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CHP. 12 USING ACOUSTIC MIRROR AND WAVE HAMMER
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What is Wave Hammer?
Sony Pictures Digital’s Wave Hammer DirectX plug-in is an audio mastering tool consisting of a classic
compressor and a volume maximizer.
Wave Hammer can be used in any Microsoft DirectX-compatible host application (for example, Sound
Forge and ACID Pro), and the quality and functionality of Wave Hammer is the same in each host
application; however, the method of previewing effects is different. Consult your host application’s
documentation to determine the available previewing methods.
Displaying Wave Hammer
To display Wave Hammer, choose Wave Hammer from the Effects menu.
The Wave Hammer dialog
The Wave Hammer controls are divided into two tabs: Compressor and Volume Maximizer.
Compressor tab
The controls on the Compressor tab are used to compress the audio signal. When applied properly,
compression reduces the dynamic range of audio and allows you increase overall loudness. Compression has
various uses. For example, applying heavy compression at a low threshold to electric guitar produces
distortion.
Threshold
The Threshold fader is used to adjust the audio level at which compression is applied. Audio with levels
higher than the
Threshold value are compressed, while audio at levels lower than this value pass through the
compressor uninterrupted.
Ratio
The Ratio slider determines the amount of compression applied to audio signals surpassing the threshold. A
ratio of
1:1 applies no compression to audio surpassing the threshold, while a ratio of 2:1 requires a 2 dB
increase in actual volume to raise the processed volume 1 dB. A ratio of
Inf:1 is considered a limiter.
Compressor tab