Leif

Ah, that would explain it. Try setting it to -0.5. Free loudness!

///Leif

Oops, I take that back. Next song sounds awful:

That could be the original though. Tya – Nonamata / Long Ago. It’s probably ruined on the CD. 😥

Check on the "Settings" page! There’s a control labeled L/R Ref Level. Where is it set now?

///Leif

Hey, where’s your "L/R Output Level" set? It looks like it’s set to -2 or -3 now. Let me see if I can get a screenshot for you.

///Leif

I heard that switch. 🙂 Got much quieter, but that’s what volume controls are for, and right now there’s really no high-end to fill up the waveform, so i’d say it’s working correctly.

I’m still listening. Let’s see what happens when things kick in again.

Reference Settings colours the sound more than Reference Classical (i.e. adds bass/treble) which you may also like.

///Leif

Howdy!

Not bad, not bad at all. That’s seriously fat sound for a new age station 🙂.

It might be a bit over the top though for me though. It sounded great until some drums kicked in — it got pretty squashed. It’s clean (no distortion), but there’s also no dynamics left. Have you tried just plain reference settings?

Bass-EFX is probably a good thing, but Impact/Clunk probably does more harm than good on this content, since there aren’t really many transients (drums) to begin. Impact/Clunk helps drums punch through, but if you had more a less pushed preset (such as reference settings) then you wouldn’t need the plug-in to begin with, since the drums would have actual, real headroom.

If reference settings isn’t loud enough, you should be able to turn up the final drive 1 or 2dB, although you might still need impact/clunk then.

Overall, nice job though! Other than the overly processed preset, it sounds like you’re doing everything right.

Best,
///Leif

Addendum: Tubular bells is on! Nice. But hey, you’ve gotta hear the 2003 remake. It sounds incredible.

Hi Veli!

Mastering with Breakaway in this manner is definitely possible, although Breakaway Broadcast isn’t perfect for mastering yet because of the 16 kHz low-pass filter. Breakaway Live doesn’t have the low-pass filter but also doesn’t have the clipper — it’s look-ahead limiter only.

Mastering with Breakaway for playing on the air later would be much better than how most CDs today are mastered (compress to death, limit to death, and then clip the samples by saturation at 44100hz — essentially the worst thing you could possibly do to audio).

However, I’d be careful with the compression, particularly the AGC. Try turning down the Range control significantly — if it’s the master is already dynamics-free, it won’t survive another pass through a multiband processor without damage.

Best,
///Leif

Hi Adam!

If it sounds different than what you’re used to hearing on the air, that means:

a) your radio sucks 🙂
or
b) the transmitter sucks
or
c) your engineer listens to composite without stereo decoding or pre-emphasis

Because, MPX out of the processor sounds *exactly* like what you could expect to hear from a good radio tuned into a station, only with less background noise.

My apologies — this is a big pet peeve of mine. That whole spiel that certain processor manufacturers do, "you have to hook it up to YOUR transmitter and YOUR studio to know if the algorithms inside are any good, to see if they’re compatible to make beautiful music together". I call bullcrap. The processor determines the sound of the station — if the transmitter alters it in any way, it also robs you of loudness (and peak control).

That being said, I’m looking forward to that MPX! Thank you.

I’m going to post modification instructions for the Tivoli Model One shortly — that way, those who are so inclined can DIY and easily get composite off air.

I tend to run Plutonium without modifications (that is, all controls in the middle). I may boost bass a little bit, but it’s important to keep the balance — if you want more bass, you have to sacrifice some loudness, or you also get more distortion which you didn’t ask for.

Best,
///Leif