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OPERATING  INSTRUCTIONS  FOR  GAMBIT  DE-ESSER/COMPRESSOR DS1-MK3 

OPERATION 

 Weiss Engineering Ltd., Florastr. 42, CH-8610 Uster 

 

Page  15  

 +41 44 940 20 06    

 +41 44 940 22 14    

 http://www.weiss.ch  

 [email protected] 

Starting point for parallel compression: 

 
Set the threshold for -50 dBFS, ratio to 2.5:1, 
attack to the fastest (microseconds), release to 
mid, around 250-300 ms (adjust to taste if you 
hear breathing or pumping). The makeup gain 
governs the amount of compression. 
 

 

Graphic 21: effect of parallel compression 

Graphic 21 shows the effect of Parallel Compres-
sion on the transfer curve (upper graph). Lower 
levels are raised while higher levels are not 
much affected. 

 
 

Summary of Contents for GAMBIT DS1-MK3

Page 1: ...engineering ltd Florastrasse 42 8610 Uster Switzerland 41 44 940 20 06 41 44 940 22 14 http www weiss ch http www weiss highend com GAMBIT DS1 MK3 OPERATING MANUAL Software Version 0S 3 1 DSP 3 0 Release Date October 2008 ...

Page 2: ...oading Weiss Engineering LTD makes no warranty representation or guarantee regarding the suitability of its products for any particular purpose nor does part of this manual and specifically dis calims any and all liability including without limitation consequential or inci dental damages All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmit ted in any form or by any means e...

Page 3: ... ch weiss weiss ch FRONT PANEL Graphic 2 Display Elements DS1 MK3 gambit series digital de esser compressor limiter gain data copy A B recall store snapshots 1 2 over bypass menu safe gain makeup frequency release slow release fast release delay attack average bandwidth threshold ratio soft knee max off M S ch1 ch2 monitor menu over 1 2 ganged Graphic 1 Front Panel Elements ...

Page 4: ...1 Front Panel Elements Menu and softkeys p 7 Snapshot keys p 19 ganged channel select keys p 16 Gain Data controller p 8 Crossover controllers p 12 Envelope follower controllers p 10 Non linear transfer curve controllers p 11 Display Refer to Graphic 2 Display Elements Gain value p 8 Crossover setting frequency selective mode only p 12 Non linear transfer curve and signal metering p 11 Status disp...

Page 5: ...n Compressor mode This and the ability to remote control para meters and snapshots makes the DS1 MK3 the perfect tool for the recording and mastering engineer Processing 24bit digital input internal 40bit floating point arithmetic dithered output for 16bit 20bit or 24bit wordlengths Transparent phase linear crossover for frequency selective compression All parameters are immediately accessible wit...

Page 6: ...at compresses without stomping on the attacks at all preserves transi ents but gives you great inner detail You have one control one control only and that is the output level of the compressor gain makeup the sidechain You can bring out in ner details without losing breathing and hardly affecting the upper dynamics at all Works great Not just great absolutely fantastically Fattens bass instruments...

Page 7: ...ed adjacent to key B this group contains a peak hold and an over hold for each channel To reset these values press key B twice Peak Hold The numeric peak value is measured relative to 0dBFS digital full scale Use this value to set the optimum gain for a specific session Reset it for every session by pressing key B twice Over Hold Whenever an over is encountered the boxes to the side of the peak ho...

Page 8: ...n is inverted For details on dither refer to chapter Dither p 18 Gain Output Gain There are two gains one pre safety limiter and one post safety limiter as depicted in Graphic 4 Graphic 4 Output section When touching the gain controller the required gain can be selected from a menu To change the output gain press softkey D If an arrow appears inside the output gain window the Output Gain can be ad...

Page 9: ...before it reaches the output thus allowing look ahead compared to the mainchain The resulting cor rected output signal has no overshoots no lead ing edge distortion 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...

