Korg PA3 Compress/DeEss with Adaptive Off, Gate

Voice Processor

Voice Processor Setup: Mic Tone

There is only the single DeEss Level control; no other manual

adjustment settings are required. The factory setting of 50% gen-

tly reduces sibilance without becoming obvious. Higher settings

of compression and Shape or a bright, sibilant voice may requ ire

a higher setting.

Compress/DeEss with Adaptive Off

Turning off Adaptive compression switches compression to

manual control. Be sure to reduce the level of your amplification

or switch to headphones when adjusting the manual compressor

because high settings can cause more gain and thus feedback.

Note: The DeEss Level control will remain unchanged.

Threshold

This sets the singing level at and a bove which the amount of gain

reduction (compression) specified by the Ratio control will

occur. The range is 0 dB to -30 dB: 0 dB being the loudest input

signal the Voice Processor can accept without distortion and -30

dB being a very quiet signal. If you sing consistently more quietly

than the Threshord, you will not hear any compression . A good

setting for experimentation is -10 dB.

Ratio

This sets how much gain reduction you prefer when your voice

level goes above the threshold. The range is from 1:1 (no gain

reduction) to 4:1 (maximum vocal gain reduction ). The default

setting for Ratio is 4:1.

The number on the left side of the : (colon) symbol is how loud

the peaks in your singing have to be in order to achieve a 1 dB

gain increase. A brief example of how adjusting the ratio of com-

pressor works is this: say a word you sang went 4 dB over the

threshold when the Ratio was set to 4:1. The compressor would

only allow it to go 1 dB louder.

Note that the Ratio control has to be set above 1.0 (1.0:1) to

apply any compression regardless of the setting of the T hreshold.

Also note that automatic makeup gain occurs depending on

your combination of Threshold and Ratio. A side effect of com-

pression is that it can reduce apparent level until makeup gain is

applied to raise the overall level.

Gate

If your musical accompaniment is loud or you hear feedback, the

Gate control will enable you to make adjustments.

Adaptive

When set to the factory default of Adaptive, the Gate control

helps in two very important ways by:

1. Minimizing feedback

2. Reducing the amount of audible effec ts processing on

sounds entering the mic other than your voice.

A typical, fixed gate works by shutting off, or reducing the level

of any signal below a threshold that you set. When you sing

louder than that threshold, the gate will open and your vocal will

come through the amplification system. When you aren’t sing-

ing, the gate will close and block sounds around you.

The Adaptive Gate works automatically with your singing style

to provide the optimum balance between how loud you have to

sing to open the gate and how much other noises are reduced.

For troublesome audio environments, or for those who are

familiar with setting manual gate parameters, there is also a

Manual setting.

You c an al so tu r n t he ga te to Off with good results if you are in a

quiet, low volume musical environment.

Lead Atten(uation)

This controls how much your lead voice level is reduced (attenu-

ated) when your voice falls below the Gate threshold and the

Gate closes. This setting applies whether the Gate is set to Adap-

tive or Manual. The factory default setting of -3 dB (a reduction

of 3 dB) is gentle enough that if your voice strays below the

threshold, it is not cut off completely. If you are in a feedback-

prone environment (loud monitors plus Shape and Compress

on) you can increase this to reduce more. A setting of 0 dB offers

no gain reduction on your lead voice at all. Settings of -30 to Off

effectively mute your voice when the Gate is on.

Harm(ony) Atten(uation)

This sets the amount of attenuation for the Harmony and D ou-

bling voices when the Gate closes. They have a separate attenua-

tion setting to reduce chatter caused by instrument sounds

entering the mic and being harmonized when you aren’t singing.

The factory default attenuation amount of - 10 dB should work

well in many situations, but you can fur ther reduce the level if

you still hear harmonized instrumental chattering when you

stop singing.

Threshold

(Only with Manual Gate) This parameter becomes visible when

the Gate has been switched to Manual. The Threshold defines

the minimum singing level you need to reach in order for the

Gate to open and let your voice sound. The factory default set-

ting of -40 dB is very sensitive to allow a wide range of singing

levels but it may also allow more nearby instrumental sounds

through when you are not singing. In this case, further adjust-

ment from -39 dB and upward may be needed.

VPs