User Manual

47
subtle tube “warmth.” Additionally, WARM has
been designed to be extremely DSP ecient,
so that even a relatively modest native system
will be capable of running WARM on an almost
unlimited number of tracks simultaneously.
What’s the big deal with tubes
anyway?
For most of us in audio recording, distortion
is a bad word. We typically want the cleanest
possible recordings, free of any audible
distortion. But for certain types of audio there
is an exception: the distortion that comes
from transient clipping in a high quality tube
preamplifier.
When high quality tube pre-amps are
operated in their linear range, there is virtually
no signal distortion and their audio qualities
are essentially identical to that of high quality
solid state pre-amps. However, it is common
for transients to exceed the preamp’s linear
voltage range, resulting in distortion. And
here’s where things get interesting. The
distortion characteristics of a vacuum tube
pre-amp are vastly dierent than those
of solid state amplifiers. Specifically, the
overtones produced by tube distortion
are generally harmonically related to the
fundamental input pitch, whereas solid state
overdrive distortion generally produces non-
harmonic overtones. This tube distortion is
often described as adding a certain “warmth”
to a sound. This is in contrast to what is often
described as the “brittleness” of the solid state
sound.
As a result, many people pay large sums
of money for tube preamps designed to
provide this desirable but elusive quality. It
was the best sonic qualities of a number of
these preamps that served as the sources for
WARM’s digital models.
Controls
Input Level
This control applies
gain to the input signal
before it’s passed to
the tube model. It is
typically used to ensure
that the level of the
input is high enough to
exceed the clipping level
in the tube model. As
a starting point, adjust
the gain such that the
input level meter needle
spends most of its time
in the top two (gray and
purple) meter segments.
Further adjustments can
be made in combination
with the Drive setting
(see below).
To adjust gain, click on
and move the fader to
the desired position.
The numeric display will
indicate in dBs the exact
amount of gain applied.
Command (Mac)/Control
(PC)/Option (Pro Tools)
clicking anywhere in the fader track will reset
the control to its default value of 0dB.
NOTE: Since the Drive control is
capable of a maximum of 12dB of
gain, the input signal transients
must be at least above -12dB to produce any
tube eect. If the input meter never enters
the top segments of the meter, no tube eect
will be audible with even maximum Drive.
ANOTHER NOTE: Unless you are
going for some special eect,
you do not want to have clipping
at the input stage. This is not the “good”
clipping that happens in the tube model.
Input clipping is that nasty digital kind.