Page 10: ... To utilise longer attack times and still catch fast transients use preview Release and Average The input signal is mon itored with two different methods peak ampli tude and RMS value The peak amplitude is the programme portion we don t perceive as very loud however which can easily cause over loads The RMS value of the programme materi al we perceive as loudness Its variations con tribute most to...

Page 11: ...ction cal culations The detected signal envelope is com pared with the transfer curve the gain control signal see Graphic 5 is then adjusted accord ingly if the envelope overshoots the transfer curve Threshold Sets the level which the envelope signal has to reach before gain reduction is ap plied Ratio Sets the slope of the segment above the threshold The ratio can be adjusted for com pression or ...

Page 12: ...S by manipulating any combination of the above pa rameters or by selecting max from the gain makeup menu This mode can be exited by manually reducing the gain makeup or by select ing off from the gain makeup menu Graphic 14 Gain Makeup display The applied gain reduction from the com pressor section is displayed in Signal Meters The meters in show the level of the input horizontally on top of the t...

Page 13: ...ll Range Mode Graphic 17 In this mode the compressor input meter is at the input of the DS1 MK3 The crossover controllers and the monitor key have no function Graphic 16 Band Selective Mode Graphic 17 Full Range Mode Cross over filter type In put Out put band width centre frequency Delay Comp band pass monitor output meter input meter band stop peak over hold Safety Limiter X Gain X Gain X Output ...

Page 14: ...efore compression Using the monitor function one can listen to the filtered signal for optimal crossover setup Why parallel compression Read this quote from Bob Katz from the Master ing Webboard You want a patch that compresses without stomping on the attacks at all preserves transi ents but gives you great inner detail You have one control one control only and that is the output level of the comp...

Page 15: ...l compression Set the threshold for 50 dBFS ratio to 2 5 1 attack to the fastest microseconds release to mid around 250 300 ms adjust to taste if you hear breathing or pumping The makeup gain governs the amount of compression Graphic 21 effect of parallel compression Graphic 21 shows the effect of Parallel Compres sion on the transfer curve upper graph Lower levels are raised while higher levels a...

Page 16: ...o do that press the menu key the following menu opens up Graphic 22 M S Mode and Sidechain Link Key A selects M S Mode on off box checked means M S mode engaged while Key B selects the sidechain link on off box checked means sidechain linked In M S mode it usually is pref erable to set the channels unganged and the sidechain unlinked Graphic 23 shows the block digram of the DS1 MK3 when in M S mod...

Page 17: ...the com pressor stage See Graphic 23 above for the Monitor output position The Monitor output works as follows DS1 MK3 in ganged mode The stereo signal is fed forward to the output If the band selective mode is selected only the active band is fed to the output DS1 MK3 in unganged mode The currently selected channel CH1 or CH2 or M or S is fed to both L and R outputs This allows for instance to li...

Page 18: ... preset without leaving the preset menu All rotary encoder controls are active in the background thus a preset can be loaded via the Apply key and then modified with the rota ry encoders to check whether the preset fits the requirements Pressing the Preset key loads the preset and exits the Factory Preset menu Graphic 26b Another example of a factory pre set menu Dither The DS1 MK3 is able to appl...

Page 19: ...ll menu Using the gain data controller enter the number of the snapshot you want to recall The graph of the snapshot will be displayed Howev er the audio signal is not affected if the Pre view option is marked Once you have found the snapshot press key D to restore it If the Preview option is not marked the snapshots will be recalled as soon as you enter a new number Press the recall key to return...

Page 20: ...S1 MK3 and might crash during or after the dump process To initiate a dump press the menu key then choose the Snapshot and then the Dump option Start the recording process on the se quencer then press Transmit This releases the dump to the sequencer Loading Snapshots To load a snapshot dump from sequencer simp ly play the dump sequence The DS1 MK3 will automatically switch into receive mode and di...

Page 21: ...and parameters as well as control settings can be set externally To see remote control status refer to the status display see Status Display p 7 Protocol To select a remote control protocol press key C from the status display menu Select either RS 232 RS 422 or MIDI This will determine which port at the rear of the DS1 MK3 is active The other inactive ports will be ignored Press the menu key to re...

