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APPENDIX  

Tutorial

Finalizer Tutorial

The basic idea with the Finalizer is to touch up the last details of
your mix and enhance the energy and level, in order to make it
sound punchier and louder.

As there are different approaches to the Finalizer, we created this
tutorial to familiarize you with the Finalizer. 

The mainpage of the Finalizer shows you the signal flow, and the
actual order of the processor you are working.

The Input

Select your type of input: Analog or digital. If you are working
with an analog input you should use Pro/Con and the level bars to
optimize the performance of the A to D converter.
Remember to choose the right sample rate, i.e. if you targeting on
CD you should always choose 44.1 kHz.

Now recall the CD-Master preset, by pressing the RECALL key,
select CD-Master and press OK to recall.

The EQ

In the EQ you have the possibility, of  changing the spectral
shape of your material.

Inserts

Select between Stereo adjust, De-essing or DRG.

Normalizer

Optimizing the level of  your material starts in the Normalizer. 
Here you have a graphical presentation of the incoming signal.
By increasing the GAIN, you decrease the headroom, shown as
two dotted lines.
You should set the GAIN such that the signal peaks are just
below or above the dotted headroom lines.

The Expander

The Expander is a great help in cleaning up the basic mix, either
as a soft expander or as a sharp gate. 
Try to listen to the start of your mix, do you have any tape or
recording noise ? 
If you have and you want to remove it, use the expander as fol-
lows:

Set the Ratio’s to 1:32, this is the steepness of the expander.
Now adjust the THRESHOLD so the expander only works when
the music is not there.

Play the music from the top a couple of times, and confirm that
the start is silenced.
If you only want to remove tape noise, it might be enough to use
the high band expander only.

The Compressor

The Compressor is the heart of the Finalizer. This section adds
that extra “punch” to your material.
When you are doing multiband compression, you have to do a
survey of the program material, i.e. Is there to much or too little
top-end or low-ende? Is the midrange well defined? A standard
situation could be that you have a mix which sounds good, but
lacks tightness and could use more of that “in your face” sound.

Now put the Finalizer in bypass, and recall the “CD-Master” pre-
set. Start your mix and de-activate the Bypass. You will hear an
immediate change in the sound of your mix, because the “CD-
Master” preset was designed to tighten up on almost all types of
rhythmic music that you hear today. In most cases, you will only
have to adjust the input level by using the Normalizer.

If you want to make changes to the over all relationship of the
low, mid, high bands using the Compressor, you have two paths
that you may take to accomplish this task. The first way is to alter
the bandlevels, using them like a three band equalizer. The sec-
ond way is to individually compress the three bands. It is here, in
the multi-band Compressor, where you will here the big differ-
ence.

A good Compressor will always tighten up a mix, but it will also
remove some of the dynamic expression. Key to the operation of
any Compressor  is the attack and release times. These two para-
meters greatly influence how ”tight” the mix is going to be or
how “open” the material will sound after compression.

As a rule-of-thumb the low-band works best with fast attack
times and rather slow release times because low frequencies have
a long wavelength. In the mid-band you can use roughly the same
attack time, but the release time should be a bit faster since the
human ear is very sensitive in this area. If you set the mid-band
release too long it will sound unnatural. The hi-band works best
with an attack time that is a bit slower than the other two bands
because it will let high frequency transients to pass the
Compressor. Letting these peaks through the Compressor pre-
vents that stressed and over-compressed sound. The release time
of the hi-band should be fast, like the mid-band, for the same rea-
sons, to increase the “openness” of the Compressor.

Summary of Contents for Finalizer

Page 1: ...Finalizer STUDIO MASTERING PROCESSOR USER S MANUAL...

Page 2: ......

Page 3: ...M GLOSSARY APPENDIX About this Manual Keys LED s and other functions explained Recalling a Preset Factory User Presets Memory Card Store a New Preset The Letterbox Input EQ Inserts Normalizer Expander...

