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Listen critically before making more adjustments.
Increasing Density/Loudness
Try to resist the temptation to
crank
up the aggressive processing sections. They will definitely add loudness but
usually at the cost of quality and intelligibility. Many times, just building a bit more RMS energy in the AGC
sections will do the trick.
The following are some suggestions on where to begin to make changes. For best results you should tr
y them in the
order we have listed below.
Increasing loudness can be accomplished in five ways:
1.
Alter the following parameters in the AGC:
a.
Increase the
Drive
to the AGC sections.
b.
Increase the
Release
settings to make the bands operate faster.
2.
Modify the Multiband Limiter sections:
Increase the
Drive
to the Limiter section.
Increase the
Release
settings to make the bands operate faster.
Note that slowing the
Attack
time by using a lower setting can help make things sound more natural when
faster
Release
times are used. But be careful not to allow too many fast transients through to the final
limiter section.
3.
Set the
Hold
threshold in each band to a lower value.
4.
Increase the
Drive
to the clipper sections.
5.
A combination of all of the above (yes, it soun
ds crazy but it’s true)!
Always resist the temptation to make too many changes at once because it then becomes difficult to determine why,
or why not, an adjustment made the change you hear. It is better to make small adjustments to a small number of
controls at a time, and then listen to the result with a wide variety of program material. Once you have satisfactory
results in one area (like overall density) you can then move the focus to the next area that you feel needs more
tweaking.
Don’t be afraid to
experiment with different styles of processing! Our presets are good starting points and are not
restricted to any particular format because of their name!
Adding More Detail
— When Loudness Isn’t the Last Word
Now that we’ve “squashed the grape,” lets
look at what it takes to undo a heavily processed signal. Basically, just
reversing the procedures listed above will do the trick:
1.
Reduce the
Drive
to the Clipper sections.
2.
Back off on the influence of the Limiter stages:
• Reduce the
Overall Limiter Drive
in the
Xover
.
• Reduce the
Release
times to slow down recovery.
• Raise the threshold of the
Hold
function.
3.
Ease up on the AGC sections:
• Reduce the
AGC Drive
to the Wideband AGC and the
Overall AGC Drive
in the Xover.
• Reduce the
Release
times to operate slower.
