Waves Linear-Phase MultiBand Software Audio Processor manual

W aves L inMB soft ware guid e page 1 of 28 W a v es – Linear-Phase MultiBand Softwar e Audio Pr ocessor User s Guid e[...]

W aves L inMB soft ware guid e page 2 of 28 Chapter 1 – Introduc tion Introducing Waves Linear -Phase Multi Band Proc essor. The LinMB is an ev olved v ersion of the C 4 MultiBan d Parametr ic Process or. If you are fam ilia r w ith C4 you will f ind the Linear Ph ase MultiBand very similar, adding so me true br eakthrough i nnovati on and techn [...]

W aves L inMB soft ware guid e page 3 of 28 MultiBand devices ar e especial ly handy when dealing with the dynamics of a full rang e mix. In a symphonic orchestra as w ell as in a Rock n Roll ba nd different instruments dominat e differen t frequency ranges. Many times the low range do minates t he whole dynamic res ponse w hile the higher frequenc[...]

W aves L inMB soft ware guid e page 4 of 28 Chapter 2 – Basic Op eration. T HE W AVES L INEA R P HA S E M ULTI B AND ’ S CONTROL G RO UPS – T HE CROSSOVER FREQUENCIES - The 4 Xov er frequenci es are s et directl y under t he graph by grabbi ng their graph m arker or using the tex t button. Thes e define the cutoff fr equencies i n which the W[...]

W aves L inMB soft ware guid e page 5 of 28 Other deal with the ov erall pr ocessor out put – Gain , Tr im and Dither . The Makeup control allows selection betw een manual m ode and Auto Makeup. Finally there are 4 g eneral c ompression be havior contr ols – Adaptive (Expl ained further in the nex t chapter), R elease – Sel ect betw een W ave[...]

W aves L inMB soft ware guid e page 6 of 28 Note that this Q uick Start routin e is not the Golde n recipe to mastering w ith the Linear MultiBan d, it does howev er provi de a general type practice that should let us ers new to MultiBan d follow a r ecommended w orkflow . This example only scratch es the surface of possib ilities with the Linear M[...]

W aves L inMB soft ware guid e page 7 of 28 Chapter 3 – Specialtie s of the Chef A DA P T I VE T HRESHOLDS AND D E - MA SK IN G . The effect of louder sou nds on so fter sounds h as been resear ched for decades. Ther e are many classificatio ns to masking and the most effectiv e masking is considere d forward i n time and upward in frequency . Si[...]

W aves L inMB soft ware guid e page 8 of 28 hear how the adaptive beh avior r esponds to the m adding a more dy namic approach t o dynami cs. This ex ample is so mewhat ex treme and i t is recommende d to try settings around –12 dB for subtle ad aptive de-mas king. It may also b e interesti ng to low er the over all thres hold of the top 4 “Ada[...]

W aves L inMB soft ware guid e page 9 of 28 results, y ou may set y our releas e time for the best co mpromise between Distort ing and Pu mping and t hen apply ARC to get even better result s with less artifacts. Altern atively y ou can just count on t his technology , set your release v alue to the desired ball park or stick w ith the release scal[...]

W aves L inMB soft ware guid e page 10 of 28 Chapter 4 – Li nMB Contro ls and Displays. C ONT ROLS Individual Band Controls T HRESHOLD . 0- -80dB . Default – 0.0dB Defines t he point o f reference for that ban d’s energ y. W henev er the ener gy in a certain band exceeds the threshold gain adjust ment will be ap plied. For your convenience , [...]

W aves L inMB soft ware guid e page 11 of 28 Defines the time it will take to re lea se the applied gain adjustment f r om the moment t he det ected energ y falls bel ow the thr eshold. S OLO . Solo’s th e band to th e main pr ocessors output for monit oring the band-pass by itsel f or along w ith other sol oed ban ds. B YPASS . Bypasses all proc[...]

W aves L inMB soft ware guid e page 12 of 28 Sets the overal l output gain. The dou bl e preci si on pr ocess assures no in put or internal cli pping so thi s gain i s used at the o utput to pr event cli pping. T RIM – The Auto Trim button up dates the peak val ue and when cl icked it adj usts the output ga in control to trim the margin so that t[...]

W aves L inMB soft ware guid e page 13 of 28 The Auto rel ease control sets an optimal r elease tim e in relati on to the manual release ti me. W hen Manual rel ease is sele cted then the releas e of the attenuation will be a bsolute as indicated, Add ing ARC will ma ke the release sensitiv e to the amount of atten uation and s et the best rel ease[...]

W aves L inMB soft ware guid e page 14 of 28 D ISPLAYS T HE M ULTI B AND GRAPH : The Multi Band grap h is like a n EQ gr aph showi ng Amplitud e in the Y- axis and Frequency in X-axi s. In the Middl e of the gr aph resides the Dy namicLine  that show s the per b and gain a djustment as it happens w ithin the R ange, represen ted by the Bluish hi[...]

