Acustica Audio Aquamarine

 

• Preamplifier section

The first processing stage is the preamp section, switchable with the PRE switch. Possible preamps are: Bronze: the most coloured setting Silver: more coloured than gold but quite clean Gold: with low distortion and flat low frequency response.

• Opto section

The second stage is the Opto Compressor, that emulates an optical attenuator. The controls for the Opto Compressor are Opto Threshold and OptoGain. The Opto Threshold knob controls level above which the compressor considers the signal too loud engaging compression, Acquamarine starts with a-1dB threshold. The Opto Gain knob controls the amount of makeup gain, which is used torestore the compressed signal to the desired amplitude. The Opto section is engaged by Opto Bypass In/Out switch.

• Discrete section

The third stage is the Discrete Compressor, that emulates a VCA. The controls are similar to the optical section with some additional knobs: discrete ratio, discrete attack and discrete recover. The discrete ratio knob has six positions and determine the ratio of the compressed signal. The first position corresponds to a ratio of 1.2:1, so one additional decibel above the threshold produced. Available values are 1.2:1, 2:1, 3:1, 4:1,6:1 and FLOOD with 20:1 ratio. The Discrete attack knob varies how fast or slow the compressor engages once the compression threshold has been reached. The Discrete recover knob determines how long it takes the signal to return to the uncompressed level after the signal level falls below the set threshold. The Discrete section is engaged by Discrete Bypass In/Out switch.

• Side-chain switch

The side-chain filter engages a filter in the side-chain of both the opto and discrete sections, which cuts off frequencies below 90Hz that will not trigger anymore the onset of compression.

Meters

Depending on the currently active program on METER TYPE switch, meters may vary their output information. OPTO - DISCRETE led on: meters display the reduction levels of opto (left meter) and discrete (right meter) compressors. INPUT - OUTPUT: meters display the input (left meter) and output (right meter) levels of the plug-in.

• Mix Knob

The MIX knob weighs the original signal percentage in the final mix. With 0% the input signal is completely processed, while with 100% it is completely clean.

• Input - Output Knob

These knobs set the input and output levels from -24dB to +24dB. At thefirst execution of the plug-in, input and output are set to -18dB and +18dB respectively to ensure that you feed an appropriate level from the first stage of your signal path to the final one. The initial gain reduction is compensated by the +18dB gain in the final stage.

VST and AU plug-in for Mac OS X and Windows 32 and 64-bit