8
wah wah pedal sounds drastically different when it is placed before the distortion box as opposed to
after it: placed before distortion, the wah sweep changes which frequencies are distorted more than
others —
having a profound affect on the basic sound. Placed after the distortion, the fundamental
frequency content has already been created, and the wah is simply sweeping midrange frequencies
without changing the saturation or basic content of the signal. It won t change any individual
frequency characteristics of the distortion. Jimi Hendrix (and most folks after his sound) nearly always
placed the wah before the distortion, where it made the biggest difference.
Also, previous to V1.50 the order of EQ-Dyn was stored in any new library entries made. Some users
found this confusing, so it has been changed so that the order of these processors is now independent of
the library.
5.
Side-chain flexibility has been enhanced for the channel dynamics
In version 1.0, the channel compressors could only take their key input (the signal that drives the
threshold) from their own channel or the channel directly adjacent in a stereo pair. In version 1.5, the
channel compressors can now take their key input from other sources as well.
The ability to have one channel drive the threshold of another channel s compressor is a necessary
component of what is called side-chain compression . This type of compression scheme could be
used to open the gate on a noise channel when the kick drum plays, or when placed after an EQ, could
be used for frequency-specific compression (ex: de-essing).
Let s check it out - double-click on one of the channel s SELECT key on the mixing surface to get to
the Channel screen (or you could always press the Channel button in the Main Display Modes section).
We re looking at the dynamics section on the lower-left side of the screen.
In the dynamics section, there is a button marked SELF. This is the parameter that determines which
channel s signal will trigger the dynamics threshold (some compressors refer to this as the key input ,
key trigger or sidechain input ). The default setting is SELF, which means that the dynamics
processor listens to its original channel for key input (meaning that the compressor on channel 7 would
look for the signal from channel 7 to trigger its input).
