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Gotcha, Luke!
I checked out that page.. The Fun Radio stream just sounds broken! Something is going wrong somewhere on that stream, there is no reason to compress things that far down, it has plenty of headroom upwards. Crappy codec, too.
The Cherie FM stream, on the other hand, sounds good! Loud, punchy, reasonably open. That’s a properly done stream, in my opinion. I do hear some typical look-ahead limiter distortion, which leads me to believe they’re running an 1100 for the stream. 😉
FG DJ Radio also sounds alright, but as for stream quality, Cherie FM is the best of the three (i didn’t listen to the others yet).
Best,
///Leifquote :I don’t know how this sounds with music…Better, actually.
Luke-san found a problem case before where distortion was audible. Yes, they were crazy settings, but sudden crackling distortion is not the sound Breakaway is supposed to be associated with 🙂. The latest clipper improvements fix it almost completely.
http://bredband.leif.cx/browse/luke-san
Settings are as shown in the images.
Regarding the comparison with Sonos (originally uploaded by Luke-san), it’s apples to oranges — and it’s interesting how, at first glance the much simpler Sonos algorithm actually appears to do a better job than Breakaway. Once you dive into it, things change somewhat:
Sonos is based on look-ahead limiting as opposed to clipping. It’s very easy to make look-ahead limiting sound clean on strings and other smooth sounds, but it’s at the expense of transient headroom. Yet, the drums sound nice and punchy on the Sonos example. Why is that?
The simple explanation is that the compressors duck down as soon as the drums kick in, and the drum part actually comes out quieter than the strings!
Running the examples through the Orban loudness meter (ITU BS.1770) verifies this:
Sonos: Intro strings -7.5dB, Drums part: -9.5dB. (Listen! It’s very obvious)
Breakaway (with these insane settings): Intro strings -6.0dB, Drum part -5.0dB.
That’s a huge increase in loudness, especially considering the peak level is already 0.8dB in Sonos favour.
The reason why this song is so difficult for clippers is that there’s tons of midbass and midrange energy on the strings, but no treble energy to mask the clipping distortion. The clippers in BBP normally do a very good job of masking their distortion, and they did in this case as well, but a tiny bit of overshoot was left, and handled by the safety clippers. That was where the distortion came from. To fix it, I simply made the main clippers overshoot less. What could be simpler? 🙂
I can’t say exactly when the next BBP version will be out, but at least now there’s something to look forward to 😀.
Best regards,
///LeifHey, it looks like I’m really going to need that MPX. I find myself tweaking just for the sake of tweaking (to make it different), but not doing a good job, because Plutonium already sounds excellent to me on rock music.
So, let’s hear that MPX, let me know what kind of sound you’re looking for.
///Leif
Alright. I’ll check out the MPX and see what I can do. I’ll also try the faster attack — maybe it’s a good idea 😉.
Best,
///LeifNo problem at all. You’ll need access to a computer with an internet connection to do the initial activation, but you don’t need an internet connection on the computer running Breakaway.
///Leif
Hi Adam!
Super fast attacks? That wouldn’t work very well on classic rock would it?
Less brightness is certainly a possibility, though. I’m in the US at the moment, I’ll make sure to record some MPX in different places so I have a good reference. 🙂
///Leif
Hi SDF,
the user interface may not be the same, but the audio will be. Why buy the plug-and-play hardware box? Because you don’t have the time to build and set up a stable computer!
Oh, you do have the time? Then buy the software + audio interface version 😉.
Best,
///LeifLOL, dude, you’re not seriously running those settings on the air are you?
Oh wait.. I just noticed the date. 😀 😀
///Leif
Hi SDF!
No – if my hardware units had the same quality as existing hardware units, there would be no point in making them. The point is to ADVANCE the state of the art, and make them sound BETTER than existing units. 🙂
Best,
///LeifI’ve been waiting for weeks for our indian web developer to add recaptcha, and nothing is happening. All the while I’m wasting valuable development time manually deleting spam. Do you know any good web developers for hire?
///Leif
Hi Scotty!
It’s not easy to predict the future, but here’s where I’m aiming:
Breakaway Live will get RTA and per-speaker 8-band parametric EQ, for true speaker equalization and a real quality improvement in listening. Live will also get the volume control popup and the toolbars from the consumer version, to facilitate high-end desktop use.
BBP ASIO (name to be determined) will indeed allow you to choose the full latency back-end, for the exact same audio quality as regular BBP, with studio monitoring inside the same program.
The more advanced versions of Breakaway Broadcast are also in the pipeline, and they will likely be available both as software + custom sound card, and as plug-and-play hardware units. Composite clipper, full control, and everything else I’m working on, will be available at some point.
The custom sound card itself will solve several problems — dc straight outputs with no more need for tilt adjustment and other calibration, plenty of i/o, simultaneous MPX and 48 kHz AES/EBU outputs on the same card, etc.
The versions designed to run with the custom sound card will not run without it, solving the other big problem in all this — no more need for copy protection/activation.
I will always take care of existing customers through rebates or otherwise, so there is no need to wait — you may buy what’s available whenever you’re ready to buy.
For example, BBP ASIO will be free for people who bought the Live + BBP package.
Best,
///LeifWhoa, those are some awesome settings, Celar! I wish I had thought of that 😉.
How fortunate that the controls all had exactly the right range to create this preset.. Imagine, if one of the controls had maxed out at 49, this preset would not have been possible!
It just goes to show that Breakaway really allows great flexibility in adjusting the sound, from Awesome to Horrendous, despite the limited number of parameters 😀.
Best,
///LeifCleiton, my apologies. We’ve been getting tons of spam lately — it’s possible that I deleted you by mistake.
///Leif
