Buy accessories for sound processing devices. Sound processing devices

Designed for audio processing, which can be divided into four main groups: Dynamic processing devices, Frequency Processing, Modulation Processing, and Spatial and Time Processing Devices. Devices for dynamic sound processing: Compressor, Limiter, Expander, and Gate. Compressor- A device that compresses the dynamic range of the signal. Compressor attenuates the sound volume in cases where the signal has exceeded a certain, pre-set level. Limiter- A device that prevents the signal from exceeding the set volume level can be realized with a compressor. Expander- A device whose operation is opposite to that of the compressor. Expander expands the dynamic range of the signal. Gate- a device capable of cutting off the signal below the set threshold. It is used to eliminate noise in the pauses between useful signals. Gate, is able to cut the "tail" of the signal, which will make the sound clearer. Frequency signal processing devices:Graphic Equalizer,Parametric Equalizer. Graphic Equalizer- a device with a set of frequencies specified by the manufacturer, at each of which you can amplify or attenuate the signal. Parametric Equalizer- the most common device for frequency processing of sound, allowing you to select a frequency band, and in this frequency range, to attenuate or amplify the signal. Modulation signal processing devices: X orus,Flanger. Horus- a fairly common device for modulation processing, the principle of which is based on a floating time delay of the signal, Horus creates the effect of sounding multiple instruments when only one is playing. Flanger- a device that works like Horus, but with a small difference, which is the use of feedback, and the appearance of additional resonant frequencies. Temporary sound processing devices:Delay,reverb. Delay- a device with an echo effect, with the ability to adjust the time delay. Reverb- a frequently used device, the essence of which is to attenuate the signal when this signal is repeatedly reflected from obstacles, with the achievement of a surround sound effect. Mountain effects, large concert hall, underwater sound effect, etc.

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A person hears sounds with a frequency of 30 to 20,000 hertz, and a bat - up to 100,000 hertz, although the lower limit is approximately equal to ours. So this tiny flying ball, covered with wool, lives in the real world of sounds. Just like the dolphin, this creature finds the food it needs using an echo locator. Scientists have been engaged in sonar of bats for a longer time than the sonar of a dolphin. Back in 1793, the eminent Italian explorer Lazzaro Spallanzani established that bats navigate and find their prey through hearing. However, it took about 150 years to realize that they are doing this using ultrasonic location. And here it is impossible not to appreciate the works of American scientists G. Pearce, D. Griffin and R. Galambos, who made an invaluable contribution to deciphering the operation of an ultrasonic locator in bats.

Like dolphins, bats have an ultrasound generator and echo receivers. Both the one and the other device in the process of evolution have reached perfection. The larynx of bats is very wide. It, like a resonator, allows you to amplify the ultrasounds generated by the whistle. But mice emit not just a whistle, not audible to our ears, but a series of ultrasonic clicks. Before takeoff, the mouse sends 5-10 signals per second, the search has begun - the frequency increases to 20-30 clicks, and the mouse overtakes the insect at 250 signals per second. How the mouse produces a continuous series of beeps is not yet known.

In different species of bats, generators differ in structure. In some, smooth-nosed, sounds, as we said, are emitted by the larynx, therefore such a bat flies with an open mouth. Most of the smooth-nosed mice live on the North American continent, but we also have their representatives. The smallest of them - bats - are found in the Moscow region and almost throughout the entire central zone of Russia. At dusk, you can easily see how they hunt for insects against the background of the still undying sky. By creating a series of signals, the bat, like all smooth-nosed bats, sends ultrasound in all directions and then picks up the reflected signal. Another group of bats, horseshoe bats, which can be found, for example, in the Caucasus, generate ultrasonic signals not with their mouth, but with their nose. Around their nose is a fleshy, horseshoe-like outgrowth that allows ultrasound to be reflected and collected in a narrow beam. A horseshoe bore flies with a closed mouth, impulses last a thousandth of a second (100 ms), while in smooth-nosed animals this click is only one millisecond (Fig. 5). Therefore, if the horseshoe bat goes to a low frequency, its signals resemble the ticking of a wristwatch.

