Place Stamp Here JOEMEEK DISTRIBUTED BY PMI AUDIO GROUP 1845 W. 169th Street Gardena, CA 90247 USA six q manual.indd 2-3 4/4/05, 11:08 AM visit us on the web at joemeek.com Joemeek User Guide SIX Q six q manual.indd 3 Joemeek is manufactured and marketed under the direction of: 4-5 PMI AUDIO GROUP USA: 1845 W. 169th Street Gardena, CA 90247 toll free: 877-563-6335 fax: 310-323-0900 email: info@joemeek.com UK: P.O. Box 358 Torquay, Devon TQ2 5XS tel: +44 (0) 180 3215111 email: eusales@joemeek.com Written by Allan Bradford, MSc Contents 4/4/05, 11:08 AM JOEMEEK reborn ­ the legend grows The Next Generation of Joemeek studio processors represents a quantum leap in the history of the Joemeek legend. Long regarded for its "Big Sound", the original Joemeek gear was both revered and reviled for its somewhat "quirky" nature. Now we have taken the best of what made the Joemeek products sound great, refined it, distilled it, added to it and repackaged it. Properly and robustly engineered for predictable, controllable performance, the new range retains the famous Joemeek sound, with its wide, flat frequency response extending from subsonic to ultrasonic. It also uses genuinely low noise circuitry, with lots of headroom (immunity to overload). Accurate calibration and metering, together with clear panel labelling, give you complete confidence in what's going on. While some equipment pays lip-service to quality and "professional rules" but fails to deliver, the Next Generation Joemeek products are founded on good solid electronic and audio engineering, and withstand direct comparison with the very best names in mixers and outboard gear. sixQ Controls at a Glance...............................................4 Overview............................................................................6 Preamplifier........................................................................6 Insert Point..........................................................................7 Compressor.......................................................................8 Meequalizer.......................................................................10 Output Stage.....................................................................11 Digital Interface..................................................................12 Using the sixQ..................................................................13 Getting Connected.............................................................13 Using the Preamp...............................................................13 Using the Compressor.......................................................14 Using the Meequalizer.......................................................14 Using the Output Stage......................................................14 Troubleshooting..............................................................15 Technical Specification...................................................16 The Joemeek range provides everything you need to get your performance onto tape/disc. About the Designer The Next Generation of Joemeek has been completely re-engineered by renowned audio electronics consultant Allan Bradford. With his background in physics and 30 years experience with the design of instruments, mixers, processors and amplifiers, Allan's unique range of expertise ensures that Joemeek remains at the forefront of music technology. 3 six q manual.indd 4 sixQ Controls at a Glance 48V PHANTOM POWER switch - feeds 48V power to the microphone XLR connector. Most condenser microphones require phantom power to operate. 6-7 MAKE UP GAIN - restores the level of the signal after compression. COMPRESSION METER - 4-Led bargraph indicates the amount of gain reduction in dB, which is taking place at any given moment. Compressor ON switch - turns the compressor on. The LED lights when active. LF - controls the volume of Low Frequencies or "Bass" in the audio spectrum. 15dB of boost or cut is available at the selected frequency. LF FREQ - sets the frequency at which the LF control operates, anywhere from 40Hz to 650Hz. MID - controls the Middle frequencies in the audio spectrum. 15dB of boost or cut is available at the selected frequency. MID FREQ - sets the frequency at which the MID control operates, anywhere from 300Hz to 5kHz. IRON switch - selects transformer coupling of the Mic (XLR) input. The LED lights when active. PAD switch - selects 20dB attenuation of the Mic (XLR) input. The LED lights when active. LINE switch - selects the Line and INSTRument (1/4" jack) inputs instead of the Mic (XLR) input. The LED lights when active. Ø switch - reverses the phase of all inputs. INSTRument input ­ high impedance input. Plugging in here overrides anything plugged into the Line input. PREAMP GAIN - sets the amount of audio amplification. Too little gain and the sound will be too quiet; too much and the signal could become distorted. PEAK LED - lights 6dB below clipping. HPF - "high-pass filter". Mainly for use with microphones, this helps remove stage rumble, handling noise and "pops". The LED lights when active. HF - controls the volume of the High Frequencies or "Treble" in the audio spectrum. 15dB of boost or cut is available at the selected frequency. 6kHz switch - sets the frequency at which the HF control operates, in for 6kHz, out for 12KHz. The LED lights when in. EQ ON switch - turns the Meequalizer on. The LED lights when active. OUTPUT GAIN - the volume control or "Fader" for the output of the sixQ. VU METER - 8-Led bargraph shows the output signal level in dB at any given moment. +4dBu/-10dBv switch - selects the operating level of the 1/4" jack output, either to the professional +4dBu level, or to the -10dBv semi-pro level. 4/4/05, 11:08 AM COMPRESS - sets the level of signal (or "Threshold") above which the signal starts to be compressed. SLOPE - sets the compression ratio applied to signals above threshold. ATTACK - sets how quickly the compressor responds to peaks above threshold. RELEASE - sets the time taken for the signal to return to its normal size after compression. In general, the longer the time, the less obvious the compression. 