 George
Shilling reviews:
TC
electronic FireworX
I
was intrigued.
A
couple of die-hard analogue-loving colleagues were salivating over
some new equipment. I presumed it was another valve compressor or
somesuch.
But
no, they were thirsting for this new tc box. Surely those Danish
digital boffins hadn't gone all analogue?
Not
a chance. Their interest was aroused because this latest offering
brings to a digital world treatments that were previously thought
exclusive to obscure crackly old boxes from the 1970s. Wonderful
effects such as vocoding and ring modulation, which are great, but
difficult to do properly with the current crop of multi-fx boxes,
and hard to track down in original form. Not only that, but press
releases mentioned fantastic unheard-of effects such as fractal
noise generator and aliaser.
The
FireworX looks similar to other recent tc units. It occupies a 1U
case with the familiar large-ish green LCD screen on the front
panel. Despite my one-man campaign for better legibility on studio
equipment the multitudinous grey and black buttons are graced with
tiny white lettering, the only colour provided by LEDs. Three
continuous-type knobs grace the right-hand side, one intriguingly
labelled Alpha Mod and accompanied by a row of LEDs.
Buy TC Electronic recording equipment in our shop.
Over
on the left are a couple of small knobs for input and output level -
I like this a lot: if you want to tweak the level, you don't want to
do this via a menu. However they will not completely kill the
signal, having only a 32dB range of tweakage. A dual row of LEDs are
provided for input level metering, but, strangely, an Overflow light
situated below them blinked occasionally when input level was around
-12 to -6dB, and occasionally glitching was audible.
There
are physical similarities with the Finalizer Plus model, such as a
PC memory card slot on the front panel. The entire back panel looks
identical. Stereo analogue inputs and outputs appear on XLR
connectors. Digital inputs and outputs appear on optical connectors
for ADAT or S/PDIF, XLRs for AES/EBU and phono sockets for S/PDIF.
Internal resolution, A/D and D/A converters are all 24 bit. The
digital In and Out levels can be trimmed here, (useful to stop the
Overflow flashing). There is a Sync In phono socket for Word Clock,
MIDI In/Out/Thru and a mono jack socket for external control.
An
IEC mains socket is happy with voltages from 100-240V, and a rocker
mains switch is provided in addition to the 'soft' standby switch on
the front. System navigation is fairly intuitive. Left and Right
arrow keys select different menus within each display section, and a
Parameter wheel moves the cursor while the Value wheel adjusts the
selected parameter. Two hundred Presets are included, all numbered
and named, and are found by pressing Recall and scrolling through
with the Value wheel. When you see what you want, you simply press
Enter. Presets make use of one or more of the twelve effects
'Blocks'. One useful feature is the ability to apply a 'Filter' when
searching for a particular type of effect.
The
user chooses one of the twelve effect types, and only presets which
include that particular Block will be available. This system is
simple and more practical than some of the more complex 'keyword'
search menus found on other units. The Alpha Mod wheel is much like
the Lexicon PCM80/90's Adjust knob. Each preset can include one or
more settings patched to the wheel and therefore instantly
adjustable, a description of its function appearing with each
Preset. The row of LEDs gives an indication of the current setting.
Storing edited presets is simple: just press Store then Enter to
utilise the next free User space. Two hundred spaces are available
internally; a standard PCMCIA card will hold 999 User Presets.
The
twelve basic effects 'Blocks' each have a corresponding key with LED
on the front panel, much like the Lexicon MPX1. These effect Blocks
comprise: Dynamics, which includes compression and gating; Filter,
all sorts including one sub-algorithm which emulates a phaser with a
sweeping notch filter; Formant, variations on the wah-wah theme,
with other vowels and diphthongs achievable; Distortion, Drive
resembles amplifier distortion, with unusual Body and Smasher
parameters, whilst Crunch performs aliasing and quantizing
simultaneously, making use of uniquely 'digital' types of
distortion, Vocoder is impressive, this Block including Ring
Modulator, both effects including useful filter parameters; Synth,
which contains curve, chaos and noise generators - useful for
example as carrier input to the Vocoder block controlled by MIDI;
Pitch, which can generate two high quality harmonizers with a range
of +/-2400 cents; Chorus/Flanger with all the parameters you would
expect plus a few unusual ones such as LFO Phase and Golden Ratio;
Delay, which has available up to six taps, plus a wacky Reverse
algorithm; Reverbs are varied and of high quality; Pan/Tremolo
includes a pseudo-surround effect using phase shifts; finally, the
EQ Block includes a five-band parametric and a four band 'modulateable'
parametric. Active Blocks' keys are lit, but may be defeated by a
single press, or edited by a quick double-hit. This takes you to a
list of parameters which are available by scrolling the Parameter
wheel.
There
are usually many more parameters than can be seen on the screen at
one time, but the familiar tc vertical scrolling system is used. It
is enhanced on this unit by the display of a little bar on the left,
much like a PC's scrolling bar, to show you how far down the list
you are. A Tempo key can be tapped to provide in-time delays, auto-wah-wah,
etc., and this can be set globally or pertain to each individual
preset. MIDI Clock can be used to set this.
The
I/O Setup Menu comprises four main pages where, for example, you can
switch between -10 and +4dB operation. You can select whether a Word
Clock input controls the digital clock, and switch Dither options.
