Part V–Effects
116
TASCAM SX-1
Reference Manual
Proximity control in combination with some appropri-
ately programmed reverb will allow you to create the
same effect, with the additional bonus of being able to
control the exact nature of the room tone.
Preserve Source
The Preserve Source controls
allows you to split your audio into its bass and treble
ranges and process each range separately. This lets
you create hybrid mics that combine the bass charac-
teristics of one mic and the treble characteristics of
another. One of the two mics will be your actual
source mic and the other can be selected from any of
the available models.
Say, for example, that you have a mic whose bass
response is great for a particular track, but whose tre-
ble response just doesn’t sound right. With this fea-
ture you can preserve the bass response of your
source mic while replacing its treble characteristics
with that of any of the modeled mics.
Here’s how it works:
1
Make all the appropriate settings in the
Source
Mic
section. (Do not select
Bypass
unless you
are going for some special effect, as it will
defeat the normal function of this feature).
2
Choose the other mic for your hybrid and
make all the appropriate settings in the
Modeled Mic
section. (Again, do not select
Bypass
unless you are going for some special effect.)
3
3) In the
Preserve Source
section, click on either
the
Bass
or
Treble
button (its associated “LED”
will light) depending on whether you want to
preserve the bass or treble characteristics of
your source mic.
There are four possible states of the two Pre-
serve Source buttons. Here’s what each does
(
`
= LED lit,
<
= LED not lit):
Preserve Source: Bass
<
, Treble
<
With nei-
ther button pressed, frequency splitting does not take
place and the Microphone Modeler operates in its
normal manner according to the settings in the
Source
and
Modeled Mic
sections.
2) Preserve Source: Bass
`
, Treble
<
With
the
Bass
button pressed, the source mic’s bass charac-
teristics are allowed through unchanged while the
treble characteristics are neutralized. Then, at the
model end, only the model’s treble characteristics are
applied to the signal. The net effect is that you get the
source mic’s bass characteristics and the modeled
mic’s treble characteristics.
Preserve Source: Bass
<
, Treble
`
This, as
you’ve probably guessed, is the reverse of the previ-
ous arrangement. With the
Treble
button pressed, the
source mic’s bass characteristics are neutralized
while the treble characteristics are allowed through
unchanged. Then, at the model end, only the model’s
bass characteristics are applied to the signal. The net
effect is that you get the source mic’s treble charac-
teristics and the modeled mic’s bass characteristics
Preserve Source: Bass
`
, Treble
`
With
both buttons pressed, both the source’s bass and tre-
ble characteristics are allowed through unchanged
and no model is applied to either range. This is
equivalent to selecting
Bypass
in both the
Source Mic
and
Modeled Mic
menus, with the exception that the
Proximity
controls for both the source and modeled
mics remain active.
Tube Saturation
The
Tube Saturation
section is
designed to model the distortion that is typical of a
high-quality tube pre-amp.
When tube pre-amps are operated in their linear
range, there is virtually no signal distortion and their
audio qualities are essentially identical to solid state
pre-amps. However, it commonly occurs that tran-
sients exceed the linear voltage range, resulting in
distortion. The distortion characteristics of a vacuum
tube pre-amp are vastly different from that of solid
state amplifiers and are often described as adding a
certain “warmth” to a sound (in contrast to what is
often described as the “brittleness” of the solid state
sound).
The amount of tube saturation effect applied to your
audio is controlled by the
Tube Saturation Drive
control
in combination with the Input Gain control.
The
Drive
control determines the amplification factor
of the modeled tube pre-amp with the numeric dis-
play indicating the amplification in dB. At 0 dB, no
distortion occurs, even for full amplitude (+1 or -1)
signal levels. These levels represent the “rails” of the
amplifier. As the
Drive
is increased, the amplification
is increased. Any regions of the signal that increase
beyond the rails generate distortion. (But instead of
the usual ugly digital clipping, they are distorted the
same way the tube pre-amp would distort the sound.)
TIP
If you want to add tube saturation distortion without
otherwise affecting your sound, set both the Source Mic
and Modeled Mic menus to Bypass.
