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sound wave. This is really important for digital because anything that
goes above 0 dB full scale is going to distort and sound horrible.
The meter can also be used to determine gain reduction in addition to
input and output levels. When the compressor is working, the needle will
move to the left to show how much the compressor is attenuating
(reducing) the gain.
The VU meter can be switched via the
metering for your input signal, your output signal or the gain reduction
that the compressor is providing.
1.4.9 3-Way Meter Switch
The meter switch allows you to change which signal you are evaluating
with the VU meter. You can choose input, gain reduction, or output. The
gain reduction setting shows how much the signal is being attenuated by
moving to the left. This meter becomes important when using
compression and make up gain to compare the before (input) and after
(output) of your audio.
1.4.10 Bypass Switch
This switch lets you choose between having the compressor turned on and
the compressor being bypassed. Bypassing is a good way to hear the
before and after of what you have done with the compressor and to hear
how good your settings are.
1.4.11 Link: Dual Mono to Stereo
Your compressor can be used as two single mono channel compressors or
linked together into a variable stereo pair. The knob controls a mono to
stereo pan matrix that blends the left and right channel sidechain signals
together. This allows the compressors of both channels to compress at the
same time and in the same way.
One important concept of the Link feature is that the audio feeding the
sidechain is the affected audio, NOT the audio that you hear. See Figure 1.