User`s manual

Considerthesituationofamonitorengineerlisteningtoabandperform.Havingnoaccesstodynamics

processors,hehashadtoresorttomanually‘ridingthefaders’inanattempttokeepcontrolofthelevels.

Shouldthelevelofoneofthechannelsonhisdeskreachanunacceptablyhi

ghlevel,hewillturnitdown

appropriately.



Thereisahiddensidechaininoperationeven

inthiscase.Themainsignalpathisfed

throughthemonitordeskandthegain

controlledbyadjustingthefader.The

sidechainisformedbythefeedbackpath

betweentheengineer’searscheckingthe

levelandhisbraininstr

uctinghishandto

turnthefaderdownifthevolumegoesover

thethresholdhehaschosen.



Inthiscase,thedelaybetweenthesignalactuallygoingoverthethreshold,theengineerregisteringthe

situation,andthenturningthesignaldo wnwillbeintheorderofseveralhundredmillisecondsatbest.This

willonlybetrueifheisnotdistracted–inreality,itmaybeseveralsecondsbefo

reanygainreductionis

imposedonthesignaltobringitundercontrol.



Forananaloguedynamicsprocessor,thesituationismuch

better.Controllingthegainelectronically,andnotrelyingon

ahumansidechainfeedbackmechanism, itcanreactmuch

morequickly.



Theredwaveformrepresentsthei

nputtothedynamics

module,withthedottedlineshowing thethresholdforgain

controltooccur.Thereareseveralpeakstowardsthestart

ofthissignalthatareabovethethreshold,andsothe

dynamicsprocessingshouldreacttotheseasappropriate.

(Inthiscasereducethegai

n).



Thebluewaveformshowstheoutputofthedynamics

module.Thecircledpeakdemonstratesthattheprocessor

hasmissedthefirstpeakabovethethreshold(asitisvery

fastandshort),buthas‘caughtup’shortlyafterwards,

keepingallotherpeaksundercontrol.Asitisunableto

predictwh

atiscoming,thiswillalwaysbeafailingwith

analoguedynamicsprocessing.