Charisma 2
Model 9733
T i p s & T r i c k s
Capturing the sound of analogue for digitally recorded drums: | Controlling the kick of the bass drum and the ounch of the snare: | Making acoustic guitars and electronics basses stand out in busy a mix | Giving extra charisma to vocals and improving intelligibility: | Creating heavily distorted ´in your face´ sounds: | Charisma can be used with extreme settings: | How to read the Process and Max LEDs on the 2-channel and 8-channel Charsima: |
Avoiding clipping in digital recording:
When recording to a digital media it is essential to avoid clipping and the tube limiting is a great tool for this purpose. Critical peaks are smoothed resulting in increased subjective loudness while controlling the electrical level.
Capturing the sound of analogue for digitally recorded drums:
Traditionally, drums have been recorded to analogue tape - even digital drum tracks are frequently copied to analogue tape purely to capture the sound of tape saturation. With Charisma, you can achieve the same analogue warmth, punch and power without the inconvenience or noise of an analogue tape machine. Even sampled drums really start to sound much more like real drums.
Controlling the kick of the bass drum and the ounch of the snare:
Choose an extreme Hard setting (fully clockwise) for kick drums or snares. You effectively prevent clips on your digital recorder while you also have control about the kick of the bass drum or the ounch of the snare. It is interesting to use Charisma on room tracks when recording live drums. Choose a Soft setting with a high Drive level. This will open up your drum room.
Making acoustic guitars and electronics basses stand out in busy a mix
Acoustic guitars benefit from the Charisma effect with improved transparency and clarity, yet the recorded instrument retains the same liveliness and character as the original. Electronic basses become better focused, or you can add just a hint of deliberate distortion to help make them stand out in a busy mix.
Giving extra charisma to vocals and improving intelligibility:
When recording vocals, the Charisma allows the voice to stand out in the mix without increasing the actual level - any good studio mic effectively becomes a valve mic. Intelligibility is greatly enhanced by the tube harmonics, and you can even make a clean voice sound smoky by driving the Charisma a little harder. That´s something a tube mic doesn´t allow you to do. It is often a good trick to use a compressor before the Charisma when processing vocals. This will help you finding an appropriate Drive level.
Creating heavily distorted ´in your face´ sounds:
Producers of dancefloor/trance/ambient
music will find Charisma a remarkable creative tool for distorting bass
drums, snare- and lead sounds absolutely free from noise and hum - a clear
advantage over the guitar-preamps. Even original 303/808 bass and drum sounds
gain additional kick and authority. Charisma lets you produce really ´in
your face´ sounds.
Charisma can be used with extreme settings:
For example, set the Drive maximum and create richest Hammond organ sound. Give clean guitars more bite or even softly distort them, or make vocals rough and dirty. You can run your favorite samples and synth sounds through Charisma and give them the final edge. Give yor TB 303 clone the bite of the original 303. by widening the harmonical spectrum you have unlimited possibilities to boost and refreshen synth sounds or create new ones.
How to read the Process and Max LEDs on the 2-channel and 8-channel Charsima:
The Process LED illuminates when Charisma starts its tube processing. The tubes are starting to generate their typical sound and harmonical structure.
The Max LED indicates that the processing has reached its maximum. Now the tube is fully saturated and the typical limiting effect occurs. Increasing the Drive results in more tube distortion.
Examples:
- with snare or kick drum you can use heavy distortion (Max LED illuminates)
- with layer sounds you should be very careful!
Only use very little distortion if any (Process LED rarely)
Important: When you start to process a sound with heavy transients and attack, like snare or kick drum, you can drive the tubes into heavy saturation before you start to hear the tube´s distortion. When the Process LED starts to illuminate you hardly hear a difference. When driving the tubes into heavier distortion the Max LED illuminates frequently and the tube distortion is becoming audible.
On the other hand, when you want to process layer sounds or almost sinewave-like sounds you will sometimes hear the tube´s distortion even before the Process LED illuminates. So, you have to set the Drive level depending on the character of the sound you want to process. Our hearing starts to hear overtones on sinewave-like signal immediately, whereas squarewave-like sounds can be heavily distrorted before the additional harmonics are perceived.
Note: Do not set the Drive controls to identical settings and expect the tubes to act identical when different input signals are present.
|
|
Topics |
| In
Short In Detail Tips & Tricks |
|
Reviews |
| Audio
Professional (GER) Sound On Sound (UK) Pro Audio Review (USA) |
|
PDF documents |
| Manual Product information 
|
|
Where to buy |
| USA
dealers |
|
print ready product pictures |
| Front
view Rear view |