Page 22: ...40 20 06 41 44 940 22 14 http www weiss ch weiss weiss ch Software Information Press the menu key then select the Sys tem and the About option This displays a screen with all the relevant information on your DS1 MK3 and how to reach us Have this page ready when you want to report a problem Graphic 34 System menu Graphic 35 About screen ...

Page 23: ...ming Channel Status Data as follows From Consumer to Professional From Professional to Consumer Transparent mode i e Channel Status Data is fed forward to the output without any conversion one exception see below The following tables describe how the Channel Status Data bits are generated in the various conversion modes Output selected Consumer format Input Consumer format Output All bits fed forw...

Page 24: ... 00 Input Consumer format Output Byte 0 Bit 0 1 professional Bit 1 0 audio Bits 2 3 4 Preemphasis according to input Bit 5 0 source fs locked Bits 6 7 Sampling Frequency according to input Byte 1 Bits 0 1 2 3 0001 two channel mode Bits 4 5 6 7 0000 no user bit encoding Byte 2 Bits 0 1 2 001 max sample length 24bit Bits 3 4 5 101 24 bit word length Bits 6 7 00 Bytes 3 12 All bits 0 Byte 23 CRCC byt...

Page 25: ...6 0 5 0 4 0 3 0 2 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 0 6 0 7 0 8 0 9 1 0 1 1 1 2 1 3 1 4 1 5 1 6 1 7 1 8 1 9 2 0 2 1 2 2 2 3 2 4 2 5 2 6 2 7 2 8 2 9 3 0 3 2 3 4 3 6 3 8 4 0 4 2 4 4 4 6 4 8 5 0 5 2 5 4 5 6 5 8 6 0 6 5 7 0 7 5 8 0 8 5 9 0 9 5 10 0 Bandwidth All numbers are fractions of octaves 1 6 1 3 2 3 5 6 1 11 6 1 1 3 1 1 2 3 1 5 6 2 2 1 6 2 1 3 2 2 2 3 2 5 6 3 3 1 6 3 1 3 3 3 2 3 3 5 6 4 4 1 6 4 1 3 4...

Page 26: ... 3 35 1 3 30 1 3 25 1 3 20 1 3 15 1 3 10 1 3 05 1 3 00 1 2 95 1 2 90 1 2 85 1 2 80 1 2 75 1 2 70 1 2 65 1 2 60 1 2 55 1 2 50 1 2 45 1 2 40 1 2 35 1 2 30 1 2 25 1 2 20 1 2 15 1 2 10 1 2 05 1 2 00 1 1 95 1 1 90 1 1 85 1 1 80 1 1 75 1 1 70 1 1 65 1 1 60 1 1 55 1 1 50 1 1 45 1 1 40 1 1 35 1 1 30 1 1 29 1 1 28 1 1 27 1 1 26 1 1 25 1 1 24 1 1 23 1 1 22 1 1 21 1 1 20 1 1 19 1 1 18 1 1 17 1 1 16 1 1 15 1 ...

Page 27: ...06 41 44 940 22 14 http www weiss ch weiss weiss ch Dither Dithering algorithm is implemented using the POW R set of algorithms Graph 36 shows the three algo rithms at 44 1kHz and 88 2kHz sampling rates each Graph 36 Output spectrum with 80dBFS 1kHz sine wave dithered to 16 Bits using the three POW R algorithms at 44 1kHz and 88 2kHz respectively ...

Page 28: ...trol Change 1011 cccc 00000001 01 cccc Channel No 0vvv vvvv vvvvvvv New Value 0 48 Filter Mode 1 Control Change 1011 cccc 00000010 02 cccc Channel No 0vvv vvvv vvvvvvv New Value 0 limiter 1 Bandpass 2 Lowpass 3 Hipass Preview Delay 1 Control Change 1011 cccc 00000011 03 cccc Channel No 0vvv vvvv vvvvvvv New Value 0 32 Attack 1 Control Change 1011 cccc 00000100 04 cccc Channel No 0vvv vvvv vvvvvvv ...

