Lexicon CP-1 PLUS V2.0 Owner's Manual page 65

Theory
and
Design
The CP-1 allows you to create virtu-
ally any acoustic space you desire. It is
extremely simple to walk through the
parameters of a program, vary them to
your liking, name the space, and store it.
For this example, let's do a fairly radical
redesign — changing a church into a
hall. We'll start with the biggest, most
reverberant mode: Preset 6, CATHE-
DRAL.
Think about a nice concert hall
where you would enjoy going out to see
your favorite performer. Consider a hall
of approximately 2,700-3,000 seats
with a balcony (and, of course, valet
parking).
Get your performer's CD, cue it up in
the CD player, but don't start it yet —
We'll design the hall first.
First, let's decide how long the hall is,
as this will influence the reverb time and
the overall character. Press the PARAM
button; the display will show a room size
of 50 meters (meaning the simulated
hall will be 50 meters long). Press
PARAM once to change the room
size to 46 meters.
The reverb time of a space helps
describe how large it is. For eample, a
cathedral has a much longer reverb
to,me than a living room. Let's modify
the reverb time of our factory preset to
an appropriate value. A hall of the size
we are creating will have a reverb time of
approximately 2.00 seconds for the mid
frequencies. Press PARAM once or
twice until the CP-1 display shows MID
RT 3.2 SEC. (indicating it will take the
midrange reverb 3.2 seconds to decay
60dB). Press PARAM to change the
value to 2.16 SEC. and immediately
press PARAM to go to the next parame-
ter.
BASS RT describes how long the
low frequencies of the hall stay around
relative to the midrange. You have three
choices: 1.25 (warm), 1.0 (neutral), and
0.7 (dry). Typically, a hall of this size will
have a little longer bass reverb time.
(Hence, the preset value of 1.25.) This
one is your choice — use PARAM
and to change the value. Once you
have selected a value, press PARAM to
go to the next parameter.
Page 60
Creating a Custom Concert Hall Seat
How close to the stage do you want
to sit? Might as well go to the good
seats— how about row M in the center of
the orchestra section? Predelay ap-
proximates the amount of time between
the original sound of the performer and
the sound of the hall. The closer you are
to the stage, the longer it will take for the
sound to bounce off the back walls and
get back to you. Let's add a little extra.
(Some predelay is inherent in the mode
to keep the direct sound distinct.) Press
PARAM to adjust PREDELAY to
24ms.
Think about what the walls look like
in a good concert hall. Many irregularly
shaped objects like elaborate columns,
carved panels, draping and light fixtures
come to mind. These objects absorb
and diffuse the sound. A good sounding
space never has a lot of high frequen-
cies bouncing back at you. Press
PARAM once again and use the
TREBLE parameter to manipulate this
part of the hall. Change the value to
2.3kHz and then press PARAM again to
go to the next parameter.
A
B A
C B
D C
E D
F E
G F
H G
I H
J I
K J
L K
M L
N M
O N
P O
Q P
R Q
S R
T S
U T
V U
W V
W
X
Y
Z
AA
BB
CC
DD
EE
FF
GG
HH
II
JJ
KK
LL
MM
NN
OO
PP
QQ
RR
TT
The Speech Detection feature is ac-
tually a special dialog recognition pro-
gram which reduces the reverberation
on spoken voice. As we aren't using the
radio (and, therefore, have no announc-
ers or commercials), let's turn Speech
Detection off by pressing PARAM
We'll assume you have side speak-
ers and skip the Panorama Effect para-
meters. Press PARAM until you get to
SET PROGRAM NAME. You may want
to name this hall after yourself. (After all,
you designed it and paid for it!) Pressing
PARAM
the available characters, and the 12
numbered keys on the remote allow you
to select which characters you change.
When you've named your hall, press
PARAM one last time so the display
reads: MEMORIZE PROGRAM, then
immediately press mode #6 (HALL).
This will store your new custom created
hall in User Register #6.
Lastly, hold the B BALANCE button
to move the balance all the way to the
back. Now it's time to listen to your
creation. Start your CD. It should sound
like you are standing in the lobby of the
hall with the doors closed. Slowly move
the balance to the front of the hall one
step at a time by repeatedly pressing F
A
B
BALANCE. (Don't hold it down.) You are
C
D
now walking down the aisle to take your
E
F
seat. When the sound feels right, stop
G
H
pressing the balance key and "take your
I
J seat." If you want to make the effect
K
L even more dramatic, increase the EF-
M
FECT LEVEL (bottom left section of the
N
O
remote.)
P
Q
R
It's fun, and pretty easy, to create
S
T
almost any acoustic space you want.
U
V
For the megalomaniacs among you try
W
creating your own private Taj Mahal —
X
Y
in the Cathedral preset, increase MID
Z
AA RT to 11.2 and turn EFFECT LEVEL all
BB
CC the way up. Play a CD for a couple
DD
seconds, then hit pause and close your
EE
FF
eyes ... Just remember, you can't hurt
GG
HH
anything by experimenting, and the fac-
II
JJ
tory presets can't be permanently modi-
KK
LL
fied, so don't worry about losing them
MM
NN
forever.
OO
PP
QQ
Enjoy!
RR
TT
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