5 six q manual.indd 6 Overview Both Mic and Line inputs are electronically balanced. Note: although the Line input is not normally used for microphones, it can also be suitable for some high output unbalanced microphones, such as battery powered Electret types. The rear panel Mic input (XLR) is balanced and wired as follows: Pin 2: + (hot) Pin 3: - (cold) Pin 1: ground The Line input (jack) is balanced and wired as follows: Tip: + (hot) Ring: - (cold) Sleeve: ground The front panel Instrument input (jack) is balanced and wired as follows: Tip: + (hot) Sleeve: ground (NB: use a mono jack plug). Note that if something is plugged into the Instrument input, anything plugged into the rear panel Line input will be cut off. Phantom power Most high-quality studio mics are "Phantom powered", which is to say they have electronics inside them, which get their power from the preamp. Most mics require a supply of 48 Volts, so Phantom Power is often labelled "48V". The "48V" switch turns this power on or off and a red LED lights when active. When switching the Phantom Power on, quite a loud thump may be produced, so it is a good idea to turn down the Output Gain (or to momentarily select the Line input), when pressing the switch. When using dynamic or ribbon mics, do not turn Phantom Power on. It probably won't do any harm but it certainly won't do any good, so The JOEMEEK sixQ is like having one channel of a professional recording studio in one box. It takes microphones or instruments, amplifies them, compresses and equalizes them ready to be recorded. Simple to use yet extremely powerful, the sixQ will bring out the best in any microphone or instrument and give the gloss of a professional studio production to all your performances. As well as recording it will also be found useful for live work. Think of each channel of the sixQ as four separate items of equipment: · · · · The The The The Preamplifier JOEMEEK Optical Compressor Meequalizer Fader 8-9 Preamplifier This is the all-important front end to the sixQ. Its job is to accept any type of microphone, instrument or other source of audio signal, and make it loud enough. Microphones often need rather a lot of amplification, while guitars, keyboards and CD players need less. Mics need to be connected to low impedance inputs, while instruments prefer high impedance inputs. To ensure correct impedance matching, the inputs are split into an XLR connector for Mics, and 1/4" jack "Line" and "INSTRument" connectors for everything else. A switch on the front panel decides which input connector is active, the XLR or the 1/4" jacks. The LED next to the switch lights to show that the Line inputs (jacks) are selected. In other words:Switch out (LED off) = "Mic" Switch in (LED on) = "Line" or "Instr" leave it off! Consult the microphone handbook if you are unsure what kind of mic you have. 4/4/05, 11:09 AM The main control, labelled "Input Gain", covers a range of amplification from 10dB to 60dB. In many other preamps the action of the Gain control is rather uneven, with the 40dB to 60dB range being crammed into the last 1/6th of a turn. All Joemeek preamps use a specially designed control that ensures smooth operation over the whole range of rotation. The (0) symbol next to the 25dB mark, means unity gain, or 0dB, for a signal in the Line input. Hence for Line inputs the range of gain adjustment either side of this mark, is +35dB, -15dB. The PEAK LED lights 6dB below clipping, so occasional brief flashes are OK but if it's on all the time you need to back the Input Gain off! HPF means "high-pass filter". Mainly for use with microphones, this helps remove stage rumble, handling noise and "pops". The LED lights when active. Of course when there is no signal going on, you may hear the background noise of the electronics. In that case, given the amount of gain in a typical studio monitoring system, this noise "floor" should ideally be in the region of -80dBu or lower, in order for it not to be noticed. The sixQ microphone preamplifier uses state-of-the-art electronics and has an equivalent input noise of around -128dBu (with 150ohm input load). Despite all the hyperbolae and obfuscation, the theoretical best possible performance for silicon-based electronics is about -132dBu. So the preamplifier design used in the sixQ and all other NextGen Joemeek products approaches this limit. To improve significantly on this would require highly specialised electronics and probably a vat of liquid Nitrogen to cool it! The maximum gain available from the preamp is 60dB, in which case the noise floor will be -68dBu. This is actually quite noisy - if you record that noise onto a digital recorder and play it back you can definitely hear it. In practice of course, you do not record and play back "silence" and the rest of the mix will probably be more than 70dB louder than this noise and will mask it completely. Even so it is generally a good idea not to use gains greater than 40dB or 50dB and indeed, it should rarely be necessary to do so. Technical stuff Very low noise - does it matter? Yes and no, it all depends what you are doing - what really matters is "signal-to-noise ratio". All electronics produce a certain amount of background noise - it's in the nature of things. Providing there is only a relatively small amount of noise, the signal will cover it up, or "mask" it. So providing the signal is much bigger than the noise, you won't be aware of the noise. In other words the "signal-to-noise ratio" needs to be a big number, ideally such as 80dB or 90dB. So how do you achieve that in practice? The trick is to keep the microphone as close to the sound source as possible without overloading it, so as to get as much signal out of it as possible. Then you set the Gain control to give only as much gain as is needed to get a decent level into the recorder. Insert Point This is simply an unbalanced "Send and Return" jack on the rear panel. It allows you to patch any other pieces of equipment into the signal path, such as an effects processor or noise gate. To use it you will need a "Y" lead wired as follows: Tip: send Ring: return Sleeve: ground 7 six q manual.indd 8 When no jack is inserted, the socket is internally linked, or "normalled", so that the signal flows uninterrupted. Note that the Insert Point is after the Preamp but before the Compressor and EQ. METER The meter displays one of two things, depending on the setting of the "PRE" switch. With this switch out, the Meter shows signal level at the outputs, after the Output Gain fader. Note that this is relative to the selected operating level of "+4dBu" or "-10dBv". In other words if you have selected "+4dBu" and the meter reads "0", then you have +4dBu coming out of the 1/4" jack output so ...