Page 29: ...ange 1011 cccc 00010000 11 cccc Channel No 0vvv vvvv vvvvvvv New Value 0 41 Center Frequency 2 Control Change 1011 cccc 00000000 12 cccc Channel No 0vvv vvvv vvvvvvv New Value 0 105 Bandwidth 2 Control Change 1011 cccc 00000001 13 cccc Channel No 0vvv vvvv vvvvvvv New Value 0 48 Filter Mode 2 Control Change 1011 cccc 00000010 14 cccc Channel No 0vvv vvvv vvvvvvv New Value 0 limiter 1 Bandpass 2 Lo...

Page 30: ... Value 0 127 Output Gain 2 Control Change 1011 cccc 00001111 21 cccc Channel No 0vvv vvvv vvvvvvv New Value 0 127 Parallel Mode 2 Control Change 1011 cccc 00010000 22 cccc Channel No 0vvv vvvv vvvvvvv New Value 0 1 RMS time 2 Control Change 1011 cccc 00010000 23 cccc Channel No 0vvv vvvv vvvvvvv New Value 0 41 Safety Limiter Control Change 1011 cccc 00010000 24 cccc Channel No 0vvv vvvv vvvvvvv Ne...

Page 31: ...umber 7 00000001 message Snapshot dump Message Type 1 8 0nnnnnnn Package number 0 7F Data 9 0nnnnnnn scale set number 10 24 0nnnnnnn 15 Bytes of Snapshot data 25 0ccccccc Checksum without byte one F0 Sysex Command Checksum 26 F7 EOS EOS Dump request Bytecount Value Description 1 F0 Sysex Header 2 00 Manufacturer s ID 3 30 Manufacturer s ID 4 5A Manufacturer s ID 5 08 Model ID 0C Gambit DS1 MK3 6 0...

Page 32: ...er s ID 5 08 Model ID 0C Gambit DS1 MK3 6 0000nnnn Device ID Midi channel number 7 00000100 message send version Message Type 4 8 00000100 OS Version data 9 00000100 DSP Version 10 00000100 Scale Version 11 00000100 Coeff Version 12 F7 EOS EOS PC programming mode Bytecount Value Description 1 F0 Sysex Header 2 00 Manufacturer s ID 3 30 Manufacturer s ID 4 5A Manufacturer s ID 5 08 Model ID 0C Gamb...

Page 33: ...l to have a proper under standing of the sidechain process The test signal is a repeating sine wave burst with a certain on and a certain off level The frequency of the sine wave is above 10kHz period less than 100µs so there is no influence of the sine wave fre quency on the timing behaviour The table below shows the timing parameters set on the DS1 For the static parameters a threshold of 20dB a...

Page 34: ...the burst As the sidechain reacts to the input signal slowly because of the long attack time the level of the burst is brought to the anticipated level Fig 3 Fig 4 Fig 3 The preview time is now about three times the attack time which gives the sidechain a headstart on the audio signal The result is a proper limiting without overshoot Fig 4 As useful the preview facility in Fig 3 is it can have an ...

Page 35: ...ile in Fig 6 there is no release influence visible anymore Fig 7 Fig 8 The following figures show the effect of the automatic release time algorithm and the Average parameter Fig 7 A very short burst duration like a short peak in the music The Release Fast Average and Release Slow pa rameters are set to typical values Fig 7 shows that after a short peak the Release Fast time is chosen so that the ...

Page 36: ...ing a longer Release Slow portion Fig 10 Still longer burst with even longer Release Slow portion Fig 11 Fig 12 Figs 11 to 14 For these figures the Average time is relatively short causing the average measurement value to follow the peak measurement more quickly than with Fig 7 to 10 The effect is that depending on the burst length there is not that much of an influence of the Release Slow paramet...

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