Page 4: ...ed service personnel only Mount the Finalizer with a little space above and below in a well ventilated rack Don t block the top or bottom To prevent electrical shock or fire hazard do no expose the Fi...

Page 5: ...he Finalizer i e if you want to recall you press the RECALL key About this Manual Many people in the music business have an aversion to reading manuals We understand that So if you feel like starting...

Page 6: ...DI In MIDI receive indicator Card Indicates presence of a valid memory card Working Indicates that some calcula tion is going on Edited Preset has been edited PC Card slot Presets may be copied to fro...

Page 7: ...ound you have right now with either a leveled bypass or the original preset Bypass Bypass the signal pro cessing CONTROL SECTION OK Confirm operations and switch individual blocks on off Help Get help...

Page 8: ...instead Pin 2 is hot on all XLR s IEC and AES standards If you are connecting the Finalizer to unbalanced equipment you must tie pins 1 and 3 together in the cable ends away from the Finalizer We hav...

Page 9: ...Therefore do not connect cables to both AES EBU and S PDIF inputs at the same time As you can see from the block diagram signals are present on all outputs all of the time To make the dithering circui...

Page 10: ...and expander makes the dynamics section of the Finalizer very flexible while maintaining the fidelity of the original material The dynamics section in a combination with a normalizer and a five band...

Page 11: ...mple 1 Example 2 Example 3 Setup with a digital mixing console and a digital recording device 1 Connect the digital output of your mixer to the digital input of the Finalizer 2 Connect the digital out...

Page 12: ...l When you wish to recall a preset simply use the ADJUST wheel to scroll through the presets and press OK to recall The OK key will be blinking while you are previewing indicat ing that the shown pres...

Page 13: ...dial the ADJUST wheel and press OK to select new letters Select CAP by pressing OK to change case When you have changed the name select DONE in the Letterbox and press OK to Store You can use the PAR...

Page 14: ...AMETER keys The range of the input bars depends on the input type Analog Digital and the input level Professional Consumer Note The input bars are always common when digital input is selected Ranges A...

Page 15: ...s to jump between the five bands EQ Ranges Frequency Gain Bandwidth Slope Low Shelve 19 95 Hz to 5 01 kHz 12 dB 3 6 9 12 dB Oct Bell shaped filter 1 19 95 Hz to 20 kHz 12 dB 0 1 Oct to 4 0 Oct Bell sh...

Page 16: ...ion speech etc this parameter will change the sound Move cursor up to increase the stereo width Move cursor down to make the signal more mono Center position is normal Move the cursor right left to ad...

Page 17: ...m vocal material by dynamically reducing the level of high frequencies Threshold Use the ADJUST wheel to change the threshold of the de esser Attack Use the ADJUST wheel to change the attack time of t...

Page 18: ...18...

Page 19: ...s You should set the gain such that the signal peaks are just hitting the dotted headroom lines The Normalizer is capable of gaining 18 dB The Clipper The Normalizer has a build in limiter which can b...

Page 20: ...ander threshold low mid high Attack time low mid high Release time low mid high Side chain delay This parameter inserts the indicated delay in the main signal path The side chain will therefore be abl...

Page 21: ...sent signal and will therefore react more accurately than a standard compressor limiter expander The actual look ahead delay time is scaled with the attack time individually on all three bands Note Th...

Page 22: ...mid high Output level Attack Times low mid high Release Times low mid high Crest This parameter determines wether the compressor should react to peaks RMS average or some thing in between Side chain...

Page 23: ...pressor Expert Menu Press MENU keys to enter the expert page Attack Use the ADJUST wheel to change the attack time of the three bands Release Use the ADJUST wheel to change the release time of the th...

Page 24: ...nds Clipping method The clip function smoothly kills any overshoot that might occur after heavy compression or limit ing The higher the percentage the softer the clip USER PAGE EXPERT PAGE CROSSOVER F...

