JesseG

The distortion is NOT because of Breakaway. I keep telling you that you can’t make it sound even remotely this bad with ANY abuse of it’s settings. AND YOU’RE NOT LISTENING TO ME.

Also, you are streaming in stereo, even if your audio is mono. I’m looking at it right now. It’s 64kbps 48kHz Stereo, using WMA SDK v11.0.6001.7000, and you’re pushing it to WM Server v9.5.

Figure out your distortion problem first. Because NOTHING sounds great through this crap. Least of all Tornado. (and please stop using tons of extra letters and punctuation)

Not that you would need a limiter if you’re only adding 1-2db of EQ… which btw in some people’s books like mine – is a LOT.

Also you would need to have licensed two copies of Breakaway, which will cost you just as much as the planned medium-level Breakaway Broadcast product has been rumored to possibly cost. 😉 And that version is mainly adding more controls. 8) See what I’m getting at? Just hold tight for it, and upgrade your license to that when it comes out.

[quote author=”Erwin”][quote author=”Wharfe”]I didn’t realize Tornado was a plugin, I thought it was just a preset. What does it do exactly? Why should it not be used? I don’t know anything about it, haven’t tried it yet.[/quote]

It gives more ‘body’ to your sound and it give more a ‘jumps off the dial’ sound. Try it and you hear it.[/quote]

No, it doesn’t. "body" is generally used to define a frequency range between 250 and 400 hz. And "jumps off the dial" is totally meaningless.

What it really does is makes all of the transients sound like LASERs. It was only created to allow people to listen to one of the main aspects of a "particular 31-band processor" which makes that processor sound like TOTAL CRAP.

If you like it, you don’t have proper listening experience and/or gear (or massive hearing damage). Don’t believe me, try it out for your self. Chain 10 of them together…. That LASER sound is still on EVERYTHING, just lower density and maybe you can’t hear it, but MANY people can – plain as day. In fact the better listeners people are, the more easily they consciously hear it. But just because a listener isn’t consciously aware of something, doesn’t mean they don’t hear it. And doesn’t mean they won’t like listening to your stream because of that, even if they don’t know why.

Also to remember that unless you have a reference quality system for monitoring, it’s very likely that any changes that sound "better" (subjective, impossible to prove scientifically) on your system, then it’s very likely it’ll sound worse on a majority of other systems.

[quote author=”Ken”]>JesseG

I just tested: "live audio" input to ESi-MAYA 44 > BBP > out MPX via ESI-MAYA 44.

Works great, I have Airomate2 RDS encoder on PIpline1 to BBP. So ESI-MAYA44 can do in/out in 192k at the same time. And on Windows Vista 🙂

FM signal looks good after som tweeking in BBP, I messure with my FM analysator.

But I so much like to have a coposite-clipper, or final-clipper that Orban call it. I think what ever preset I use on BBP the MPX signal swing to much, I do sound great. But with a final-clipper I can soud loader without modulation over 75k.

/Ken[/quote]

The MAYA44 doesn’t even have 192kHz converters on the inputs. It only has 96kHz. Well at least it’s outputting 192khz from the DAC end… the 96kHz ADC will get upsampled by windows to 192kHz. See if you can input 48kHz instead while also outputting 192kHz for composite. That will get you the cleanest sound.

The "swinging" isn’t because of Breakaway. Running Breakaway on a properly calibrated converter you can be as loud as an Optimod 8500 cranked to 11. 🙂 The problem might be partly the capacitance on your outputs which will make the center of the signal move all over with the bass. This will also effect the tilt. There are modifications you can do to reduce this problem to almost none.

Did you perform one of the calibration methods in the documentation??
http://www.claessonedwards.com/index.ph … &Itemid=83

There’s a LOT more wrong here than the codec. God, that sounds so bad I don’t even know where to start to give you suggestions.

And even through this distorted mayhem… I can tell you’re using Phase Tornado, even on speakers. I’m serious when I say that Phase Tornado sounds like crap, I know Leif has regretted even releasing it. It was supposed to highlight one of the major problems with "a certain 31-band processor", but obviously more people are DEAF than initially expected.

You seriously don’t hear how it’s making all of your transients sound like LASERS?!?

But anyways yeah… I would first try to get a clean sound without anything except for Breakaway. Whatever else you are doing to the signal is ruining it…

I asked my friend Louis to listen, and said that I didn’t even know where to start to give you advice, and his response: [quote author=”Louis”]1. tune out[/quote]
…

[quote author=”camclone”]give us some ..controls to adjust the multiband output mix, forget the MPX clipper

also, make a more intelligent …stereo enhancer like bob orban does.. steeeereooo enhancer with high IQ 🙂[/quote] There will be an intermediate version with what you’re begging for. Leif mentioned it a lot already, and also that there is no set date on when that will be yet. This forum has a search function btw.

[quote author=”camclone”]The heart of that sound is Breakaway latest version.. with a completely made of me ..preset.. not plutonium, not newyork, not not not..[/quote] You can’t make presets with any of the currently public versions.

[quote author=”camclone”]like Orban with Omnia does.
Breakaway VS Stereo tool.[/quote]

More like Breakaway vs Everyone. As far as the software (for windows or for dsp chips, it’s all software) that is on the market right now, many people that have open minds have confirmed that Breakaway is currently top dog. It’s now running on several top 10 market top 10 stations, including the #4 station in the #1 market in the world – WCBS. 🙂 As well as across the entirety of several radio networks. And countless small-medium stations around the world. (run-on sentence much?)

So far on the Stereo Tool forums there are a few people using it. And the MPX I uploaded above shows for some content it isn’t all that bad. But it’s still not up to par even with current offerings from the likes of Omnia/Orban/IDT/Sound4/DSPX/ and even Solidyne (yes Solidyne has a new processor which is actually pretty good). But you really can’t care to argue about quality for the price of Stereo Tool.

If you just need to be compliant, not sound quiet, sound quality isn’t your priority… and can’t afford Breakaway Broadcast (which is only $99 more)… Stereo Tool is there. But like Leif has said several times, if your station’s budget didn’t allow for even the PIDDLY $199 for Breakaway Broadcast, then something was really wrong with your budget. You can’t even buy a fading de-calibrated Optimod 8000A for that cheap.

But no matter what, the number of people using a given processor or the size of the station or network, should not be taken at face value as having any relevance for how competitive it actually is on-air or on-line. Personally I welcome anyone to come into the waters of developing broadcast audio processing (and video processing) for the x86 platform. The water is nice and warm!! 8) You might be surprised at who jumps into the water in the near future.

And btw… only the top level Breakaway processor is going to have the MPX clipping backend. Don’t get your hopes up, cos it’ll never happen anywhere near $199. Leif has said it to you at least once too. He meant it.

From what I remember of Leif testing this actual card… You can only output 192kHz if the card is not inputting any audio (digital or analog) or else it will be limited to 96kHz on the outputs.

Leif please correct me if I’m wrong.

But yes, I think that’s what Leif is referring to. Have you tested it to see if that actually works with 192kHz output while also inputting audio?

Also, the ESI card’s drivers support ASIO, ASIO2, MME (aka Wave), DirectX, and Kernel Streaming. That pretty much covers the bases. 😉 They are some of the best drivers I have ever seen for a card… really only Presonus and of course RME were better in my experience, which is a great compliment for a "budget" manufacturer to get from me. 8)