4 HD NATIVE User Manual Turn off COM LINK to allow separate compressor control of the Mid and Side. Threshold Range: -25 dB to 20 dB in 0.5 dB steps Relative to the Ref.Level setting (Main page). When the Input signal exceeds the Threshold value, the Compressor starts to reduce the dynamic content of the signal according to the set Ratio. Makeup Gain Select SIDE, and the Compressor controls will affect the Side instead of MID. Range: Off, and -12 dB to 12 dB in 0.1 dB steps.
MD4 HD NATIVE User Manual 5.5 Output Page The Limiter Limiter Soft Clip L/R The limiter cannot prevent destruction of dynamic range from happening at earlier stages in the production process, but it can get rid of the signals we know are going to get distorted in consumer CD players, radio processors or data reduction codecs. Range: -6 dB to +6 dB in 1 dB steps; OFF The limiter operates with extended precision in both level and time. Doubleprecision calculations are always used.
MD4 HD NATIVE User Manual 6. Dynamics Processing In-Depth After the Normalizer Gain, the signal is gently split into 5 overlapping bands - the low, low-mid, mid, high-mid, and high frequencies. It will then compress each band somewhat independently. Thereby, for example, a powerful kick-drum will not modulate the processing of the lead vocals. After compression, the 5 bands are combined again. 6.
MD4 HD NATIVE User Manual If you do not get the desired result, you could also try some different crossover frequencies. Keep in mind that you have 5 independent bands – why should a bass drum signal affect the mid and high bands when its peak is in the low end? Click on the XOVERS button in the row below the control knobs, and the Focus Fields will show the 4 crossover frequencies. You could start out by using 100 Hz, 400 Hz, 1.6 kHz and 6.
MD4 HD NATIVE User Manual 6.3.2 True Peak 6.3.4 Compress-O-Meter - Master Analyser Often, there can be small peaks of sound in-between digital samples, intersample peaks, that go undetected in most digital tools. Where traditional peak meters and conventional peak limiters fail to read those true peaks of sound, a True Peak meter will provide the mastering engineer with the actual reading.
MD4 HD NATIVE User Manual 7. Presets 7.2 User Presets The MD4 HD NATIVE offers a collection of factory presets, as well as the option to create and save your own custom settings as user presets and favourites. If you make an alteration to any of the parameters in the current preset, the preset name changes to italics as a reminder that something has changed from the original factory preset.
MD4 HD NATIVE User Manual 7.3 Favorite Presets 7.3.1 Browse Favorites Only Creating your own presets will make them accessible from the Preset menu, but they will only appear in the list of 100 favorite presets in the plug-in if you set them as a favorite. This is done by assigning a favorite slot number to the preset using the Favorite menu. The 'Browse Favorites Only' option in the preset menu allows the UP/DOWN arrows in the bottom bar of the plug-in.
MD4 HD NATIVE User Manual 8. Software Updates New versions of the software may be released to add new features and improve performance. Updates can be detected from the plug-in directly and can be installed after download from the website. See Chapter 2 for plug-in installation. If the ’Automatically check for updates’ option is checked inside the update menu, the red dot will appear on the settings icon when a new plug-in is available.
MD4 HD NATIVE User Manual
