Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Hi Audio,
May I ask you to clarify something?
In your initial post, you mention the problem when transitioning from a jingle to a song, but you didn’t say you were having a problem between two songs.
I ask only because in your last post, you mention that some of your song levels are significantly different from one another as well, and question whether you should start working on your entire library in some way.
If you’re not having song-to-song issues, I wouldn’t touch the music library regardless of what the levels are. Yes, levels are concrete, tangible points of reference, but part of the job of the processor is to allow you to send audio of different levels in and compensate for that. I would trust your ears rather than get too caught up in what a .wav form looks like or where it peaks. If you’re not hearing song-to-song discrepancies similar to the jingle-to-song differences, I’d trust your ears, focus on "fixing" the jingles, and leave the music alone.
If you’re hearing the same issue between songs, that’s a different matter altogether.
The other thing to consider – and I hope I’m not opening up some huge can of worms here – is where the "power" is in the jingles.
In other words, if the jingles are "dense" and posess high RMS power, they could – depending upon how the preset (and the processing core at large, for that matter) interprets that quality – handle the audio differently than they would a more dynamic audio source with a higher peak level.
If you want to experiment with how significant the "texture" of the recording is to a processor, open the .wav editor of your choice and load up a song mastered within the last couple of years, and then open something from, say, Steely Dan. Study the visual .wav files. Look at the peak levels. Then run them through Breakaway and observe the behavior of the AGC, the multi-band compressors, and in particular, the peak limiters. Even if the peaks are hitting the same levels, you’ll observe drastically different behavior on the processor’s meters…
Jim
[quote author=”timmywa”]Someone correct me, but what he’s describing sounds like the processor’s AGC is lowering the output during the jingles (ducking) and once the next element comes on that is at a much lower volume, the AGC has to try and bring back the audio to the desired levels.[/quote]
That’s how I’m interpreting the issue as well.
It sounds like the jingles are at a higher level than the music, so the processor is being driven further into compression to lower the levels; then, when the music starts, the AGC has to release a significant amount of gain to bring up the level of the music.
Other than increasing the "Speed" to accelerate the release time – which would, I assume, also change attack times, ratios, and other parameters, and in turn change the texture of the processing – I think lowering the levels of jingle audio files as Jesse described is the way to go. A bit labor intensive perhaps (but how many jingle files could there be?) but well worth the time investment.
Side note/wish list/semi-whiny/on the soapbox comment: If there was a version of Breakaway that un-bundled the parameters adjusted in a single slider, the end user would have significantly more control over the sound and in cases like this might be able to tweak the release of the AGC to help the processor handle this situation better. I know, I know, it might not make good business sense for the price, but given the quality of the Breakaway lineup I’ll bet there are people who would pay more in exchange for more control.
Off my soapbox now 🙂
Jim
I’m loving "Live" for that very reason – the EQ 🙂 I’m going to buy a version here shortly, and even if I never used it for any external stuff – just Pipeline and source audio from my laptop – it’s worth the $$$ just to have that really nice equalizer.
Using the FM mode EQ does work just to tweak the output – though you’re limited to a HF control with no adjustable center frequency and only one band with full range. And you add a bit of delay.
Clearly this isn’t the intended purpose of the FM mode, though, which I realize. 🙂
Jim
[quote author=”JesseG”]http://www.samplelogic.com/vuvuzela.html[/quote]
While the rest of the world is trying to eliminate the sound, they’ve gone in the dead opposite direction and provided us the ability to add the noise to our library. Free enterprise at its best 🙂
[quote author=”timmywa”][quote author=”jameskuzman”]
If you’re using the full setup, make sure you’re choosing "Breakaway Pipeline" as the input and your soundcard as the output. Kernel Streaming (KS) is the best choice, but if you’re having trouble with that (or it’s simply not an option) try Wave, or in a worst-case scenario, DS, and see if that makes a difference.
Jim[/quote]You’d put Wave above DS? Interesting. I guess Wave is a true source where DS is a contrived, simulated quasi-source… Someone better explain that? Jesse?[/quote]
Hi Timmy!
I, too, would like to hear Jesse chime in. My suggestion was based upon the I/O section of the Breakaway documentation, which recommends DS be used "only if the above options (KS and Wave) do not work satisfactorily."
It occurred to me just now that I didn’t ask Nic about how his Windows audio mixer was set up – are the various sliders turned all the way up there – master volume, input, etc? And have you gone into the "Sound" settings in control panel to make sure Breakaway Pipeline is your default playback device?
Jim
Personally I’d like to know what’s written on the coffee mug.
I love the foil-wrapped cable connecting the dilithium crystal chamber and the raffle drum 🙂 I’ll stick with wearing my metal kitchen colander though.
Jim
Hi Nic –
When you say you can see the sound on the ‘scope, are you seeing a wave form on both the input and the output screens, or just the input?
If you’re using the Wizard to set it up, try checking the "safe mode" box and see if that does the trick.
If you’re using the full setup, make sure you’re choosing "Breakaway Pipeline" as the input and your soundcard as the output. Kernel Streaming (KS) is the best choice, but if you’re having trouble with that (or it’s simply not an option) try Wave, or in a worst-case scenario, DS, and see if that makes a difference.
I’ve had this happen once, after some flavor of Windows 7 update, and had to uninstall/re-install BAE.
Jim
Couple of thoughts come to mind here.
1) Is is exclusive to a particular song(s), or will it happen on various files?
2) Does this happen only with Winamp, or does it happen if you play those songs in another media player?
3) Does it happen only when you’re running Breakway? If so, you might need to increase the buffer size in Breakaway.
