Sidechaining The Compressor; Effect Types; Reverb And Its Parameters - PRESONUS StudioLive III Series Owner's Manual

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13.9

Effect Types

Sidechaining the Compressor

13.8.2
13.9 Effect Types
13.9.1

Reverb and its Parameters

Sidechaining a compressor allows you to reduce the level of one input source to
make room for another. This is especially useful in live broadcast or application where
music and commentary are happening simultaneously. In recording applications, this
is generally accomplished with careful level automation. Compressor sidechaining
allows you to achieve a similar result without having to ride the faders.
Below are two of the most common uses:
Dialogue Ducking. This is probably the most well-known compressor sidechaining
application. Consider a common House of Worship situation where the pastor is
leading a meditation while the piano or pre-recorded music is being played. Apply
a compressor on the stereo music track with a fairly low threshold, high ratio, a fast
attack and a long release time, using the pastor's microphone channel as the key
source for the compressor. Now the compressor will react to level fluctuations from
the pastor's microphone, allowing the music to naturally rise and fall in counterpoint
to the speech pattern.
Bringing Out the Kick Drum. In some instances, a synth bass line, or a busy bass
guitar part interferes with the kick drum presence and punch in the mix. For this
application, you will apply a compressor to the bass channel, using the kick drum
channel as the key source, allowing your kick drum to punch through the bass line.
Your StudioLive mixer is equipped with four stereo effects processors. Each of these
processors has its own aux bus, allowing you to independently control the mix of
channels feeding them. This section will guide you through the basics of several
common effect types.
Reverberation—or reverb, as it is more commonly known—is perhaps the most
widely used effect. Natural reverb is created by sound waves reflecting off of a
surface or many surfaces. For example, when you walk across the wooden stage
in a large hall, thousands of reflections are generated almost instantaneously as
the sound waves bounce off the floor, walls, and ceilings. These are known as early
reflections, and their pattern provides psycho-acoustic indications as to the nature of
the space that you are in, even if you can't see it. As each reflection is then reflected
off of more surfaces, the complexity of the sound increases, while the reverb slowly
decays.
The reason for the widespread use of reverb in audio recording is fairly self-evident:
human beings don't live in a vacuum. Because our brains receive cues about the
nature of the space around us based partially on audio reflections, a sense of space
makes an audio recording sound more natural and, therefore, more pleasing.
Below are some of the most common reverb parameters for the reverb effects:
Decay. Decay is the time (in seconds) required for the reflections (reverberation) to
die away. In most modern music production, reverb decay times of between one and
three seconds are prevalent. A reverb setting with strong early reflections and a quick
decay are a great way to create a stereo effect from a mono source.
Predelay. Predelay is the time (in milliseconds) between the end of the initial sound
and the moment when the first reflections become audible. Imagine you're back on
that stage in a large music hall. This time you stand on the very edge of the stage and
shout "Hello world!" toward the center of the hall. There will be a brief pause before
you hear the first noticeable reflections of your voice, because the sound waves
can travel much further before encountering a surface and bouncing back. (There
are closer surfaces, of course—notably the floor and the ceiling just in front of the
stage—but only a small part of the direct sound will go there, so those reflections
will be much less noticeable.) Adjusting the predelay parameter on a reverb allows
you to change the apparent size of the room without having to change the overall
decay time. This will give your mix a little more transparency by leaving some space
between the original sound and its reverb.
StudioLive™ Series III
Owner's Manual
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