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The connection won’t make a difference, Breakaway Pipeline is bit accurate. Using the normal windows media encoder app should work fine!
///Leif
Hi Nanko!
Easy, enable [x] Effects in the Breakaway I/O settings, then click Settings in the main window, Edit plug-ins, select the Bass EFX plug-in and finally click Reload.
///Leif
FINALLY!
I’m sure I’ll find plenty of issues before release, but it’s actually working!
You’ve gotta admit, alpha transparency looks pretty nice when it works.
Anyway.. If it was about money, I never would have spent this much time on something as insignificant as this, as it’s guaranteed not to make financial sense. But, as most of you have probably figured out already, that’s not what drives me. 😉
///Leif
Erwin, since this question keeps coming up (from you), please allow me to clarify once and for all:
We are not in the business of emulating older products. We are in the business of improving the sound of radio.
It’s important to ask your question in the correct place. For example, if you go to Orban and ask for Omnia sound, they won’t be able to help you, because you’re asking the wrong people.
Best regards,
///LeifLOL 🙂
Well, to be honest, I’ve kinda painted myself into a corner. Back when I originally made Breakaway Audio Enhancer, I made an explorer toolbar for it, for a nice way to integrate oscilloscope/meters into the shell, as well as an always-there volume control.
I’ve always used a kind of alpha transparency in the Breakaway user interfaces. All buttons and other things you see in Breakaway have alpha transparency and anti-aliasing — you can see this if you zoom in and look at the edges of buttons and stuff, everything looks pixel-perfect, as if composed in photoshop. However, the window itself was never transparent — those objects were all blended into a solid window.
Then, along came Windows 7 and Aero. The normal Breakaway windows look fine as they are, but the toolbar really doesn’t work properly, and needs to be transparent as well. Thus, all of a sudden, all that drawing code has to be rewritten to support transparent windows — just for a few pixels.
At this point, it feels like a ridiculous amount of work for a feature most people probably don’t use anyway, and I’ve already spent several more days on it, and it’s still not done. So, what are my options, really?
I’d love to not do it, and work on something more worthwhile, but it would look pretty bad to release a new Breakaway Personal and tout "Windows 7 support" with the toolbar warning that it’s not compatible with this version of windows, and looking so-so once it’s enabled. Argh.
I could also just plain remove that feature, but that’d feel stupid with all the time I’ve already spent — plus, to be honest, I’d miss it.
What do you guys think? Does anyone use the toolbar?
Comments appreciated.
Best,
///LeifAh, forgot to answer that.
The Solo Band switch allows you to audition the 5 band crossover, to get a feel for where the band splits are. The normal position is Off — the others are only for testing.
It’s a slider, not a button — adjust it like all the other sliders. When the stereo enhancer is done, you should definitely hear a difference 😉.
///Leif
[quote author=”Joop Krauthausen”]The thing that really tics me off is the fact that i can buy the Alpha card for €180.- in my home town (Netherlands) .. and when i drive 10 Km to the east..(Germany) i buy them for €139.-[/quote]
Heh, I know! Last time I visited Twente I flew to Düsseldorf. Even including the EXTRA flight from Düsseldorf to Amsterdam, it still came out cheaper than if I would have gotten off at Schiphol. Taxes, so much fun.
[quote author=”Joop Krauthausen”]Strange enough i never see user ratings regarding the dc-straight specs , or the fact that its very good for soft-processing.Is Leifs software that secret ?[/quote]
Well, if you consider the fact that no software processor before mine has had Tilt Compensation, even though 99% of sound cards need it.. I think they just don’t know. I mean, who connects oscilloscopes to their sound card outputs, besides us?
///Leif
I was planning to write STL software, but other projects got in the way.. May still happen in the future, but I have no idea when.
///Leif
Hi Scott!
The input meters have two different meters integrated. The bars are ITU BS.1770 standard loudness meters, and the smaller peak indicators above are.. well.. peak indicators. These are colour coded differently.
The colour coding of the bars depend on what ITU Ref Level you’ve set. This slider also adjusts some internal core parameters to account for the different input levels. If you’re into the red, it means the input is hotter than expected, but as long as you’re not clipping (red flashing meters), it’s fine. It’s meant to be used an easy-to-read level guide.
The peak indicators have a different colour scale, and it’s also meant to be a guide. Flash red/white means overload — if you ever see that, that means you ran out of headroom, which really shouldn’t have to happen. If it does, lower your input level, and then lower ITU Ref Level to match, to give yourself extra peak headroom.
Indeed it doesn’t distort just because the ITU meter is in the red area — it’s just an indicator. What you achieve by having more consistent input levels is that you can then use less processing and still have consistency.
Although the meter is nice, its utility as an input meter is questionable, as it’s unlikely that you see it while standing at the console. That’s why Breakaway RTA exists — the same meter in a free, light-weight format which you could run on your studio computer to give your DJs an easy to read true loudness meter. For example.
///Leif
Hi Kevin!
When set to Mid/Side mode, it will perform according to C-Quam specs. It’s been a while since I looked into this now, but I did make sure to follow the spec at one point. The Asymmetry control goes from 100 to 150% (if I remember correctly) and the thing to remember is that a figure like -70/+125 is relative. Rather than actually setting negative to -70, set positive to +150 and then reduce the output gain.
Please make sure to test this with some smooth jazz, though. I’ve found bass + saxophone really sounds worse at -100/+150 than it does at -100/+100 due to the intermodulation distortion that sometimes occurs.
Best,
///LeifIndeed. That was actually my reasoning for leaving it out in the first place. However, it’s now in already, to give people freedom to follow specs to the letter and ruin their sound as they see fit 🙂.
I’m also aware of certain users setting the low pass filter for FM to 15 kHz even though Breakaway’s 16 kHz default option protects the pilot better than analog processors ever did. One can only do so much..
///Leif
Breakaway doesn’t need one — its advanced clipper back-end allows much greater high-frequency headroom than that processor. The Breakaway clipper also doesn’t need a HF limiter, as the more advanced clipper handles overload with much less distortion. Make a calibrated A/B comparison, it should be obvious which approach produces the brightest and cleanest sound 🙂.
///Leif
I think I know which station you’re referring to, and I can only agree. Any sound processor can be set up to sound bad, for sure 🙂.
When you try BBP, I think you’ll like it.
Before then, there’s really no advantage to involving Breakaway Live before the Barix or Omnia One, unless you want to use Breakaway’s AGC + Multiband with the Omnia only doing protection limiting. This would create an advantage if you prefer the sound of Breakaway over the sound of Omnia, which many do.
Using Breakaway Live as a protection limiter in this scenario has no advantage over feeding the Barix straight unprocessed audio, because every device has a clipping point.
If you clip Breakaway Live’s input, you’ll end up with serious distortion, just like if you clipped the Barix’s or the Omnia One’s input. The trick to avoid this is to set the input gain low enough that you NEVER clip, and then crank up the AGC of the processor to properly gain up the low level.
///Leif
