User Manual
American Class A
Intro
User Interface
Input Section
Shape Section
Equalizer Section
Compressor Section
Output Section
American Class A For Console 1
Extended Features
Credits
Wide-open, airy, living electronics. If you will it, it is no dream with the American Class A. Based on the greatest classics of American mixing console hardware, this channel strip is fast and easy to work with, and brings a truckload of character to the party. With a shape section featuring gate and transient designing, a stellar four-band EQ with proportional Q and range control, a fascinating compressor design which can be switched between feedback and feed forward operations, and a warm, crunchy output drive section, no modern studio is complete until this sonic option is at hand.
Design Philosophy
The American Class A follows a format very familiar to Console 1 users, and this plug-in is indeed also a Console 1 channel strip. While we wanted to stay true to the original’s sound and character, we also wanted to expand on some functionality, like the Shape and Drive sections, and get a perfect combination of versatility and character. You may think that a stepped EQ with seven frequencies per band is an unnecessary limitation in today’s digital world, but a lot of the character of this console comes from the way you use it, and limited options in the EQ force you to bring out that character!
The compressor topology is also a major part of the sound. It’s punchy and firm and has a unique style. It simply sounds fantastic! By making the shape section from the same topology and circuits as the compressor, we made sure that the tone of the original is always present, regardless of which part you use.
All in all, we’re very proud of this. It features both extremely fine models of the hardware, as well as new concoctions, such as SHAPE and Drive Character, but they all breathe the same air and speak the same language. And on top of that, we added some nice visualizations. What’s not to like?*
* Well, if you don’t like the sound of the original console, we don’t think you are going to like the sound of American Class A...
For a Console 1 user, the user interface should feel very familiar. It consists of 5 sections; INPUT, SHAPE, EQUALIZER, COMPRESSOR, OUTPUT, and a large screen that visualizes the audio and settings.
On top of the screen you have the display section, which can be switched between WAVE and CURVES.
Input Meter: Shows the peak level of the input signal (post In Gain). The top line is the peak hold level, white bar is peak level, and blue shows the RMS level.
Gate Curve: Shows the knee of the Gate. The meter beneath displays the gain change of the entire Shape section. 0 DB is in the middle, and if you increase Sustain or Punch you’ll see that the white meter is showing a positive gain change (moves to the right), which means that you’re increasing the audio level. Turn on the Gate and you see a negative gain change.
EQ Curve: Shows the EQ settings as well as a frequency analyzer view of the output signal. For stereo signals, the analyzer displays the left signal in white and right in red/orange (“red is right”, as always!)
Compressor Curve: Shows the knee for the compressor, as well as the current gain reduction. 0 dB (no gain reduction) is all the way to the right.
Output Meter: Works just like the input meter, but on the output. Output meter sits after the Volume.
View Wave and View Curves: By clicking on View Curves you’ll get the above mentioned graphics, select View Wave and you’ll get a wave form view. The wave form displays four different waveforms:
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INPUT PEAK (grey): The Input Peak level shows your input level (post In Gain control). For stereo audio it shows the maximum of the two channels.
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OUTPUT PEAK (blue): Same as Input Peak, but for the output.
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RMS LEVEL (white line): The RMS of the output signal.
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GAIN CHANGE (red): The combination of the gain reduction from the compressor and the gain change from the Shape section.
Aside from the normal controls, Low Cut, High Cut, Phase Invert, and In Gain, you can also turn on Filt To Comp to filter the audio that goes to the compressor’s sidechain.
Parameters
LP: Low pass filter, 500 to 20000 Hz. Low pass filter is disabled in its max position.
HP: High pass filter, 20 to 600 Hz. High pass filter is disabled in its minimum position.
Filt To Comp: Engage to filter the compressor’s side chain. This means that the filters will no longer affect the main signal path, and will only be used to send to the compressor. If you also need the filters in the main signal path you can use the filters in the EQUALIZER section.
Phase Invert: Engage to invert the phase of the input.
The shape section is not modeled from existing hardware. We have instead chosen to use the compressor hardware to build our own gate and transient shaper. That gives us a shaper that’s extremely versatile but has the same unique DNA and sound as the compressor. Technically speaking, we’ve used the very special RMS detector, VCA and circuit solutions from the compressor, and built a completely new thing out of it!
