Drawmer MX PRO MX60 Operator's Manual - Page 14

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may be an audible tonal change in the voice during sibilant sounds, in which
case the control should be backed off. The de-esser may also be effective in
removing or reducing other unwanted high frequency sound such as string
squeaks on acoustic guitars.
Experiment with both the male and female settings to see which gives the best
result.
Compressors are sometimes accused of dulling the sound being processed,
and a little explanation is needed to understand exactly why that should be.
Bass sounds, which contain most of the energy in a typical piece of music,
cause the compressor to apply the most gain reduction, so any quieter, high
frequency sounds occurring at the same time as the bass sound will also be
turned down in level. That is why the cymbals and hi-hats in a heavily
compressed drum track seem to dip in level whenever a loud bass drum or
snare drum beat occurs.
The program adaptive attack time of the MX60 helps minimise this problem by
allowing the leading edges of brighter sounds to pass through the compressor
before gain reduction is applied, but in extreme cases, it may be necessary to
add brightness to the processed sound using the equalisation section or the
high band of the Tubesound section.
If required, the gate may be used on its own with the compressor and de-esser
functions disabled. To disable the compressor, turn the threshold to maximum
and set a ratio of 1:1. The de-esser limiter has no separate bypass control, but
turning the de-ess control to minimum will have the same effect.
Equaliser
The equaliser section has quite conventional controls where the high and low
shelving filters provide a gentle and musical means of either cutting or
boosting the extremes of the audio spectrum. A little more care is required in
setting up the mid parametric equaliser as both the bandwidth and frequency
are variable as well as the amount of cut and boost. It's often easiest when
setting up to apply maximum boost, then use the frequency control to sweep
through the spectrum until you locate the area that needs cutting or boosting.
Once located, the degree of cut or boost can be set to a more practical value.
The Bandwidth control simply sets the width of the filter so that at narrow
settings, the filter only affects a section of the spectrum a few semitones wide.
At the widest setting, several octaves are affected, giving a much smoother,
more general equalisation. As a general rule, very narrow bandwidth settings
are best suited to cutting offending frequencies rather than for boosting if a
natural result is desired. Bypassing the EQ takes the whole section out of
circuit allowing instant comparison between the untreated and equalised
sound.
EQ boost effectively increases signal level, which may result in more limiter
activity. Use the Dynamics gain control to reduce the signal level to avoid
limiting, unless limiting is required as an effect. This is better than reducing
the input level, particularly when Compressing or De-Essing. The dynamics
gain control is only effective when Dynamics is switched 'In'.
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