Ecler ECLERNET MANAGER - Manual (Page 59)

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6.5. COMPRESSOR
The compressor section offers a processing of the input signal dynamic behaviour, allowing the output
intensity to be controlled not to exceed certain levels. Available settings are:
 ON/OFF: turns the compressor on/off (green button/grey button). When in
OFF mode, the rest of the section controls are disabled.
 THRESHOLD: compression threshold. Composed of a potentiometer and a
numerical value, and used to specify the input signal level at which
compression begins to occur. This parameter ranges from +18 dB to
–36 dB.
 RATIO: compression ratio. It also includes a potentiometer and its
associated numerical value. This parameter determines the output volume
reduction ratio when the input signal level rises above the threshold. A
value of 1:1 states that the signal level does not undergo changes, while
the extreme value of inf:1 represents a signal limiter, with which any signal
above the threshold will be limited to that threshold level.
 ATTACK (potentiometer and numerical value): attack time. Determines the
time the compressor takes to respond when the input level rises above the
threshold. The range extends from 0.1 ms to 500 ms.
 RELEASE (potentiometer and numerical value): determines how quickly the
compressor stops operating once the signal input level drops below the threshold. In this case,
the range covers from 1 ms to 5 s.
Correctly setting compressors’ ATTACK and RELEASE times is not an easy task: too short release or
attack times result in excessive and perceptible low frequencies distortion; on the other hand, too long
times could make a limiter useless if damages already occurred before limitation starts.
In order to help you to correctly set these values, the AUTO parameter automatically select ATTACK and
RELEASE values, using the crossover high-pass filter cut-off frequency as internal reference.
When AUTO is enabled, ATTACK and RELEASE controls editing is disabled, but used values are still
displayed.
Additionally, some devices (NZA series) can display the compressor function in
voltage peak limiter mode, changing the GUI appearance, as shown in the
attached image.
In this mode, the limiting threshold appears in volt units and RATIO, ATTACK
and RELEASE controls are disabled.