User manual NADY CL-5000

[. . . ] CL-5000 DUAL CHANNEL COMPRESSOR LIMITER WITH GATE OWNER'S MANUAL DUAL CHANNEL COMPRESSOR LIMITER WITH GATE CL-5000 Congratulations! You have just purchased on of the finest professional compressor limiters on the market today. This unit was developed using the expertise of professional sound engineers and working musicians. You will find your new NADY AUDIO CL-5000 has superior performance and greater flexibility than any other compressor in its price range. Read this manual carefully to get the most out of your new unit. [. . . ] MAIN APPLICATIONS AND INITIAL SETTINGS The main applications of the CL-5000 can be divided into several categories: a. The Expander/Gate function is used to eliminate interference and to suppress background noise and leakage on individual tracks in multi-track recording. The Compressor function is used to compress the program material and to create special effects and unusual sounds, which are used for recording and musical performance. The Limiter function is designed to protect loudspeakers, tape recorders, transmitters, etc. from signal peaks, sort term overloading and over modulation (transmitters etc. ). 1. 1 Compression/Leveling/Limiting/Clipping Now that the functions and operation of the individual sections and their controls have been explained, we would like to acquaint you with more of the terms and relationships of the dynamics process. Compression A compressor converts a large dynamic level into a restricted range. The extent of the resulting dynamic level is dependent on the threshold, attack, release and ratio settings. As it is the desired effect of a compressor to increase a low level signal, generally the threshold is set low. The "inaudible" compression mode requires fast attack and release times and low ratios. The fastest the chosen control times and the higher the compression ratio, the greater the effect on the short-term dynamics. This fact is often used to achieve audible and creative sound effects. Leveling The leveling mode is used to keep output level constant, i. e. to compensate for long term gain changes, without affecting the short -term dynamics. Normally, the threshold is set quite low in order to be able to increase low -level signals. Leveling requires slow attack and release times, combined with a high ratio. Because of the very slow response time, leveling has no effect on signal peaks or short-term changes in average level. Limiting The limiting function requires a fast attack time and a high ratio and release time setting, which is dependent on the specific use and the desired sound effect. As it is usually the task of a limiter to limit only high signal peaks, the threshold is usually set at a high level. The dynamics are reduced dependent on the ratio setting and the degree by which the threshold point was exceeded. If the attack time is adjusted to control only the average level without affecting signal peaks above the threshold, this is referred to as the program limiter. For this purpose the attack time will be set above 20 ms. If the attack time is further reduced in order to also control signal peaks, this is defined as a peak limiter. Clipping In contrast to the two previously mentioned limiters, the clipping mode features infinitely fast control times, an infinite compression ratio and creates an unsurpassable barrier ("brickwall") for all signals above a certain level. To be able to control the signal peaks, the clipping function radically cuts signals above the threshold, without affecting the amplitude of the original signal. If used in normal applications, this function remains inaudible and under certain circumstances it can even lead to an improved sound, because cutting the transients creates artificial harmonics. If misused, clipping can cause very obvious and distasteful distortion, which when taken to the extreme, will convert the signal's waveform into a square wave signal. [. . . ] In addition, the frequency response of the whole system is modified and thus affected by equalizer operation. Dynamic feedback control is a better solution. Similar to the previously mentioned de-esser application, an equalizer is not inserted into the audio path but into the sidechain path of the CL-5000. To effectively suppress feedback, the center frequency of the equalizer is correctly adjusted to match the room's resonant feedback frequency. [. . . ]