The echo receiver in bats is also a perfect device: it can hear echoes that are 2000 times weaker than the signal sent by the generator. It is quite understandable that large auricles are needed to capture such weak signals; and in some species they reach almost half the total length of the head and body. So, for long-eared ears, 8 centimeters in size, the ears are 4 centimeters long. The inner ear also has a special structure. Recall that vibrations are transmitted from the middle ear to the inner one by the stapes, and the part of the bats' ear, located next to the stapes, is greatly expanded.

Well, now about the most interesting thing - the device of the sound receiver of bats, which allows it to be protected from the cry-impulse sent by its own locator. After all, the sent impulse, as we said, is 2000 times stronger than the received reflected sounds. With such a sound, the mouse can stun itself and then hear nothing. To prevent this from happening, before the ultrasound pulse, the stapes are pulled by a special muscle from the window of the cochlea of ​​the inner ear. The vibrations are mechanically interrupted and do not enter the inner ear. In essence, the stirrup also makes a click, but not sound, but "anti-sound", it immediately returns to its place after the cry-signal, and the ear is ready to receive the reflected signal. You are simply amazed at how fast a muscle can contract and relax, which turns off the hearing of a mouse for the duration of a cry-impulse! At high flight, this is only 5 pulses per second. At a lower flight altitude - 10-12 impulses, and when pursuing prey - 200-250 impulses per second. Of course, at the highest frequency, the muscle does not have time to turn off the ear every time, but the echo is so strong that even when the stapes are retracted, the bat is likely to hear signals reflected from an insect located a few centimeters from its muzzle.

Nothing to say, the bat echo-locating system is a perfect radar system operating in the ultrasonic range. Its mass is no more than 7.5 grams, and it contains a transmitter, a receiver, and a computing device - the brain. Recall that a man-made radar installation weighs tens of kilograms and for its transportation you need a truck or a car specially equipped for a radar installation. Of course, the radar operates on radio waves, and not on ultrasound, its range of action is significantly superior to an ultrasonic bat locator. The principle of location is the same for them, but the living system is much more effective if we take into account its scanty mass.

One can only be surprised at the ingenuity of nature and those evolutionary mechanisms that formed ultrasonic devices in living beings. Bats hear ultrasonic vibrations up to 100,000 hertz, while the moths and lacewing they hunt receive ultrasonic signals up to 240,000 hertz. Their "ears" resemble the auditory organs of the grasshoppers discussed earlier. As soon as the insects hear that a bat is locating them, they begin to make aerobatics, spirals and dead loops, so that the bat misses and does not grab them. And since insects are more agile than bats, they often manage to dodge their pursuer. But the relationship between butterflies and bats doesn't end there. It has recently been found that some butterflies are capable of producing ultrasonic pulses themselves. As soon as the insect detects that the bat is tracing its path with latching signals, it itself begins to emit ultrasonic impulses. Moreover, these impulses act on the pursuer in such a way that he flies away, as if frightened.

What makes bats stop chasing an insect that emits ultrasonic signals?

So far, there are only assumptions on this score. On one of them, ultrasonic clicks are insect adaptive signals, similar to those sent by the bat itself, only 1000 times stronger. Expecting to hear a faint echo from his signal, the pursuer hears a deafening rumble, as if a supersonic plane were breaking through a sound barrier. According to other ideas, which are adhered to by the famous researcher of animal senses R. Burton, moths emit warning ultrasonic signals for bats. If you want, this can also be called mimicry, only not visual, but ultrasonic. Many insects tend to merge with the environment and acquire an appropriate protective coloration. A number of poisonous insects, on the contrary, are dressed in the brightest colorful "suits". This is a warning coloring. But for bats that hunt at night, bright colors don't matter. Poisonous insects use ultrasonic warning signals. It is possible that harmless butterflies have also comprehended the protective role of these signals and frighten bats with them. So we got a kind of mimicry.