Individual ADAT tracks can be selected for the Optical input and
output. A comprehensive MIDI setup page is accessed from here, with
multitudinous options available. A Utility menu contains odds and
ends such as Viewing Angle and MIDI dump, although you would expect
the latter to come under the MIDI menu. A Card page contains
functions pertaining to the memory card capability. If you want to
rearrange Blocks or create your own presets, the next port of call
is the Routing page, accessed from the Effects key. Here you can
choose your effects blocks. From each of the aforementioned Block
types you can choose from up to six 'Sub-Algorithms'.
For
example, under the Dynamics heading you can choose Compressor,
Compressor/Limiter or Gate/Expander. On the Routing page you can
insert Blocks and Route them in various ways, using an 8 rows by 8
columns matrix. You are not always limited to one Block of each
type. For example you could have a Compressor and a Gate/Expander,
although you can only have one type of Distortion in a setup.
Parallel or Serial routing can be used, and one Feedback Send and
one Feedback Return can be inserted as Blocks. Also available are
external Insert Loop Send and Return which enable you to use
redundant rear panel connections (selected from the I/O page) to
hook up another device in the chain. Each Block can have its own
In/Out settings to choose whether it takes its input from Left,
Right or Both, and how the Output is mixed. This is a bit of a faff
as you have Wet, Dry or Mix, where the Mix parameter is set up on
yet another menu page. Each Block can also be assigned one of five
Mute modes.
The
Layout page is a list of options to change the grid size and move,
insert or delete rows or columns. The possibilities of 'getting your
knickers in a twist' are endless... Another page, the Tool page,
shows you as a percentage how much DSP power the current setup is
using. Some of the sub-algorithms can use 25% or more of the
available DSP power, so there is a limit to the combinations you can
have. The Edit menu displays your effects blocks in a much neater
way than the Routing page, and you can see at a glance what is going
where. The Tool menu gives you a list of choices as to what is
displayed in the Edit menu on each Block such as little level meters
or the percentage of DSP power used. Pressing the Mod key brings you
to the Modifier display which initially consists of three main
menus: Matrix, Modifier and Dials. There are further sub-menus, but
hang in there... There are up to nine 'External' modifiers
available: these are Ext. 1-8 plus the Alpha Mod wheel. External
controls can be MIDI controllers or the external jack input using a
pedal or the tc Digital Master Fader.
The
Matrix page allows you to select one of these or an internal
Modifier such as an LFO, ADSR, Envelope Follower, etc. Then you can
scroll down a list of available parameters from the current preset
and choose what to control. Not all parameters are available: it
depends on the Sub-Algorithms used. When you have alighted on a
parameter that takes your fancy, pressing Enter takes you to a Link
page. Here, a number of parameters control the curve determining the
relationship, and a setting controls Glide Time. Phew! This is stuff
for dedicated boffins only. Undeniably, some interesting
possibilities are available, but it would take some time before I
felt confident enough of navigating my way around all these various
menus and sub-menus to start fiddling with this at someone else's
expense. The hours could easily turn into days...!
After
a short lie-down, I felt my brain had recovered enough from
Modifiers, Matrixes and Glide Slopes (isn't that something pilots
use?) to actually try out some of the effects. A quick whizz-through
gives the impression that this machine is heir to the wonderful
Eventide H3000D/SE, with a measure of the infuriating complexity of
the DSP4000 thrown in. Plenty of imaginative unusual wah-wah,
flangey and over-the-top effects are contained within the presets.
Remixers and ambient specialists will have a whale of a time with
some of the outlandish effects contained within, several of which
made me laugh out loud! There are also plenty of high-quality
'useable daily' effects. One marvellous rarely-found feature is the
ability to generate 'true-stereo' reverbs and other effects. Your
stereo positioning will be apparent on the reverb returns if you use
a stereo send and pan it appropriately between the inputs. However,
It becomes apparent as you select various Presets that there are
varying degrees of 'dry' signal mixed in with some of them. Each
effect Block has its own signal mix setting 0-100% wet, as well as a
choice of Dry, Wet or Mix output mode. So if you have the unit
conventionally attached to your mixer's sends and returns, you will
always want 100% wet at the Outputs, but will not always get it with
the supplied presets. You must then faff and fiddle with the menus
and edit the necessary settings, which is not entirely
straightforward, requiring several button pushes. It baffles me why
manufacturers do this. Answers on a postcard please...
The
review model came with a preliminary manual, but an insert promises
a proper manual will be forwarded after the guarantee card is
received. I think this is a bit naughty: they should have finished
writing the manual before shipping units. Despite some niggles I
really liked this unit. The major irritation is the mix settings
contained in the presets. Apart from that, I loved it. There is
inevitably something a bit 'shiny' about the sound which is inherent
in a digital unit, and I missed some of the warmth of analogue
processing. Inevitably, digital processing is subject to a delay,
and this is increased if an external loop is inserted, so care with
phase is needed when assembling effects. However, the sheer variety
and quality of the effects make the FireworX very good value, and
perhaps in the future a Plus version might improve operation.
Buy the Joe Meek TwinQ Studio Channel Strip in our shop.
Reproduced
with kind permission from www.George.Shilling.Com. Copyright ©1997
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