Parameters
Gate: Sets the gate’s threshold. Disabled when set to its minimum position.
Gate Release: Sets the release time for the gate, from 0.3 to 3 seconds.
Hard Gate: Adjusts the ratio and knee of the gate. Hard Gate has higher ratio and sharper knee, and is more suitable for percussive sounds.
Sustain: Increase to add more sustain to the audio.
Punch: Strengthens or softens the sound’s transient, the onset of the sound.
Ext S/C: When engaged, the external sidechain is routed to the gate part of the SHAPE section.
Shape On: Engages or bypasses the SHAPE section.
The equalizer is based on a mastering grade 19” equalizer, instead of the console equalizer. With seven frequencies and 11 gain settings per band, the four bands offer great versatility, but at the same time force you to keep within the same limits as the original console, thereby giving you the same classic sound. For more fine tuning and mastering purposes, the original 19” unit has a Gain Multiplier which allows you to use finer steps than the 2-3 dB steps offered by the console version.
Parameters
Frequency: Sets the frequency of the current band.
Gain: Sets the gain of the current band. The Gain has no effect if the LOW OR HIGH BAND is set to "CUT".
Low/High Type: Select between shelving, bell, or cut filters.
Gain Multiplier: Sets the steps between different gain settings. At x1 the gain can be set to +/- 0,2,4,6,9,and 12 dB. At x0.5 it can be set to +/- 0,1,2, 3, 4.5, 6, and at x0.25 it can be set to +/- 0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.25, and 3 dB.
Please note that the parameter value read-out always corresponds to the x1 setting.
Order: Sets the order of the three main sections, SHAPE, EQ, and COMPRESSOR. SHAPE will always come before COMPRESSOR, but the position of the EQ can be shifted to before, in the middle of, and after the dynamics processors.
Equalizer On: Engages or bypasses the EQUALIZER section.
The compressor is faithfully modeled from the console compressor and has a couple of interesting features. The New Type switch allows you to switch between feed forward (“new ”) and feedback (“old”) types of compression. In feed forward mode you get a very predictable and firm compression, while the feedback mode has a lot of overshoots and slightly more unpredictable results. The feedback mode sound is punchier and more aggressive, while feed forward is more suited to bus compression duties, vocals, etc.
Parameters
Release: Sets the release time of the compressor, from 0.3 to 3 seconds.
Ratio: Sets the ratio of the compressor. In general, the actual ratio is often less than what the panel says it is.
Parallel: Engages the parallel compression.
Threshold: Sets the threshold of the compressor, from +10 to -20 dB.
Hard Knee: Adjusts the knee of the threshold. A hard knee has a sharper transition between compressing and non-compressing states. A soft knee as a gradual transition where the ratio gradually increases around the threshold. For most applications, Soft Knee is where you want to set it.
New Type: Switches between feed forward ("NEW") and feedback (“OLD”) modes. Feed forward is generally smoother and more predictable, feedback is punchier and more aggressive.
Ext SC: Routes the external sidechain to the compressor.
Compressor On: Engages or bypasses the COMPRESSOR section.
The output section features the distortion from the preamplifers of the original unit, with an added Drive Character feature that allows you to control the tonality of the distortion. The original distortion can be a bit “fizzy”, and by increasing Drive Character you’ll get a more solid and fat tone.
Parameters
Drive: Increase for more distortion. At “5” it will start to clip at 0 dB, pre output volume. Turn it off completely by setting it at 0.
Drive Character: Increase for more high frequency distortion. At the minimum position (-10), you’ll get a thick low frequency distortion, which has the same sort of character that a really underspecified, worn-out, transformer has. At +10 it’s a “normal” full band distortion.
It is very effective to tweak the Drive Character according to the source material, if you for instance have a vocal track, you might want to set it so that the body of the vocals distort, but the “s”-sounds remain undistorted. You do that by starting from the minimum position and slowly turn up Drive Character. The sweet spot is usually somewhere between -3 and +3.
The Drive Character is not a part of the original hardware, and if you want it as “true to the original” as possible, you should set it at its maximum value (+10).