W aves L inMB soft ware guid e page 15 of 28 Chapter 5 – Ra nge and Threshold Conc ept The concep t of ‘Threshol d’ and ‘R ange’ ins tead of th e traditional ‘Ratio’ control crea tes some v ery flexibl e and power ful uses for t he LINMB. Th ey include low -lev el compression a nd expansi on, givi ng you mul tiband “upw ard comp res[...]

W aves L inMB soft ware guid e page 16 of 28 H IGH - LEVEL EXPA NSION ( UPW A RD EXP A NDER ) An upw ard expander from the C 1, with a ra tio of 0. 75:1, Thres hold at -35. Equiv alent LINMB set ting w ould be a Rang e of +10 or so, quite a bit more than y ou’d probably ever need. Show n only for clear ex ample. To make an upw ard expander (an ?[...]

W aves L inMB soft ware guid e page 17 of 28 Upper li ne shows Low -level compressi on (upw ard), achiev ed when Ra nge is negativ e and Gain is equal b ut positiv e. Lower li ne shows Low -level expansion ( downw ard), achieved w hen Range is positiv e and Gain is equal but negati ve. Grap h is taken from C1 to hel p visualiz e the gain structur e[...]

W aves L inMB soft ware guid e page 18 of 28 change at al l, whic h means ev erything well below it gets “l ifted up”. (I f you take this just a bit further, you’ll f igu re that all audio exactly at the Threshold will have half of the Range’s v alue in posi tive g ain). O NE M ORE WA Y TO T HINK AB OUT IT Here is an other bit o f help so t[...]

W aves L inMB soft ware guid e page 19 of 28 example for several reasons. It i s (1) a very realistic setting tha t could be equal to w hat is bei ng done by the prev iously mentio ned engine ers; (2) only raising the noise floor by an acceptable amount for many appl ications; ( 3) easy to h ear on nearl y any ty pe of audio, not only classical. In[...]

W aves L inMB soft ware guid e page 20 of 28 Chapter 6 – Ex amp les of use P RA CTIC E OF M ULT I B AND A ND M A S TERING Upon a ti me the me diums just c ouldn’t h andle the sa me dynami c rang e that an orchestr a can produc e or a Microph one transduce , so for t he lower passages not to be too low and the p eaks not too high, compr ession a[...]

W aves L inMB soft ware guid e page 21 of 28 T O FIX A MIX Most of the time, you w ant to use relati vely equivalent Gai n and Rang e settings across t he bands s o to not cha nge the spectral balance t oo much. Howev er, it’s not a perfect w orld, and many mix es are not per fect either. So let’s say you have a mix that h as too muc h kick, th[...]

W aves L inMB soft ware guid e page 22 of 28 How to create your own dyn amic EQ setting (for low-level enhancement) : 1. Set the R ange to the amount of gain re duction desir ed in each b and; this also sets the “ EQ” of the co mpressed signal. 2. Set the G ain of each band so th at the desir ed low -level EQ is seen. For instance, y ou may wan[...]

W aves L inMB soft ware guid e page 23 of 28 or above t he Threshold , the signal is incre ased in gain. U pward ex pansion takes more time to adju st because y ou must tr y to find the subjectiv ely eq ual settings o f what was do ne to the s ound, an d even if y ou know the “ numbers” on the original processor, the numbers r eally don’ t re[...]

W aves L inMB soft ware guid e page 24 of 28 Chapter 7 – F acto ry Presets. G ENERAL TIPS ! Here is a r ecommended order for adjusting a preset, even i f you have no intention o f “using pr esets”. They are merely g ood places to st art. Create y our own l ibrary by using our U ser Preset com mand in th e Save M enu. • The first st ep shoul[...]

W aves L inMB soft ware guid e page 25 of 28 Deeper Not a “ flat” preset, by any means, this has deeper Ranges on the hig h end, which means th e signal will be bassier as it gets louder, and more compressed i n the hig h end as it g ets louder . Attack and release ti mes are faste r, so the compressor gra b s more. Low-level Enhanc er A classi[...]

W aves L inMB soft ware guid e page 26 of 28 having the classic setup of a high- level compress or. Chang ing the Mas ter Release and makin g the release times significan tly fa ster w ill still pre serve transients and mark edly i ncrease the aver age lev el. Multi Electro M astering The other end of the spectrum, insofar as the mastering goes, wi[...]

W aves L inMB soft ware guid e page 27 of 28 BassComp/De-Es ser A common problem w ith small studi o mixes is the l ow end, du e to near -field monitor s, improp er room low -frequency abs orption, b eer, and de manding clients. Anot her common problem i s the lack of e nough de- essers to go around, a nd further more, the insi stence o f drummers [...]