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VU METERS.
'VU' (or Volume Unit) meters were designed originally so that the indication
on the meter was a good measure of the perceived 'loudness' of the sound.
While this type of meter is very popular in professional studios, and is very
easy to use, it must be remembered that while it shows 'loudness', it does
not necessarily show peak level or 'overload' point. The VU meter tends to
under-read (show a lower level than is actually present), on signals that
have a high transient content (speech particularly). Typical under-reads
are; piano 6dB, guitar 2dB, human voice singing 4 to 7dB, human voice,
speech 10 to 14 dB. While the 'TwinQ' has been designed with enormous
overload margins specifically to allow for perfect transient response, (even
when operated heavily 'in the red' the 'TwinQ' will not distort), this may not
be so for the next equipment in the recording chain, so be careful to watch
for overloads in any equipment following the 'TwinQ'.
Both microphone and line input amplifiers are 'CS' type. 'CS' stands for 'Current
Sensing'.
Conventional microphone amplifiers amplify the voltage generated across the input
impedance of the amplifier. The sound is heavily affected by cable quality, length,
capacitance and many other factors. The Current Sensing amplifier directly
converts the coil current into usable audio so that the sound from the microphone
amplifier is exactly the same as the sound at the microphone head; without the
distortions and losses of cable, connectors and odd impedances.
THE INSTRUMENT INPUT
Each of the channels has a jack socket on the front panel labelled
'instrument'.
This is a high impedance high gain input designed specially for 'passive'
(without pre-amplifier) instruments like Fender Jazz/Precision bass, most
Fender guitars, Gibson guitars, in fact, almost any musical instrument.
Some instruments (Yamaha basses etc) have built-in pre-amplifiers and
they sometimes work better when plugged into the rear 'line in' jack socket
where the amplification is lower.
The Instrument input is capable of amplifying very low-level signals so
please take care to keep the volume control to minimum when plugging or
unplugging instruments.
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