Volume: Adjust the output volume of the plug-in.
American Class A For Console 1
Shape section
The shape section is not modeled from existing hardware. We have instead chosen to use the compressor hardware to build our own gate and transient shaper. That gives us a shaper that’s extremely versatile but has the same unique DNA and sound as the compressor. Technically speaking, we’ve used the very special RMS detector, VCA and circuit solutions from the compressor, and built a completely new thing out of it.
Equalizer Section
The equalizer is based on a 19” mastering grade equalizer, rather than the console equalizer normally found in these desks. With seven frequencies and 11 gain settings per band, the four bands offer great versatility, but at the same time force you to keep within the same limits as the original console, thereby giving you the same classic sound.
To get the most out of this equalizer, we chose to give you two different versions of it, ORIGINAL and EXTENDED. The ORIGINAL has the same controls as the 19” unit, with the exception of a “gain multiplier” control. The “gain multiplier” changes the step length of the 11 gain settings with x1, x0.5 and x0.25. In AMERICAN CLASS A ORIGINAL EQUALIZER the step length is always set at x1.
The EXTENDED version does more. We added two Q controls on the Low and High Mid bands (because we have those knobs on the hardware, right?) and we also merged all the possible gain steps into a single gain control, so instead of setting the gain to +/- 0, 2, 4, 6, 9 dB, you can now set it to +/- 0,0.5,1,1.5,2,2.5,3,4,5,6,9, 12 dB thus giving you much more control.
It’s easy to switch between the two models and retain the current settings, just by clicking on “Load EQ” and select the one you want.
Compressor Section
The compressor is modeled from the console compressor, the version that has both Attack and Release controls. There are more than one version of the console compressor, and they all sound different. We are big fans of this particular version because of it’s rawness, punch and attitude. The hardware features two switches which lets you switch between a hard and soft knee, and feedback and feed forward operation. We took the best of these and created two different compressors that we call PUNCHY and SMOOTH.
AMERICAN CLASS A SMOOTH COMPRESSOR, which is set as default, has a feed forward topology and soft knee. That gives it a very predictable and smooth result, and is wonderful on vocals, bass, and busses.
AMERICAN CLASS A PUNCHY COMPRESSOR has the hard knee and feedback topology, which makes it... punchier! The overshoots of the feedback circuit creates thick and hard transients and can make a drum track really come to life.
It’s easy to switch between the two models and retain the current settings, just by clicking on “Load Comp” and select the one you want.
Drive
The drive section is our favorite part of each strip. Usually, a distortion is just a distortion. They have different character but the only option is to have more or less distortion. In Console 1 we added the Drive Character knob, which gives you an option to tweak how the distortion sounds. We’ve done this in many different ways for the different strips, for example in the SOLID STATE LOGIC SL 4000 E we created a new model that emphasized different distortion for different frequencies depending on the Drive Character setting. In the SUMMIT AUDIO GRAND CHANNEL the Drive Character blends the EQ and compressor distortion.
In American Class A, the Drive Character changes how easily the high frequencies distorts. With Drive Character on its maximum settings, all frequencies are equal. If you turn the knob counter-clockwise towards minimum you will get less high frequency distortion, while the low frequencies keep distorting.
At the minimum position (-10), you’ll get a thick low frequency distortion, which has the same sort of character that a really underspecified, worn-out, transformer has. At +10 it’s a “normal” full band distortion.
It is very effective to tweak the Drive Character according to the source material, if you for instance have a vocal track, you might want to set it so that the body of the vocals distort, but the “s”-sounds remain undistorted. You do that by starting from the minimum position and slowly turn up Drive Character. The sweet spot is usually somewhere between -3 and +3.
The Drive Character is not a part of the original hardware, and if you want it as “true to the original” as possible, you should set it at its maximum value (+10).
A whole range of added control can be accessed with Extended Features. Please see the separate "Extended Features" manual for more information.
Kim Larsson – Modeling
Björn Rödseth – Modeling and graphics programming
Patrik Holmström – Frame-work programming
Niklas Odelholm – Sound and graphics design, modeling, and project management
Ulf Ekelöf – 3D modeling
Pavel Shyrinskykh – Presets