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OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS FOR GAMBIT DE-ESSER/COMPRESSOR DS1-MK2
OPERATION
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Weiss Engineering Ltd., Florastr. 42, CH-8610 Uster
Page 8 of 29
+41 1 940 20 06
2
+41 1 940 22 14
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http://www.weiss.ch
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Compressor Parameters
Following is a detailed description of all parameters that can be adjusted in the compressor stage. Guidelines
are given for settings (see also the presets), but optimal settings are usually programme dependent, so ex-
perimenting and listening is inevitable for satisfying results.
Graphic 5 shows schematic and parameters of the DS1-MK2 compressor stage:
Delay
A typical compressor/limiter circuit measures the
audio signal and then generates the gain reduction
control signal. At the time the control signal
changes the gain, the programme material is al-
ready there, so the gain change occurs too late.
The result is overshoot and possible subsequent
distortion.
The DS1-MK2 uses a different method to gener-
ate the gain control signal: The audio passing
through the mainchain is delayed by a fixed
amount of time, determined by the „overall de-
lay“. By branching the signal out of the delay line,
the sidechain „sees“ the signal before it reaches
the output, thus allowing look-ahead compared to
the mainchain. The resulting corrected output
signal has no overshoots, no leading edge distor-
tion or other side effects due to timing lags in the
sidechain.
The preview (the time the signal reaches the
sidechain ahead of the multiplier) cannot, of
course, exceed the overall delay.
The overall delay is the sum of the maximum
overall delay („Delay“ box in Graphic 5) and the
delay required for other signal processing (linear-
phase filtering for up- and downsamplers). Any
snapshot value of the preview delay which ex-
ceeds this maximum, is clipped to the maximum,
because the overall delay is not stored in the
snapshots and therefore the preview delay in any
snapshot can exceed the currently selected over-
all delay.
Setting overall delay
: The overall delay is ad-
justed by pressing the „menu“ key (
Ê
) then se-
Graphic 5: Compressor schematic