Page 25: ...ameter adjusts the look ahead delay This means that your audio signal is delayed i e 10 ms By slightly delaying the audio signal you enable the processor to look ahead at the present signal and it wil...

Page 26: ...ou select AES EBU the dither is off meaning that 24 bit raw data is sent out of the Finalizer digital outputs Note There is always signal present on both analog and digital outputs Dither With the dit...

Page 27: ...27...

Page 28: ...eo channels Plus means that the two channels are in phase Minus means that the two channels are in anti phase Time division Sets the curve drawing speed Calibration tone In the calibration display you...

Page 29: ...n a number of situations I e you have an overload indication on the front but you do not know in which section the overload is located now you simply press TOOLS and select the Flow meter and you have...

Page 30: ...pyrights on the outgoing digital audio Source device DAT CD mixer etc Numbers of audio bits received Copyright None One copy only Infinite copies Status bits on digital output AES EBU Professional usa...

Page 31: ...copy protection is only valid with S PDIF signals STATUS BITS OUT AES EBU When AES EBU is selected the Finalizer will send out its own professional set of status bits meaning that any incoming ID will...

Page 32: ...lect the optimal settings for you the Normalizer Compressor Limiter and EQ Select whether your source type is soft medium or hard using the ADJUST wheel Select which kind of compression you like Soft...

Page 33: ...ring it with the bypassed sound You can even compare with the last recalled preset Press the COMPARE key and use the ADJUST wheel to lower the level of your setting Then use the PARAMETER keys to comp...

Page 34: ...I controllers or not Prg Offset This number is added to the incoming program number Example If the incoming program number is 10 and the offset is set to 1 the Finalizer will change to program 9 Progr...

Page 35: ...he Finalizer s MIDI input and press OK The Finalizer is now ready to receive a MIDI bulk dump containing RAM presets Warning This action will destroy all existing RAM presets of the Finalizer Pedal In...

Page 36: ...arameter and press OK to store your default settings The User Default includes all system parameters Set User Name This function makes it possible to write your name and phone number into the Finalize...

Page 37: ...AES EBU In Out XLR S PDIF In Out Coaxial RCA Type Formats EIAJ CP 340 IEC 958 S PDIF 20 bit AES EBU 24 bit Sample Rates 32 kHz 44 1 kHz and 48 kHz PC CARD Interface Connector Type 1 PC Cards Standard...

Page 38: ...on t peak out You are using analog inputs but the input selector in the I O menu is set to digital in The analog input level is set too low No sound through the Finalizer You are using analog inputs b...

Page 39: ...True Voice X X Velocity Note ON X X Note OFF X X After Touch Key s X X Ch s X X Pitch Bend X X Control Change O O Prog Change O O True 0 127 0 127 System Exclusive O O Common Song Pos X X Song Sel X...

Page 40: ...ital input which has to be test ed and press OK The AES EBU output can also be connected to the S PDIF input and vice versa PPM must show 0 dB to pass test Press OK key again to exit test MIDI I O tes...

Page 41: ...equipment you feed determines the number of bits A DAT or CDR recorder should always be dithered to 16 bit PRO CON LEVELS Depending on which equipment you are using along with the Finalizer you must...

Page 42: ...at extra punch to your material When you are doing multiband compression you have to do a survey of the program material i e Is there to much or too little top end or low ende Is the midrange well def...

Page 43: ...he soft clipper with adequate look ahead time will prevent any over shoot from the Finalizer The Crossover A last thing to remember about the Finalizer s dynamic section is that the adjustable crossov...

Page 44: ...he instruc tions may cause harmful interference to radio communications However there is no guarantee that interference will not occur in a particular installation If this equipment does cause harmful...

Page 45: ...er Press and hold the Bypass key of the Finalizer while powering up Scroll down to Fader Calibration using the Menu keys and press the OK key Move the Master Fader to maximum position To compensate fo...

Page 46: ...2 Master Fader...

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