Metering - Kurzweil K2661 Musician's Manual

Advanced KDFX
Effects Buses

Metering

All Input and FXBUS pages have rudimentary signal meters (the arrows), as we've seen. On the
Input pages, the arrow next to the input letter flashes when there is signal present at the input.
On the FXBUS and AUXFX pages, the arrow next to the FXBus number flashes as long as there is
signal being processed—in effect, it's an output meter. The arrows flash whenever the signal
level exceeds 14 bits below full scale, which is -84 dB relative to the maximum level the KDFX
can handle. Since typically the K2661 operates with about 20 dB of headroom, this translates to
about -64 dB relative to normal operating level
In addition, a number of KDFX's algorithms include a fast visual metering system for
monitoring what the algorithms are doing. Many of these algorithms deal with dynamics
control like compression and limiting. An example is Algorithm 950 HardKneeCompress.
Meters are most often found on the PARAM2 page of the FXPreset Editor:
In this algorithm, the meter is showing the gain reduction that the compressor imposes on the
signal coming into it.
Metering is also used for other purposes in some other algorithms, for example 902 LFO Sweep
Filter. In this algorithm, the meters show the current center frequency of the left and right filters
as they sweep up and down the spectrum:
Meters use up a certain amount of KDFX's processing power, although less than a whole PAU,
and so they are only used in algorithms where extra power is available. If an algorithm would
need to increase its Size—say, from 2 PAUs to 3—with the addition of metering, then metering
has not been included in that algorithm. This is to ensure that the maximum amount of
processing power is available for actual signal processing.
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