How, in the course of a long evolutionary process, did insects acquire the ability to perceive ultrasonic signals and instantly understand the danger posed by the "signals" of a bat? With ultrasonic signals from bats, it is even more difficult - no screaming signals from fellow tribesmen (and sometimes more than 20,000,000 of them are collected in one place, like in the Bracken Cave in the southern United States), no artificial ultrasonic signals created by humans with the help of equipment interfere with hunting bats. They recognize their echoes among millions of voices and other sounds, and the playback of the signals generated by the butterfly makes the mouse fly away. These signals are extremely matched to the locator of the flying animal, and, possibly, their clicks are heard exactly at the time when the bat turns on its ear to hear the echo. If this is the case, then the moth manages to receive the frequency of the pulse that triggers it and send a response, taking into account the approach of the hunter, exactly in unison with him. Such a device cannot be formed gradually, in the process of selection and improvement. The insect receives it immediately ready-made, only then will it save his life. This is such a complexly arranged sound locator poses a new mystery in the evolution of living things, which scientists have not yet solved.

Bats emit ultrasounds not with the help of the vocal cords, but due to the whistle. It is not clear only how you can whistle with clicks. But the capabilities of ultrasonic location are higher than location at the frequency of audible sounds. Firstly, ultrasound propagates with a directed beam, and secondly, the location improves with decreasing wavelength - the reflected echo from small objects is less distorted in this case. High-frequency sounds emitted in the laboratory by clicks, like those of dolphins or bats, allowed blind people with well-developed hearing to recognize objects and the material from which the objects under study were made, although they, of course, were far from the capabilities of "living locators ".

Cats hear ultrasounds too. In our "kitty-kitty" there is a whole chord of ultrasounds, and, possibly, in it cats hear a series of whistles in a wide range. Dogs are not inferior to cats, they can even be trained to resort to the owner on the signal of an ultrasonic whistle. The upper limit of hearing is also different in humans. Children can hear higher sounds than adults. A case is described when a four-year-old boy woke up at night, woke up his parents and began to insist that "it" was screaming and beeping. The parents didn't hear anything. At first they thought the child was dreaming and began to calm him down. After a while, the child screamed again that "it" squeaked and that there was someone in the room. The parents, in order to calm the child, began to search the room and found ... a bat clung to one of the curtains. For the sake of fairness, it can be noted that the child would still not have heard the ultrasounds on which the bat locates insects; most likely, these were signals sent by other bats at frequencies of low-wave ultrasound, somewhere in the region of 25,000 hertz.

Not all animals have such a sophisticated and perfect echo-location apparatus as bats and dolphins. Some animals use their sonar only for orientation in dark caves. So, in Southeast Asia, swifts-swifters live in caves. They are famous for their nests of thick, congealed saliva. In oriental cuisine they are used for making soup and are called "swallow's nests". In caves, swiftlets emit clicking sounds up to 5-10 times per second and by the echo they determine where the walls are and where the nests are. Another bird, the guajaro from South America, also spends all day in dark caves and only flies out at night to feast on the fruits of the trees. In a dark cave, she navigates with the help of sonar, emitting shrill, abrupt screams at a frequency of about 7000 hertz.

One evening at the dacha, I heard thin and sharp squeaks. What could it be? I took a flashlight and walked towards the source of the incomprehensible sounds. My cat was standing in the beam of a flashlight, and in front of him, as it seemed to me at first, was a tiny mouse. After a while, it was possible to consider that this shrew is the smallest insectivorous mammal in our fauna. At any attempt of the cat to move forward and grab the shrew, she made such shrill squeaks that the surprised cat jumped back. The whistles, of course, were produced in the ultrasonic range, which frightened the cat even more.

It is known that shrews are great specialists in reproducing ultrasounds. But not only to scare away their enemies, shrews use ultrasounds, they also use them for echo-location. Biologists had to work hard before they discovered the echo-locating system in these mammals. The experiments had to be carried out in complete darkness, and to observe the animals with the help of night vision devices.

