Technical data

ASTi ACE Studio Components Reference Guide Rev. M DOC-01-TELAS-CRG-4

6.0. Dynamics

The following section details the Dynamics components and the objects within

them, which are used to control the volume or level of signals.

The Dynamics group includes the following components.

• The AGC component keeps a signal near a “target” level.

• The CompressorLimiter component prevents signals from getting too loud.

• The Expander component reduces the volume of quiet signals like back-

ground noise between speech.

• The Gate component only allows a signal through if it is loud enough.

Common to all four of these components are controls measured in dB and dB/sec.

The dB controls such as target and threshold specify signal levels relative to 1.0 (as

seen in the signal scope). The following table shows a few dB values and their

linear scale equivalents.

Speech, for example, might be around -20dB in the system (depending on the

microphone and input gains) while background noise might be around -60dB.

Attack and release gain controls are measured in dB/sec, which is one way of

specifying how quickly the gain can change. An attack of 6dB/sec, for example,

would mean the gain could double every second. Generally, practical attack and

release rates are much quicker, typically in the range of 50-1000 dB/sec.

dB Linear

01.0

-6 0.5

-12 0.25

-18 0.125

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-40 0.01

-60 0.001