How to set up a DCX 2496.

[Grant Bunter]

Please note.
I haven't yet included doing any EQ in this thread.
This is because many people use EQ with another unit (usually via a DEQ2496).

That will be the next topic covered.

[Grant Bunter]

Apologies for tardiness

EQing with the DCX2496.

Before I proceed with this section, I'm going to post another thread about EQing in general.
I've been doing a lot of reading and I need some questions I have answered so I can give good advice here.

Stay tuned...

[frpcraig]

Hi Grant,
I may have made an arse of setting my limiter.
Can you have a look please? (Titan 48's) + (DCX)
I think I was supposed to use a laptop with a sine generator??
I downloaded a 60hz sine wave off the internet and used that in a cd player connected to a little mixer. The rotary knobs on the mixer was at 0 and the main mixer slider was at 0.
Amp gains were flat out and stayed that way.
I set the limiter to 50 volts for my particular speakers and thought all was good.
Do you think I should do it again with a laptop and not the cd player? Someone mentioned to me about 'hot input signals' and various other stuff I thought I understand but probably didn't.
After I set the limiter I haven't tried out the system to see if it goes past 50 volts.
Cheers
Craig

[dswpro]

You should not have to repeat the setup. The important thing is that the DCX is the last thing in the chain before your amps and you limit its output so your speakers are protected.

I use an X32, DEQ and DCX, I use the X32 oscillator as my tone source.

It is also helpful to note the mixer output meters when setting your DCX limiters. In my case I know my DCX limiters kick in when I hit the third yellow LED on my X32 master output meters. From my mix position I can tell then what system headroom I have left before the limiters.

Don Sullivan

[Grant Bunter]

Hi Grant,
The rotary knobs on the mixer was at 0 and the main mixer slider was at 0.
Amp gains were flat out and stayed that way.

After I set the limiter I haven't tried out the system to see if it goes past 50 volts.
Cheers
Craig

Hi Craig,
+1 to what Don has said just above this post.
I will disagree slightly though, you should retest, if only for one thing.
After limiters have been set, you just want to make sure that nothing you do on your mixer (ie bump either the channel or the masters above 0) makes the amp output go above 50V. If it does, you need to start all over again.

The source of the sine wave doesn't matter particularly. You might like to hook up your laptop to see if it's signal with the sine wave is hotter (compare it to the CD player), and adjust accordingly, if for no other reason than you now know...

[frpcraig]

Great, thanks guys.

[frpcraig]

Next step is eq for me.
Had a look at your post in the other section grant and some of the answers immediately melted my brain. Haha!!

[Grant Bunter]

Next step is eq for me.
Had a look at your post in the other section grant and some of the answers immediately melted my brain. Haha!!

Not a problem really, just needed to make sure all the ducks were in a row before progressing lol.
Hope to get to it soon...

[djtrumptight]

PS leave REL at 407ms

Out of curiosity,why 407 ms ? I never paid this feature much attention and after reading this post I checked mine and it was at 20ms.

[BrentEvans]

PS leave REL at 407ms

Out of curiosity,why 407 ms ? I never paid this feature much attention and after reading this post I checked mine and it was at 20ms.

That's a good question. Why cause a 4/10 sec drop in volume when it's unnecessary to do so to prevent overvoltage?

[djtrumptight]

PS leave REL at 407ms

Out of curiosity,why 407 ms ? I never paid this feature much attention and after reading this post I checked mine and it was at 20ms.

That's a good question. Why cause a 4/10 sec drop in volume when it's unnecessary to do so to prevent overvoltage?

Ok Brent,im gonna assume you are saying its necessary to have a 4/10 sec drop in volume to prevent over voltage.

[BrentEvans]

PS leave REL at 407ms

Out of curiosity,why 407 ms ? I never paid this feature much attention and after reading this post I checked mine and it was at 20ms.

That's a good question. Why cause a 4/10 sec drop in volume when it's unnecessary to do so to prevent overvoltage?

Ok Brent,im gonna assume you are saying its necessary to have a 4/10 sec drop in volume to prevent over voltage.

No, I'm saying the exact opposite, and questioning why someone would feel the need to have such.

[djtrumptight]

oh,ok,think I better stick with the 20 ms I was using.

[Grant Bunter]

PS leave REL at 407ms

Out of curiosity,why 407 ms ? I never paid this feature much attention and after reading this post I checked mine and it was at 20ms.

The idea of this thread is DCX 2496 "for dummies"/novice users if you will.

Factory default setting is 407msec.

Until you know/understand better, just leave it at that. It will get you started and reduces a modification step if you don't understand what you're doing, and that's the whole idea. Well at least that's my thinking.
Since I'm a novice myself and went through the whole learning with some advice, but mostly by deciphering the manual and playing with the unit, I thought it may help others who were in the same boat.
If it's wrong and other stuff in here is wrong, I'll just ask for the thread to be deleted.

Advanced users would probably be able to set one up intuitively.

DJTrumptight: how did you decide that 20msec should be your setting?

TBH I don't even know if that release time (407msec) is a problem, because I haven't hit the limiters other than when I was setting up the unit.

Is 4/10 of 1 sec really noticeable to most people here?
At least in live music, you could have a decreased volume period much longer than that based solely on dynamic playing from the band...

edit:
It's since occurred to me that whenever you are hitting the limiter (tickling or otherwise, though I understand that if you're tickling at short intervals consistently you would get an "up down" volume scenario) you get the voltage adjustment. Release is simply that, the amount of time after the "spike" ceases before resumption of normal operation. 0.4 seconds just doesn't seem to long to me, when compared to what has just occured. Of course if you're hard into the limter, the reduction will go as long as you are doing so, + 0.4 second.

Interestingly, 0.4 seconds is about the time a baseball pitch takes to get to the strike zone...

[BrentEvans]

Is 4/10 of 1 sec really noticeable to most people here?

As you said, it would cause a pulsing volume pattern that would sound like something other than the limiter upon first hearing it. It also might draw an operator (particularly an untrained one) to turn up instead of down as the effect could be perceived as "not getting enough" rather than 'sounds craptastic." The effect of that would be dumping more RMS power into the cabs, toasting voice coils. With that in mind, it would be a lot better to reset it to a lower number.

10-20ms release is fine for a brickwall limiter, as you're just taking off the peaks. If the DCX defaults to such a large release, it should probably be part of the "For Dummies" instructions to reset that.