5 – Operation

(+1 or –1) signal levels. These levels represent the “rails” of the amplifier. As the Warmth Amount is increased, the amplification is increased. Any regions of the signal that increases beyond the rails generate distortion. (But instead of the usual ugly digital clipping, they are distorted the same way the tube pre-amp would distort the sound.)

Because the maximum drive is limited to +12 dB, using the Tube Saturation model requires the original signal to be at a level greater than –12 dB. If this is not the case, you should adjust the Input analog Trim control (in the Setup Menu) to increase the level of the sound. (Be careful that Input Level is not increased so much as to cause digital distortion.) It may be necessary to go back and forth between Warmth Amount and Input Trim a few times to get exactly the effect you want.

NOTE

If your audio was recorded at an exceptionally low level, it may be that even maximum Input Trim and maximum Warmth Amount will still not result in a level high enough to generate distortion. In that case, either re-record your audio at a higher level (if possible) or use an available digital waveform editor to digitally increase the level (keeping in mind that this may negatively affect the signal quality).

If you want to add tube warmth without otherwise affecting your sound, set both the Source Mic and Modeled Mic to Bypass.

ªªMIC MODELER ON Button

When this button is lit, the MIC MODELER module is active. When it is not lit, the module is bypassed. Pressing the button toggles its state. The Mic Modeler On/Off function can also be controlled by MIDI and/or by a footswitch.

AUTO-TUNE MODULE

ªªScale Page

Pressing the SCALE button brings up this page.

You tell Auto-Tune exactly which notes you want to correct on the Scale Page:

Ch:CC#DD#EFF#GG#AA#B

:

This page allows you to specify the scale notes to which Auto-Tune tunes the input sound.

The TA-1VP comes with 25 preset scales: Chromatic, 12 diatonic major and 12 diatonic minor. To select a preset scale, use the cursor buttons to move to the scale name field in the top left of the screen and turn the Data Knob to select the desired scale. Note that "Ch" is short for "Chromatic", the scale with all 12 notes.

In addition, you can customize any of the provided scales and save it as part of your preset. To modify a scale, press the Á cursor button to move the cursor to the bottom row of this screen, then use the cursor buttons to move to the desired scale note and turn the Data Knob to set it to one of the following three states:

Tune (i.e., the note name appears in the display, but the field under the note is blank): When the input is near a note set to Tune, Auto-Tune will retune the input to that note.

Bypass (i.e., the note name appears in the display and an “*” appears in the field under the note): When the input pitch is close to a note set to Bypass, the output remains uncorrected.

Blank (i.e., the note name disappears from the display): A note set to Blank will be omitted from the scale. For example, setting C#, D#, F#, G#, A# to Blank causes a C Major scale to remain. In that case Auto- Tune would always retune the input to the closest note of the C Major scale.

As an example, the following settings result in a D Major scale with no pitch corrections applied to F# and C#:

D : C#D E F#G A B

Ma: *

*

Why set Scale notes to “Blank”?

To understand why it is sometimes necessary to set even correct scale notes to ”Blank,“ let’s look again at the example from Chapter 2.

CORRECTED

BY TA-1VP

D3

C#3

ORIGINAL PERFORMANCE

B2

10.0

10.5

11.0

This phrase is in D Major and, if all the pitch errors were no greater than about 49 cents, would work fine with a standard D Major scale (D, E, F# , G, A, B, C# ). However, the pitch error of three semitones at the end of the last note is so large that with B and C# present in the Scale, as the pitch fell, Auto-Tune would see first C# and then B as the target pitch and therefore allow the error to remain. With C# and B removed from the Scale, Auto-Tune continues to see D as the target pitch for the entire duration of the

28 TASCAM TA-1VP