TL Audio Fat Track - Manual (Page 15)

14
Pan Control
The pan control positions the image within the stereo field, from fully left in the
anticlockwise position, through centre at the dented position to fully right in the
clockwise position. The gain law is -3dB at the centre.
Mute Switch
The channel may be muted or switched on without affecting the level set on the
channel fader.
Channel Fader
A rotary fader is located at the bottom of each of the input channels, and sets the level
of the channel's signal being fed in to the stereo mix bus or to the direct output. The
fader provides up to 10dB of gain at its highest point.
Tube Stage Drive and Peak LEDs.
The yellow LEDs indicate the drive level to the tube, or valve, stage. The Drive LED
is a variable intensity indicator, starting to glow when the tube harmonic distortion is
around 1%, and being fully illuminated at approximately 5% harmonic distortion. The
distortion generated by the tube stage is predominately second harmonic, which is
responsible for the characteristic valve “warmth”. The red Peak LED operates as a
conventional warning that clipping is about to occur. The operating level of both input
and post fader stages is monitored, and the LED illuminates at a threshold of +19dBu,
when there is less than 7dB of headroom remaining to the direct output. Normal
operation would be to set the input gain so that the Drive LED is illuminating
regularly, with occasional illumination of the Peak LED occurring on loud transients.
Stereo Rotary Return Channels
4 stereo return channels are provided for routing multiple outputs in via your computer
soundcard / DAW into the Fat Track for summing and/or mix down. The rotary level
control enables you to control the level of the input signal or create a basic mix of the
levels coming in. For work that has already been mixed but you would like to just
sum the audio through the Fat Track for optimum sound and fantastic results, it is
quite normal to have these rotary return levels set to their maximum (10). Please note
you can use the mono channels as input returns too, via the line input sockets on each
channel; this gives you a maximum of 10 return paths (4 stereo and 2 mono). All
stereo return sockets are selectable between +4 and -10dB.