Breakaway Asio withh Analoge Inovonics

Hi Jeroen!

You’ll actually get the most analog, clean sound by completely removing all the analog pre-processing and keeping just the BBP software. 🙂

Chaining processors is generally a bad idea, because a basic rule in audio processing is that every later stage’s release must be faster than the previous stage’s attack. If this isn’t followed, there will be random, strange ducking on transients (as two stages duck at the same time, but one release faster than another).

BBP follows this rule internally, with all presets, but if you add pre-processing there’s in my humble opinion no way to make it sound good.

If you run only BBP, what do you feel is missing from the sound? Perhaps we can help you adjust the preset.

Vriendelijke groeten,
///Leif

[quote author=”Leif”]BBP follows this rule internally, with all presets
[..]
Vriendelijke groeten,
///Leif[/quote]

This is true, but it’s very close to being untrue for a few presets that have an uncanny ability to "eat" huge gain increases without being noticed at all, case in point Rustonium.

That was NOT easy, and the better part of a few weeks were spent tuning and listening to how it reacted to transients. It wouldn’t have been possible without Breakaway’s AGC which is easily the best there is right now. Actually, if anyone finds a large attack in a song or promo or whatever… that Rustonium has a problem with, I would love to get a copy of that audio file. 🙂

Anyways, when you’re chaining processors together, that would be next to impossible to attempt (because of separated & just plain inferior topology of other processors), much less get flawless.

I agree with Leif, get rid of the Innovonics at least. It’s debatable if you need the 204, because it could be used to slightly correct for slightly bad EQ of hardware before hand, but an actual EQ would be a lot better correction. 😉 and the Compellor… that would have to be setup to be VERY slow even if it did give you an advantage.

Here’s my take on the Compellor. Eventually everything will run out of headroom, the Compellor included. The one advantage would be that the Compellor’s gain stages might be cleaner than just having the headroom at the soundcard, because of the soundcard’s noise. So in adding the Compellor to your chain, all that you’re doing is taking the headroom limits from your Breakaway’s soundcard and displacing it to the Compellor. And the more that becomes an advantage in reducing noise, the more it’s going to have to effect the dynamics.

If that’s the case, then might I suggest it’s time for you to get a better soundcard?

—

As far as presets… try out the two Rusticity presets. Especially Rusticity ’73. It was inspired heavily by the sound and hysteresis of some of those 70s setups. Namely the DAP310 and Volumax. Adjust the bass as desired.