Tracktion Software - The Channel Strips Video Lecture | Tracktion Tutorial: Master Music Editing - Video & Sound Editing

the Maki channel strips are the only
ones of the Maquis plugins to have a
slightly different feature set depending
whether you load the mono or the stereo
versions both plugs combine several
different processes into a single
interface and some of these will be
familiar to us already the compressor
section works in almost exactly the same
way as the standard Mackie compressors
while the EQ section is essentially a
four band version of the six band EQ
plugs they also offer a fully featured
noise gate and filtering options and the
order in which these processes are
connected is shown in the block diagram
in the top right corner of the interface
in the mono version the first block in
this diagram is labeled f4 filter you
can adjust the filter frequency using
the knob or by dragging the point on the
graph and if you turn off the filter
with the active button the block will be
grayed out to show it as inactive if we
ignore the KF block for now the next one
is labeled g4 gate noise gates are
similar to compressors in the sense that
they are just automatic gain control but
unlike a compressor a gate will reduce
the gain level by a fixed amount
whenever the signal drops below the
threshold in order to remove background
noise or spills from other instruments
or to control the decay of the sound
although the gate is active by default
the range control defaults to 0 dB this
means that no gain reduction will be
applied at all no matter what the input
level in much the same way as a
compressor set for the ratio of one to
one to set up some gain reduction first
drag the threshold node horizontally
then drag the range node vertically to
define how much gain reduction is
applied when the signal drops below the
threshold often a range of 20 DB or less
will be enough to drop the noise or
spill to an acceptable level and this
will usually sound more natural than the
full 60 DB of gain reduction available
if you are getting a drum sound you will
probably need the attack time set to its
minimum to avoid losing the transient at
the start of each hit but sounds that
naturally have a slow attack may need a
longer setting to avoid audible clicks
as the gate oak the release and hold
time can be set to make sure that the
gate stays open for long enough to allow
a natural sounding decay on each note or
they can be used more creatively to
shape the way the sound decayed the key
in switch in the bottom right of this
section will switch the high-pass filter
into the side chain of the gate this
means the filter will no longer have any
direct effect on the audio signal but
will instead prevent the noise gate from
responding to signals below the cutoff
frequency for example to make sure that
the gate on the snare drum mic only
opens when the snare drum is hit and
ignores the bass drum the block diagram
in the top corner now shows the filter
section as inactive and instead the KF
key filter block is active and is
feeding a parallel signal path into the
side chain of the noise gate you can
monitor the output of the key filter by
pressing the key listen button this
allows you to listen to the same signal
of the gate is listening to while
adjusting the filter the compressor also
has a key in out switch which is the
only feature that doesn't also appear in
the standard compressor plug this can be
used to switch the high-pass filter into
the compressors sidechain just like with
the noise gate and this can help to
prevent the compressor pumping audibly
in response to loud bass signals the
makeup game for the compressor is
located under the attack time instead of
being a fader as in the standalone
compressor you can use the output level
fader instead if you prefer but the
compressors makeup gain will be
by passed along with the compression if
you switch the process off which makes
it easier to judge your settings the key
filter can be routed to the noise gate
and compressor side chains
simultaneously if needed but if you want
the filter back in the audio path you
must first turn off the key filter
options in both sections
the EQ can be adjusted just like the
full six band version either by dragging
nodes on the graph or by dragging over
the parameter values themselves and
bands one and four can be switched to
peaking mode rather than the default
shelving type it is also possible to
change the order of the compressor and
the EQ sections by default the EQ is
placed before the compressor but this
can be reversed with the DSP order
switch in the top left corner the order
these processes come in is important but
there is no right or wrong way if the EQ
comes before the compressor then changes
to the EQ will also change the
compressors behavior but whether or not
this is desirable depends on the signal
you are processing as a general rule of
thumb i will put the eq first if i am
using it to correct problems with the
recording but put it second if i am
using the eq to shape the sound to fit
into a mix however if it sounds better
the other way around i will always go
with that instead the bottom left corner
of the interface contains a mute button
and also a polarity reverse which is
exactly the same as the phase invert
button commonly found on mixes the input
level fader above comes before all the
processes and can be used to trim the
input level if needed although this
channel strip only has a mono input it
has a stereo pair of outputs so the
signal can be panned with the knob under
the output level fade the stereo version
of the channel strip is mostly the same
but as it has stereo inputs instead of
mono the pan control is replaced with a
balance control and the polarity reverse
button is replaced with individual phase
inverter buttons for each channel where
the mono version has a single high-pass
filter for either the signal path all
the side chains the stereo version has a
dedicated sidechain filter with extra
options for low
Pass or ban pass filtering and also
another signal pass filter to its right
this allows a different filtering for
the side chain and the main signal path
if needed