TBProAudio Impress User manual

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Impress
Manual
TBProAudio 2018

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1 Introduction
Welcome o Impress, a wideband s ereo compressor including side-chain and various pre-
fil er op ions. The goal of he design was o cover a broad range of compression applica ions
in oday's mixing and mas ering si ua ions wi h s rong focus on low aliasing.
So, Impress could be used o shape sub le a snare sound, glue differen racks on ins rumen
bus and even do complex asks like deessing or voice over's.
All Impress parame ers are easy o read and con rol. Addi ionally Impress gives visual
feedback o make musical decisions righ .
2 Features
Impress offers following fea ures:
- zero la ency click-free 64-bi in ernal processing
- low aliasing compressor design
- "real" oversampling, up o 8x
- s ereo/lef /righ /mid/side processing
- ex ernal side-chain
- main signal mul iband fil er, up o 192 dB/Oc (Linkwitz-Riley design)
- de ec or signal pre fil er, up o 192 dB/Oc
- 2 compressor modes: classic and clean (low aliasing)
- 3 gain s age modes: modern, vin age and vin age clean
- 2 level de ec ion modes: peak, RMS and RMS wi h BS.1770 pre-fil er
- shor /long a ack/ release imes
- Look Ahead
- low aliasing sof knee
- Gain reduc ion limi
- dry/we
- peak/RMS measuremen
- flexible signal moni oring
- prese managemen
- easy o use GUI
- large and accura e live me ers
- gain ransfer graph
- ime response graph

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3 Design
Diagram below shows he basic s ruc ure of Impress:
Compressor: The compressor par has wo inpu s (Main and De ec or) and one ou pu (Ou ):
he main signal is he audio s ream o be processed by he compressor, he de ec or signal is
he signal for he level de ec ion. In mos applica ions bo h signals are he same, for side-chain
effec s separa e signals are used.
Beside he classic " o go" design Impress offers a clean, low aliasing design wi h wo
envelope follower. The gain s age could run in "vin age" mode wi h a hermal noise
emula ion. The "knee" func ion is op imized for low aliasing opera ion.
Multiband Filter: The main signal could run hrough a mul iband fil er s age. The signal is
spli in o hree frequency bands, he mid band feeds he compressor, he ou pu of he
compressor is mixed wi h he low and high band again. The mul iband fil er is based on he
Linkwitz-Riley design (up o 192 dB/Oc s eepness), which preven s any phase shif s.
Filter: The de ec or signal could also run hrough a fil er s age .
Detector Input: The de ec or signal pa h could use ei her channel 1+2 or channel 3+4/side-
chain.
Monitoring: Signals hrough Impress can be individually moni ored in order o con rol he
effec of each signal s age (M).

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4 Minimum System Requirements
 Windows XP SP3 or newer
 Mac OS X 10.5 or newer
 Win: 32/64 Bi VST, 32/64 Bi VST3, 32 Bi RTAS, 32/64 Bi AAX
 OS X: 32/64 Bi VST, 32/64 Bi VST3, 32/64 Bi AU, 32 Bi RTAS, 32/64 Bi AAX
Tes ed wi h: Cockos Reaper, S einberg Cubase/Nuendo/Wavelab 6, FL S udio 12.x,
PT10/12
 All sample ra es
5 How to use
Impress is designed o rese all in ernal measuremen s if significan parame er changes are
made. This keeps all displays upda ed.
Impress uses various graphical elemen s o con rol he parame ers of he plugin:
Value button:
Mouse click and drag up/down changes value of he parame er.
Mouse double click opens value inpu box.
Mouse shif click rese s value.
Mouse-wheel incremen s/decremen s value
Button:
Mouse click enables/disables func ion, small red LED means "on/enabled"
Popup menu utton:
Mouse click opens popup menu.

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Slider:
Mouse click on slider handle and drag up/down changes value. Hold c rl key for
small adjus men s.
Mouse click on slider ou side handle se s handle and value direc ly.
Mouse shif click rese s slider.
Mouse double click on value below he slider opens value inpu box
Mouse-wheel incremen s/decremen s value
6 Plugin Controls
6.1 Presets
Prese menu loads and saves user prese s. Prese s s ored o %localappda a%/Impress for
Windows or /Users/xxx/Library/Applica ion Suppor /Impress for Mac OSX are impor ed as
user prese s. Prev and nex bu on s ep rough all prese s.
6.2 Main
6.2.1 Monitor
This con rol selec s plugin audio ou pu (please refer o 3, moni oring). Following signals
could be rou ed o ou pu :
- original main signal
- main signal, fil ered by mul iband fil er
- ou pu of compressor, no mixed wi h low/high band of mul iband fil er
- original de ec or signal
- de ec or signal, fil ered
- final ou pu signal of Impress plugin
6.2.2 Oversampling
Main and de ec or signal could be oversampled up o 8 imes. As Impress uses highes quali y
up/down-sampling algori hms for low aliasing opera ion significan ly more CPU resources
are used.
6.3 Main Signal Stage
Before he main signal goes in o he compressor, he full s ereo signal or par s of i (e.g. lef or
mid signal) could be selec ed. af er he compressor s age he unprocessed par (e.g. righ or
side signal) is added.
Then he signal could be sen hrough 3 mul i band fil er, only he mid band is hen rea ed by
he compressor. Af er he compressor s age he low and high band are mixed o he
compressed signal. As he design of he mul iband fil er is based on Linkwitz-Riley he