Drawmer MXPRO-30 Manual del usuario - Página 4

Navegue en línea o descargue pdf Manual del usuario para Equipos de grabación Drawmer MXPRO-30. Drawmer MXPRO-30 15 páginas. Dual gated compressor

MX30 OPERATORS' MANUAL

INTRODUCTION

The MX30 is a dual channel gate and compressor-limiter designed to fulfil the needs of

professional studio and live sound applications. It may be used in balanced systems at

+4dBu operating levels, or unbalanced at -10dBu.

In order to maximise flexibility while simplifying set up and operation, several new

design concepts have been incorporated. The compressor section combines aspects

of both the traditional ratio style compressor and the soft-knee approach, making it

equally adept at creative work and unobtrusive level control. The control layout

resembles that of a straight ratio style unit but the transition from unity gain to gain

reduction at the selected ratio is progressive and occurs over a nominal 10dB input level

range.

Traditionally, soft-knee compressors have been preferable for unobtrusive level control

where the original sound is to be changed as little as possible, whereas ratio type

compressors are generally considered more successful in creative applications or where

large amounts of gain reduction are required. By combining these two elements, the

MX30 is capable of outstanding results in a very wide range of studio and live sound

situations.

One of the perennial problems in using compression is that maximum system gain

occurs during extremely quiet passages or pauses which results in an increase in

background noise, the degree depending on how much compression is being used. The

accepted way of dealing with this problem is to include in the compressor, a separate

gate section with its own threshold control so that a low level gating action may be

applied to keep pauses clean. However, the problem with simple gates is that, even

when properly set up, they may unwittingly process low level sounds as they have no

means of identifying them from noise. On a vocal track, for example, this can lead to the

starts or endings of words being accidentally removed, especially if the singer has a

wide dynamic range.

The MX30 uses a proprietary Programme Adaptive gate circuit that varies its ratio

depending on the dynamics of the signal being processed. Because the onset of gating

is progressive, those low level signals most at risk will be treated to a lower ratio of

gating (like an expander) while the residual noise during pauses will be subjected to a

higher expansion ratio and will, in consequence, be attenuated more. The outcome is

a gate that requires less stringent setting up and is more tolerant of wanted sounds that

are only slightly above the residual noise floor.

A further feature of the MX30 is a peak limiter that allows the user to set an absolute

output signal level that will not be exceeded. If the peak limiter threshold is exceeded

for more than a few milliseconds, additional gain reduction will be applied to reduce the

overall signal level to within accepted limits without distortion. Once the peak has

passed, the system gain will return to normal over the period of about one second. This

facility is extremely valuable both in live sound applications, for driver protection, and

in digital recording where an absolute maximum recording level exists. Furthermore,

when overdriven, it can be used creatively to produce deliberate level pumping effects.