The scientists took two platforms, washed them thoroughly to eliminate olfactory orientation effects, and moved the platforms apart at different distances. With a successful jump, the shrews received their favorite food. As usual, the animal ran to the edge of one platform, examined it, and then jumped to another platform with an accurate jump, from which the path led to food. If the distance between the platforms was 17 centimeters, the shrews easily found the second platform and jumped onto it. As soon as the distance was increased to 25 centimeters, the jumping stopped, the animal darted along the edge of the first platform, felt where the second was, but it was very difficult to overcome the huge "abyss" for it. It was these experiments that helped scientists establish that shrews use ultrasound for their location.

We got acquainted with the inhabitants of the air spaces, caves, terrestrial creatures and the inhabitants of the deep sea, who have ultrasonic echo locators that amaze with their perfection and show the ways of creating new locating devices.

Sound processing Is the use of various instruments to help improve the overall sound in a live performance or in a recording studio.

This article will discuss sound processing devices and their practical application in concert practice.

Sound processing devices.

Equalizer.

The principle of equalization is to boost or cut individual frequencies in order to achieve the desired tonal balance.

Sound reinforcement systems typically use a 31-band stereo graphic equalizer. Selected frequencies are suppressed or boosted by the vertical sliders.

The equalizer is connected to the outputs of the mixing console. The signal processed by it is transmitted to the active crossover or directly to the amplifier. The equalizer can also be included in the remote control inserts (sockets Insert) in order to process only one channel (or two, according to the number of equalizer outputs).

Some mixing consoles have a built-in output equalizer (usually 7 or 9 bands). There are also 15 or 9 band external EQs. There are both analog and digital EQs.

The FBQ1502 is an excellent 15-band equalizer with light indication on the sliders for detecting feedback.

Another undoubted advantage of this device is the presence of a mono output to the subwoofer with the ability to adjust the crossover frequency.

A kind of digital equalizer is. It differs from a conventional equalizer in that it exclusively suppresses the selected frequencies, and does not amplify them. This digital device can operate in both automatic and manual modes.

It is usually connected to the gaps of the remote control channels to which the microphones are connected. And its purpose is to suppress resonant frequencies so that microphones do not start. In the settings, you can set the width of the suppressed frequency and the degree of suppression. In theory, everything looks very nice. But practically ...

I purchased such a device, tired of fighting with the constantly "winding up". Still, we didn't have a monitor line at that time, and the microphones were located in front of the portal speakers. At the corporate party where we worked, I installed the device in automatic mode. And when we started our division, the device really very quickly suppressed all resonant frequencies, and the microphones stopped starting up. But at the same time the vocals began to sound so disgusting that I very quickly switched the suppressor to passive mode.

Subsequent attempts to use the device (changing the bandwidth and degree of suppression, using it in manual mode, etc.) also did not lead to results that would satisfy me. And I began to use it in the mode Bypass as a monitor preamplifier. Or instead of a dibox, when line-level signal sources (guitar, bass) needed to be connected to the microphone inputs of a mixing console (for example, via a multicore).

It was only very recently that I began to use a suppressor for the monitor line. I simply sent a signal from the inputs of the remote control to the device, and from it to the monitor line. In this case, on the suppressor, I set one of the factory presets. Now everything suits me.

Compressor.

Compression is the process of controlling the dynamic range of a signal. Compression makes the sound thicker and more accented, and subjectively increases its volume. Sound processing with the help of the compressor the following parameters are controlled: threshold ( threshold), attack time ( attack time), recovery time ( realise time), compression ratio ( compression ratio).

It almost always connects to breaks. The exception is a kind of compressor - a limiter, which is connected to the outputs of the mixer or crossover. My crossover, for example, already has a built-in limiter.

I use a compressor for vocals. I have a four-channel DBX 1046... And for that I use the compressor built into the bass combo.

Effects processors.

In this case, I refer to the definition of "effect processors" as devices for, that is, a variety of reverbs and sound delay devices. "Dry", not processed sounds not too nice and not too effective. And such devices serve to give it volume and beauty of sound. It is worth noting that the excessive addition of processing to vocals looks too intrusive and will not decorate, but rather ruin it. So you should follow the measure.

Vocal effects processors connect to the jacks Aux mixing console and are used in post-fader mode. Handles Aux send on the remote control and processor controls Input, Output, and Mix(if any) processing of the original signal takes place.

