Operation
Combining different amounts of clean and tube gain will create various effects. The GainStation 1 operates virtually distortion- free with the tube stage bypassed. The sound is clean and trans- parent with extreme detail and very low noise. The clean stage is ideal for most acoustic instruments, as well as jazz or clas- sical recordings. If you activate the tube stage and increase the gain setting slowly, you will notice that once you reach a certain level, harmonic distortion enters the signal. The sound becomes punchier and „fatter“, and attains more loudness. At this setting the tube stage is still relatively
Naturally, these effects become more pronounced as the amount of Tube Gain is increased. The tube can be driven to full satu- ration to produce pronounced distortion, which can be very effective with synthesizers, samplers and drum machines that lack punch. Signals recorded in this fashion will generally cut through a mix with no trouble at all.
Limiter
To achieve the desired results with the integrated limiter, it is important to understand its operation. The threshold value is fixed at 20 dBu. The clean and/or tube gain settings determine the amount of limiting, so that these settings more or less work like a threshold control. When the limiter is activated, it levels everything above 20 dBu. The orange 18 dB LED, which displays this level range, varies in brightness depending on limiting. The actual amount of limiting is displayed by the Limit LED, which becomes brighter as more level reduction is applied.
20 | GainStation 1 |
