Hello, and welcome to the Soundcraft Video Manual Series. My name is Austin, and today I will be taking you through some of the channel processing functionality of our Ui series mixers, demonstrating how to do things such as give your channels preamp gain, utilize the on-board DSP processing tools, such as the DigiTech Guitar Amplifier modeling, Parametric EQs, Compressor, Gate, and more. I’ll also show you how to quickly get up and running using the built-in presets that come for each one. Let’s get started. We start with our main mix view, which as you can see here, is showing us all of our mixer’s input channels, laid out from left to right, with the levels set at unity. We’ll talk more about what all is here and how to navigate this menu in another video, but for now, we’re going to focus on the input channels and what processing we can apply to them. Typically, when setting up a mix, the first thing you want to go ahead and address on each of your channels is the preamp gain. Since everything that the signal path is going to interact with later on down the road is influenced by how this level is set, it’s important to try and get it right. I personally like to set it so that when the signal is the strongest, such as when the singer is singing the loudest, or when the snare drum is being hit the hardest, that the level comes up no higher than –6db on the meter, here. It ensures that we have a nice, healthy level but still have a little bit of headroom to push it later on down the road, if needed. From here, we have some of the other controls, such as the 48V phantom power button, which is for when you’re using something such as a condenser microphone that requires it, and the Hi-Z input control for the first two input channels, here, which is for when you are using something with a high output impedance, such as a guitar or bass. This is particularly important when using the Digitech Guitar Amp modeling, which I’ll get to in a moment. There is also the phase polarity button, which allows you to flip the phase of a signal, useful for when you’re micing two positions on the same source, such as a snare drum or guitar amp cabinet. On the Ui24R’s, there is also this delay button, which allows you to delay the incoming input signal. If you have a complicated speaker system where there are speakers in different positions throughout the room and at various distances, this feature is often helpful for making it so that they reach the audience’s ears at the correct times. This will result in an overall better listening experience for the audience. You can set the delay in increments of milliseconds, meters, feet, samples, or even frames. To apply any kind of processing to a channel, make sure one is selected down below. After that, click on the edit button, which will bring you to the processing page for that selected channel. As you can see here, since we’re on channel 2, we have all of these tabs laid out at the top of the page for the various processing options, including the DigiTech Guitar Modeling technology. We can turn it on by clicking the “on” button, and assuming we have a guitar plugged into the input, we can start to use it. You have some Stompbox options to the side here, which will let you turn on or off the FX and processing for your guitar signal. There are presets here that you can use to quickly get up and running with a guitar amp head and cabinet as well. Let’s choose an amplifier and matching cabinet. You have gain, level, bass, mid, and treble controls for each of the amplifier models here, too. The EQ tab shows our 4-band, parametric EQ for our selected channel. Using these bands, we can shape the signal how we need to – remove some bass using the high-pass filter, boost the midrange, maybe cut out some harsh sibilance in the upper frequencies. Down below, we have several buttons – a phase polarity button, just like what we have on the gain page, an “Easy EQ” button, which will change the EQ into a ultra-simple 3-band EQ with only gain controls, if you need it. The RTA, also known as a Real-Time Analyzer, will show you the incoming frequencies in real-time, allowing you to have a visual cue as to what frequencies might be too present or not present enough in your signal. Finally, there’s a de-esser mode, which is useful for specifically dealing with harsh sibilance in a signal, such as with a vocal mic or with drum cymbals. Next up, the Gate tab will allow us to set a gate on our input signal. A gate, like the name implies, is a way of selectively eliminating unwanted sounds or noise, based off of the level of that signal. When a signal falls below a threshold, such as the one seen here, the gate will close, effectively shutting that signal off and preventing it from being audible. When it comes above that threshold again, it will re-open. This is useful for when you’re trying to manage bleed in microphones that are close to other ones, such as the snare drum or hi-hat microphones. Having less bleed from other places in those microphones, makes it easier to keep a clean mix. Lastly, our Compressor tab will allow us to set a compressor on our input signal. A compressor is another tool, like a gate, that will allow us to control the dynamic range, or energy, of the signal in a way that makes it easier to manage and be more predictable. For example, a kick drum is never hit the same way, sometimes it’s soft, sometimes it’s hit much harder. To help control those dynamics and make it so that it’s more consistently hitting at a similar level, you can use something like a compressor to clamp down on the signal and reduce the level of that initial hit, or transient, ultimately causing the signal to smooth out some and be less aggressive. Compressors are capable of shaping sounds in all kinds of ways and are often very, very helpful in the live-sound context. That’s all for now, the remaining FX Sends, Aux Sends, and Patching tabs here will be discussed in a future video. For more news, product information, and troubleshooting tips, visit us at soundcraft.com or our Anytime Help Center at help.harmanpro.com.