My first sound processor that I purchased in 2003 was a multi-effects processor. Virtualizer Pro. We called him " Virtual Azerbaijanian". Initially, I used the unit for vocal processing in the mode Reverb / Delay by manually setting the parameters of the User Preset. Then I stopped liking the way he processes the voice. Despite the fact that I tidied up the low and added high frequencies on the device, it was not possible to achieve the brightness of the vocal sound. Also, my processor was built into the rack, and it was inconvenient to pull it out all the time.

Then I bought a compact processor Alto Alpha Verb(pictured above). Its main purpose was to use it at work, where we did not take a rack with equipment. And in the case of using a complete set of equipment, I operated both devices as follows:

• connected them to Aux 1 and Aux 2 mixing console;
• On the Alto installed a preset Hall;
• Virtualizer set to mode Delay, manually configured;
• regulators Aux achieves the right balance of processed sound.

That sound was fine with me. But the process of switching and control was more complicated than using a single device. Subsequently, I began to apply Virtualizer purely as a compressor, plugging it into the inserts for vocal microphones. Appliance Alto i use with preset Reverb / Delay, and this vocal processing suits me in all respects.

I want to tell you about another interesting function Virtual Azeri... This is the mode Ultramizer that adds various subharmonics to the signal and makes it louder and brighter. But even that is not interesting. And the fact that in this mode you can set the crossover point and select the sound in the range below or above this point.

At the time, I didn't have it yet, and I experimented with sound like this:

• set the frequency separation point on the device, say, 800 Hz;
• from the main pair of outputs of the mixing console sent the sound to the device, and from the device - either to the amplifier for satellites (if the device was selected to operate above the crossover point), or to the amplifier for low-frequency speakers (if the device worked below the crossover point);
• the unprocessed sound from the second pair of outputs from the console was sent to the second amplifier (either for satellites or for low-frequency speakers).

With the advent of the crossover, the need for such manipulations has disappeared.

That's all I wanted to tell you about audio processing. I deliberately did not touch on such devices as gate, enhancer or exciter here. Because I didn't have to work with them. And I think I won't have to. I wish you success!

Of course, in art, talent and skill are the most important - they lay the foundation for a masterpiece. But modern vocal and sound processing helps to achieve perfect stability. It helps to improve quality, eliminate inaccuracies in the sound of musical instruments, and compensate for defects caused by the peculiarities of room acoustics or improper placement of equipment.

Professionals distinguish between software and hardware sound processing. Software modules are most often used for imposing effects on previously recorded phonograms, but they can also be used for processing sound in real time. Hardware modules are more often used to process microphone sound - they are built into amplifiers, mixers, or sound processors.

Modern equipment for processing vocals and instrumental music is divided into 3 groups:

• Audio processing units: equalizers, crossovers, audio delay units, etc. They do not add additional components to the sound, but only change it.
• Sound effects devices: compressors, reverbs, limiters, acoustics processors. With their help, you can change the character of the sound beyond recognition (volume, movement, etc.).
• Vocoders (synthesizers) are devices for synthesizing a new signal based on the original sound.

What for what?

The program for processing music today can be installed on any PC - it will allow you to trim a track, remove some modulations, compose a track from different materials, etc. That is, mainly - correction and editing.

Professional equipment allows you to do sound processing both in recording and in real sound.

To do this, apply:

• Crossovers. They allow you to split the audio signal into 2-3-4 frequency bands. Each band has its own filter and limiter.
• System controllers. Provide flawless live sound. Processing vocals with their help makes the sound cleaner, more energetic and richer.
• Equalizers. With their help, multichannel audio processing is carried out with noise suppression using a dynamic filter. Equipped with limiters in each channel to improve control efficiency.
• Compressors / gates. They provide compression of music, in which transitions and decays, endings of reverbs are "swallowed" against the background of gating.
• Effects processors. Provide unique sound modulations in accordance with the software. Authenticity, psychoacoustic effects, equalizers, reverbs and delay - sound processing programs will make the arrangement unique and unrepeatable.

Digital audio processing enhances sound control for more precise control for predictable, optimal results.