Bedienungsanleitung User Guide
EN Foreword The Action Filter 4 is a beastly thing that will rip out the best parts of your favorite tracks. Fat basses and silky highs will disappear with a single hand movement while the resonance being produced by the Action Filter 4 doesn‘t really compensate for that loss. Well, why do we build the Action Filter 4 anyway and even in its fourth generation? The answer is easy: It is a great unit.
Table of Contents Foreword ............................................................................................................................ 19 Important safety information ........................................................................................ 21 What you should generally know .................................................................................. 23 Scope of delivery .....................................................................................................
EN Important safety information The following safety precautions must be observed during all phases of operation, service and repair of this equipment. Failure to comply with these precautions or with specific warnings in this manual violates safety standards of design, manufacture and intended use of this equipment.
Accessories Do only use cables, plugs and adapters, which do not affect the normal use of the unit. Spare parts or modifications Modification instructions and schematic information should only be used from service departments of our officially authorized dealers. To prevent the risk of electrical shock, do not open any unit yourself. Due to the risk of injury, the manufacturer prohibits the installation of additional components or any modification to the existing circuits.
EN What you should generally know Scope of delivery To ensure top quality, we carefully inspected the Action Filter 4 before packaging. Nevertheless, the unit could have been damaged during transportation. Therefore, we ask you to take a serious look at the unit when unpacking. Do not hesitate to contact us, should there be anything unusual with the unit or its packaging.
Setup and Powering Presuming there were no issues while unpacking the unit (which we of course hope), the Action Filter 4 is ready to be setup: 1. Connect the provided 12 volts DC-power-supply to the Action Filter’s POWER input. When connecting the power supply, the polarity can be disregarded. The labeling on the unit‘s rear (minus = inner tip) refers to the provided power supply. It is important that the performance will not be underrun 1 A. It should not exceed 1 A as well.
EN What did you buy after all? Action Filter 4 is an analog stereo filter designed to mainly process complex audio sources. This means, full tracks or loops will be processed entirely. Be it in a DJ-setup or during studio productions, the Action Filter 4 is a lot more effective and versatile than typical Kill-EQs. We chose the word “action” in the unit’s name because the filter is always operated manually. There is neither MIDI- nor control voltage (CV) automation.
LEVEL LEVEL CUTOFF CUTOFF FREQ. FREQ. Left: lowpass filter, Right: highpass filter; The green area is being passed through the filter, whereas the red area is being rejected. Now, RESONANCE comes into play. This parameter interacts with the CUTOFF control. It will produce an emphasis around the cutoff-frequency zone. The level here is boosted until the sound develops a characteristic enhancement. At extreme settings the filter might even self-oscillate and generate a sound by itself.
EN Can a band pass through the filter or will it be rejected? What happens if you combine a high- and lowpass filter? There are two possibilities: a serial or a parallel routing - one after the other or both next to each other. In series, high- and lowpass form a so-called bandpass. In the Action Filter 4, a highpass will first remove lower frequencies. From here the signal is send into a lowpass, where higher frequencies are processed.
Now what happens with both filters being interconnected in parallel? High- and lowpass filter work as always. When connected in series to create a bandpass, the spectrum is being cut from top AND below. In parallel connection, there is a highpass filtered signal AS WELL as a lowpass filtered signal in existence.
EN Back to practice: a bandpass filter can emulate specific speaker types such as old single-chassis monitors or laptop-speakers by creating a frequency limited band and additional accents using resonances. Complex loops may be processed by a bandpass filter in order to isolate a certain frequency range - very useful for sampling. The notch filter is a useful mixing tool that allows preserving the low and high frequencies of a track.
Components and control elements of the Action Filter 4 The Action Filter 4’s front panel GAIN – make fit what doesn‘t fit The GAIN control sets the input level in order to match the Action Filter 4’s input to different output levels of connected units such as DJ-mixers, groove boxes, audio-interfaces etc. In case, the output level of the connected unit is pretty high by default, the Action Filter 4’s inputs may clip. This is indicated by a red LED located top right of the GAIN control.
EN Nearby the switch, you will find the TRIGGER button that works like a transformer function on a DJ-mixer. This button activates or deactivates the Action Filter 4’s filters for the period of the button-pressing. TRIGGER functions contrarily to the BYPASS switch. With BYPASS set to ON (filters off, LED lit), TRIGGER will activate the filters temporarily. With BYPASS set to OFF (filters active, LED off), TRIGGER will temporarily bypass the filters.
The filters in BAND-MODE With MODE being set to BAND, FILTER A‘s CUTOFF controls the highpass filter. From here, the audio signal is routed into FILTER B that is configured as lowpass (see figure “Serial combination of high- and lowpass filter” on page 27). To hear the full frequency spectrum CUTOFF A needs to be turned fully left and CUTOFF B fully to the right. Moving the control towards each other narrows the passing frequency range.
EN The filters in NOTCH-MODE The world upside down: With MODE set to NOTCH, the filters work inverted. FILTER A controls the lowpass while FILTER B adjusts the highpass. This wasn’t done to annoy you but for technical and practical reasons. Here too, the “fan” comparison might help you to understand the underlying principle: FILTER A cuts the higher, FILTER B the lower frequencies. This results in a v-shaped center-notch.
STYLE - do you like it hard or soft? The first Action Filter utilized a slightly raw sounding circuit. We optimized the sound in the next revision which lead to a smoother sound experience. It turned out that some users preferred the rawer, some the softer sounding Action Filter revisions. It is impossible to make everyone happy, isn‘t it? We guess we found a way! The STYLE switch allows toggling between ROUGH, which equals Action Filter 1 and the rounder sounding SMOOTH position.
HDB electronic GmbH Badesteig 20 08258 Markneukirchen GERMANY Fon: +49 (0)37422 4027 0 Email: info@vermona.com Internet: www.vermona.
