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Waves dbx 160
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1 -“ INTRODUCTION ........................................................................\
....................... 3
1.1 Welcome ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 3
1.2 dbx 160: The Original Hardware............................................................................................................................................. 3
1.3 dbx 160: The Plugin................................................................................................................................................................... 4
1.4 Concepts and Termi nol ogy ...................................................................................................................................................... 4
1.5 Componen ts ............................................................................................................................................................................... 5
CHAPTER 2 -“ INTERFACE AND CONTRO LS ..................................................................... 6
2.1 Interface ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 6
2.2 Controls ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 7
CHAPTER 3 -“ THE WAVESYSTEM ........................................................................\
.............. 10
3 .1 The W a veSys te m Tool ba r ...................................................................................................................................................... 10
3.2 Pres et Handli ng ....................................................................................................................................................................... 10
3 .3 I nter fa c e Contr ols....................................................................................................................................................................12
3 .4 W a ves P r efer enc es (P r o Tools DAE onl y) ............................................................................................................................ 14
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Waves dbx 160
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Chapter 1 -“ Introduction
1.1 Welcome
Thank you for c hoos ing W aves. In order to get the m os t out of your W aves proc es s or, pleas e
take the tim e to read through this m anual.
In c onjunc tion, we als o s ugges t you bec om e fam iliar with www.waves upport.net
. There you will
find an extens ive Answe r Base , the lates t T e ch Spe cs, detailed Installation guides , new
Software Updates , and c urrent inform ation on Lice nsing and Re gistration.
By s igning up at www.waves upport.net , you will rec eive pers onaliz ed inform ation on your
regis tered produc ts , r em inders when updates are available, and inform ation on your
authoriz ation s tatus .
1.2 dbx 160: The Original Hardware
dbx ® In c . is an Am eric an m anufac turer of profes s ional audio rec ording equipm ent . Founded in
1971 by David E. Blac km er, the c om panys m os t im portant inventions were the dbx voltage-
c ontrolled am plifier ( VC A) and the dbx RMS detec tor. The original dbx 202 VCA (the "Blac k
Can" VCA ) was built us ing dis c rete trans is tors that were hand-m atc hed while running at an
elevated tem perature in an oven. Though nois y and having s ignific ant dis tortion, the dbx 202
units exc eeded by far the perform anc e of other early VC As and were us ed in m os t early
autom ated m ixing boards .
In 1976, dbx introduc ed the dbx 160 c om pres s or . Us ing dbxs dec ilinear VCA , RMS level -
detec tion c irc uits and feed-forward gain reduc tion, this c om pres s or allowed m uc h s m oother gain
reduc tion than its c ounterparts . The feed-forward gain reduc tion allowed infinite c om pres s ion
without exc es s ive dis tortion or os c illation. It als o allow ed the c om pres s or to trac k the attac k and
releas e tim es of c om pres s ion bas ed on the s ignal s envelope. In addition, t he dbx c om pres s or
introduc ed overeas y c om pres s ion, whic h c reated a s oft knee at the s tart of the c om pres s ion
proc es s .