4) If it happens even when Breakaway isn’t open and running, I’d look for other processes that might be monopolizing system resources. Open and watch the "processes" tab in Windows Task Manager to see if there’s a CPU spike that corresponds with the chattering audio.
5) If there is a CPU usage issue, you can identify what’s causing it by downloading and running a utility from Microsoft called "Process Explorer", available from CNET here: http://download.cnet.com/Process-Explor … 23605.html
6) Anti-virus scans and automatic software updates are probably the most common Windows resource hogs, but if you discover through Process Explorer that it’s a hardware issue, go through and make sure you have the most up-to-date drivers for your hardware devices, including video drivers and wireless controllers.
Let us know if any of that panned out? 🙂
Jim
Thanks Jesse!
I did eliminate the problem of hearing both the pre- and post-processed audio by using the output of the laptop’s sound card (Realtek) instead. I’ve got some work to do on the other suggestions – thank you for the help!
Jim
[quote author=”JesseG”]i had the pleasure of hearing KISS FM, from LA, in that era… running two daisey-chained customized 2020s setup by the one Sir Foti. i know he made it big because of his work centered around NYC, but you should have heard KISS back in the day. 8)[/quote]
Aw, man, I wish I could have heard that… I never got to use the 2020, nor have I knowingly heard one on air. I can only imagine what a thrill it would have been to hear that station.
I did get to hear what I BELIEVE was his secret handiwork on, of all things, a television station out of Cleveland owned by Malrite Communications at the same they owned WMMS and Frank was at the engineering helm.
At the time, audio was the neglected step-child of TV. As long as it was making noise, most stations didn’t care one way or the other about sound. Then again, most viewers were listening on 4" speakers built into their TV’s. I used to watch "Star Trek: The Next Generation" on Channel 43 with an early Dolby Surround Sound receiver and the sound was incredible! That was when I first learned TV could actually sound good….
Jim
[quote author=”JesseG”] i don’t know why they called it a prism, but that’s somewhat what it did, when calibrated to run hot into another processor such as an 8100A1/XT2. [/quote]
I believe Glen Clark called them "Audio Prisms" because, as multi-band processors, they did to audio what a traditional prism does to light: Moves it through at different speeds and ultimately divides it up into separate visible portions of the color spectrum.
One of the big selling points was the ability for each of the 4 bands to do nothing if the situation called for it. Prior to that, a compressor was always expanding or compressing the audio – but the Audio Prism could determine when the signal did not need any correction within each band.
Though the Prism was designed to take unprocessed audio directly from the board, many stations ran a wideband AGC ahead of the Prisms such as an Aphex Compellor, or Orban 414 or 424 to keep the front end from overloading.
The Optimod 8100 typically followed next in the chain, either in stock form, or preferably with a replacement Card 5 from Texar – the RCF1 (or later, the Cobalt Blue) which were more tailored to handle the output of the Prisms and allowed the user to have more control over the level and texture of the bass.
The 8100, at that point, functioned mostly as a peak limiter, clipper, and stereo generator, as the release time was typically set as fast as it could go and you didn’t dial in more than a few dB of gain reduction.
It wasn’t recommended to use the Prisms with the XT or XT/2 six-band limiter/clipper. When you added the XT chassis, it was intimately integrated into the 8100 topology (it actually plugged into the 8100) and required the user to change some internal settings so that the main compressor and limiter in the 8100 behaved very differently than they did in stock form, acting as very slow gain riding stages so as not to "fight" the XT – exactly opposite of the settings you’d want from the 8100 when running Prisms.
Engineers were typically very polarized on the sound of the XT/XT-2 – they either loved it or they hated it. I liked it, personally, for the right format. It wasn’t always as loud, agressive, or bright as other setups – including the Prisms – but it was smooooooth and very, very consistent from source to source.
Another very loud but less common setup with the 8100 was to load up the whole Aphex analog chain in front of it with some Prisms – Compellor, Aural Exciter Type III, Prisms, and Dominator – and use Aphex’s own replacement cards on the input of the 8100, effectively bypassing everything in it except the clipper and stereo generator. Talk about dense!
The early 80’s to early 90’s were fun times for analog audio 🙂
Jim
[quote author=”JesseG”]The other reply above mine about using the latest Live because it fixes the problem of the settings saved lag (Windows’ fault), yeah… I agree, sounds like that’s one possible explanation of it.[/quote]
Thanks Dr. J, thanks Jesse.
I’ve downloaded the Live version from the thread referenced here and will try that tonight. Perhaps that will also restore the toolbar?
Among all of the nice new presets I see in Live, one of my two favorites seems to be absent… Maginfying Glass. My low-level, casual, background listening is done through a Logitech Audio Hub which can be made to sound amazing with that preset. Would I get it back by inserting the "restore obsolete" line to the .ini file?
Who authored Magnifying Glass, out of curiosity?
Jim
Hi Leif –
I downloaded 1.3RC this morning onto my Acer Timeline 4810T laptop with an Intel Core 2 Solo (1.4Ghz), 4 GB of RAM and the on-board Realtek sound card. I’m running Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.
This is the computer upon which I have been running BAE 1.30.02 for several months without any issues.
Download and installation went off without a hitch and audio is running through just fine. Even the toolbar is present and working. (I do have a Breakaway Live toolbar question, but I’ll post that separately on the appropriate forum).
I go into and out of Standby all day long on this computer (and honestly I’ve never once had an issue with it not waking up due to Breakaway or any other software for that matter) and will be happy to report back on its longer-term performance.
Thanks for the chance to test-drive this, and for an awesome product all the way around!
Jim
AH!
Missed that one entirely – and after re-reading the post, not sure how I could. He spelled it out and I still skipped over that part.
Dang middle age 🙂
Jim
