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Hi everyone,
I would like to share with you a story about one of my installations which really make it clear to me how important it is to carry out tilt calibration in BBP..I set up a PC for a client about 6 months ago in a bit of a hurry and didn’t get time to set up the tilt on the soundcard output, Realtek ALC888 onboard. All seemed well, the sound was good and the transmitter and audio setup passed the technical inspection by the regulator, which is a VERY detailed and fussy test.
However, although the sound was loud, and always 72-75 khz (with only very occasional overshoots) I just always felt that for some reason, our competitors had the edge (one of them does run at an average of 105% modulation though which gave a slight unfair advantage).
This weekend I had the chance to carry out the 6 monthly maintainence check on the system and decided to take my test gear along and set up the tilt.
The tilt was only a little out, I’d say about a 5 degree downward tilt and the tilt setting to correct was only 4. I ONLY adjusted the tilt, nothing else, no levels, nothing.
When I reconnected to the transmitter, the deviation was only sitting at 55-57 Khz, so this means that I was wasting around 15% of my loudness due to the tilt being out, only a tiny bit.
Now it’s been corrected, my audio is showing the competition how it’s done and they all have £10k Optimods.I think this really makes a clear point of why it is important to give so much emphasis to setting up the tilt. If only a small adjustment made that much difference, think how much it could be wrong if your tilt is 10, 20 or even more out!!
This is the reason BBP beats all other systems hands-down, no other system allows a tilt adjustment so if you are using Soundsolution, Stereotool or ANY other program for your output, you cannot adjust the tilt and you cannot get anywhere near as loud as BBP staying within +/-75Khz.The lesson has been learned, do not underestimate the importance of the tilt calibration!!
The tilt calibration is only for over-the-air broadcasting, and doesn’t apply to webcasting, correct?
[quote author=”ASchuelke”]The tilt calibration is only for over-the-air broadcasting, and doesn’t apply to webcasting, correct?[/quote]
Correct.
I second that, Yorkie. The tilt induced by most sound cards will easily cause 20% overshoot on a tightly controlled competitively processed signal, unless compensated for. That’s A LOT of loudness in a competitive FM-landscape.
///Leif
BBP is more like having 14 grand worth of gear: a 10k box plus something like an Ariane.
Mono compatibility is extremely important to me, the stereo control in challenger is amazing.
BBP has it’s own signature sound: I hear zero grunge and a much more "analog sound"…like analog, but perfected somehow.
Ain’t it funny how the one processor sold with the least amount of analog parts (i.e. none!) is the most analog sounding?
I felt the same thing at the Soundprocessing meetdag in Fleringen in Holland. Optimod 8100 was by far the cleanest and analog sounding hardware processor, and actually sounded acceptable even on "Kelly Clarkson – Because of you" (where ALL other hardware processors completely fell apart), but it still wasn’t as analog sounding as my software 😉.
///Leif
Oh, man… "Because of You" drove me absolutely nuts one time when I was trying to troubleshoot bass kick distortion in the 2nd verse of that song.
Only after an hour of torture did I realize the distortion is in the original recording, oh God…
Leaned my lesson well that day; always be sure you know what the original sounds like.
Heh yeah, that’s probably the most wimpy and broken-sounding kick drum I’ve ever come across in popular music. SeeDeClip works wonders on it though.
But, the part I was referring to was the intro where she’s humming.. Pretty much every FM processor makes it sound like she has barb-wire in her throat.
///Leif
Ah yes, I do recall that humming being unique for its particular resonance in the mid-bass.
Thanks for the reference to SeeDeClip! I might try that out and see how it does with that song.
If it also fixes Nelly Furtado "Say It Right" and Estelle "American Boy", that would be well worth the purchase price.
Must also try that SeeDeClip think on Pitbull’s Hotel Room Service, terrible distortion on the 808 bass.
Because of you, original:
Because of you, SeeDeClip:
This actually works.
[quote author=”celar”]If it also fixes Nelly Furtado "Say It Right" and Estelle "American Boy", that would be well worth the purchase price.[/quote]
No way in hell dude 🙂. Not those two. I mean, check this out:
Nelly Furtado – Say it right
Not only did they hard-clip with a particular kind of dirty clipper (look at all those high-frequency spikes — i don’t even know how they ¤%#$ed up this track so badly), they also EQ’ed it after clipping (look at the tilt), and then clipped it again before putting it on the CD.
Estelle – American Boy is an interesting case study:
This song is an excellent example on why it’s bad to several clip stages with non-phase-linear processing in between! I mean, look at that. This is vocal being driven into the clippers by a filtered kick drum, at AT LEAST two stages. Timestamp: 0:44:170, "really really nice to meet you". See how the vocal flatlines in several places, not just at the top and bottom, but also as in the center? It’s almost random, but there’s basically nothing left of the vocal. This is exactly what Bob Orban was talking about in his "What happens to clipped CDs played on the air" paper, but here it has already happened before the CD is even pressed.
Even though SeeDeClip does a remarkable job of undoing the last stage of clipping, there’s just nothing to do with earlier stages.. Those tracks are just ruined beyond repair.
///Leif
Wow– Leif, as always you have exceeded all expectations in responding to a forum post.
The repair of "Because of You" is fantastic; it even looks pretty now.
I looked at your picture of "Say It Right" and that was "WTF!??" I can’t remember ever seeing anything that looked remotely like that before.
I once noticed something on Amazon which makes the case for artistic distortion gone too far:
Presumably this review was written by an average consumer, not someone trained to recognize audio problems. And even he had a complaint!
The producers of these "over-the-top" distorted mixes could probably have been persuaded to re-master them properly, if only someone at Z100 had demanded it…
Thanks again Leif for taking the time to illustrate and educate so thoroughly.
It’s the same for the Pitbull track I mentioned, the version I have is not clipped at all and also seems to be "artistic distortion" but to the extreme, it just sounds awful..
Yet it "looks" ok. Proving you can sometimes look at a track to tell if it is awful, but you can’t just look at a track to tell if it sounds good. SeeDeClip actually does try on Say It Right, and it certainly comes out better, but… nothing like the Because Of Your or other "legitimately" digitally clipped recordings.
Still… better than anything else I’ve used to try to "fix" stuff like this, including software over a grand, and the SADiE with CEDAR I used to own. A lot of declipping tries to artificially shape the clipped peaks. SeeDeClip is actually somewhat simpler at face value but a much more ingenious way of "seeding" the information for the process, by taking the other channel into account.
This actually DOES sound less distorted. Not remarkably, but noticeably for sure. (sure enough for me not to bother blind ABXing it)
Check it:
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