Breakaway and Sonic Maximizer

Since peak control isn’t an issue for an internet stream, since he’s already mentioned he’s not clipping into the encoder…

I’ll comment on the sound. It’s not too bad, it’s a very heavy "V" sound, or what you might call a smiley face. And with Plutonium, it was already made to have its loudness consistency with a somewhat smiley sound.

However, the BBE was not made to have such consistency… it’s a studio device. It’s made to be adjusted for every track it’s used on, and it’s supposed to be a highly non-linear device. So you definitely notice more variance when its placed after broadcast audio processing.

Something like an Aphex 204 or 250 would be less so like this, since it does have a bit of program dependency, but it still doesn’t compare to a well setup broadcast audio processor when it comes to consistency of the spectral balance & loudness when input spectrum changes.

Also, the settings of 3 are pretty drastic. The "process" will (supposedly among other things) increase the gain on a high-frequency shelving EQ and introduce phase distortion. Especially the phase distortion could cause the encoder to have more difficulty encoding (but I think that’s only part of why your 128kbps mp3 stream is full of encoding artifacts)

The Lo-Contour will add a bass clipping, and also some processing that reduces certain aspects of the midrange when there’s heavy bass. It also does introduce phase distortion in the midrange.

What I would do, if you like the texture of the BBE, is to put it before Breakaway… then use a reputably good EQ after Breakaway, if it’s still not quite the texture you want. That way you at least have something with a linear response after Breakaway, and your texture should end up being way more consistent… if you’re only down about 1-2dB anywhere in the spectrum.

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Other things to consider of course are… monitoring for extended periods on some reputably accurate/transparent systems & rooms… your decisions are only as good as your monitoring is honest.

And to consider what your listeners want. Get their feedback, and consider what may be effecting their experience & needs, and try to work around that to still make the mass average listener happy.

It’s not easy, because you’re "playing" to something that doesn’t really exist, but that’s the whole idea of broadcast processing, and broadcasting in general… to appear to be/sound/come-across/whatever as good as possible to the average, without playing to the lowest common denominator (who won’t care), and without turning away your more educated listeners with most likely much better gear than the average listener for a station that has a format like yours. (for instance… a classical station, the average would usually be way more educated in sound, especially if it wasn’t playing the same 100 "standards" over & over)

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And even before any of that, I would get rid of whatever horrible mp3 encoder you’re using now, and switch to something that sounds good. That’s detracting a lot from evaluating your stream because the BBE is making those artifacts worse.

[quote author=”JesseG”]Since peak control isn’t an issue for an internet stream[/quote]

How do you figure, exactly?

///Leif

[quote author=”JesseG”]Is this not correct?[/quote]

You’re making several assumptions that are only true if you very carefully make them true.

Peak-control *is* happening in Breakaway Live whether you like it or not (unless you turn Final Drive down to -6 — then it won’t happen with *most* content). If you add any further processing to it, this peak control is undone, any peak-controlling element before it in the chain becomes a distortion generator with no benefit.

Peak control *is* also happening inside whatever you put after Breakaway, unless you specifically attenuate. How do I know this? Because you can’t go over 0dB.

[quote author=”JesseG”]Pepperjack & I haven’t said anything about clipping, going over -0dBFS, or modulating past 75kHz. And Pepperjack and I are not talking about trying to control the loss of peak control with further dynamics processing. Unless I am mistaken.[/quote]

Indeed you haven’t, and that’s the issue. Audio processing isn’t magic, it’s science! Nothing good happens automatically. Bad things (like saturation, i.e. clipping, i.e. peak control) happens whether you are aware of it or not.

Come on, Jesse, you know better.

///Leif

[quote author=”Leif”]any peak-controlling element before it in the chain becomes a distortion generator with no benefit.[/quote]
I will agree with this. Of course.

So with a lossy codec used as the transmission format… the question becomes "what is an acceptable addition or reduction to the existing loss in peak control".

This is not an objective thing to consider unless someone comes up with an accepted standard to measure the loss of peak control. (is there one already?) And even then, it could only be used to confirm if the gain/reduction in peak loss correlates with trends in subjective opinions on whatever aspects of the sound were being listened for by the subjects. Data that would be interesting just the same though. 😀

Of anyone here, Leif should know that my personal opinion is that not only NO addition is acceptable, but that any reduction possible of is the direction to try to go. ~Perfection would be no loss at all of whatever the intended "sound" is, being played back by a ~reasonably perfect linear system, in as ~reasonably uncolored environment as possible.

"Reasonably" in this context is mostly limited by how much money one can spend on this endeavor, but as many that have read some of the insane things "HiFi" enthusiasts have spent money on… cash is not always a defining factor of a transparent playback system or listening space. 😆

[quote author=”Pepperjack”]It’s just for me to hear around the house.[/quote]
Then if you decide that on your playback systems the BBE sounds more to your liking, then by all means use it, and take Leif’s suggestion and turn your final drive all the way down to -6dB so that there’s no final peak limiting. It’s also worth the effort to try to eliminate any limiting going on in the multiband. Some presets do this more than others. The current versions of Breakaway don’t show the multiband limiters in a separate meter/color, so it’s sometimes hard to judge, but generally any time any of the bands have very short "bursts" of additional gain reduction… much faster than the normal compression movements… that is the multiband’s limiters at work.

But first… try putting the BBE before Breakaway. You should be able to get a similar texture, with more consistency on the final sound.

If you have to put a BBE after Breakaway, try putting it on the playback system that most benefits from it, and after the stream has already been decoded so that there isn’t any un-needed extra DA/AD conversions.

Finally, if you’re just streaming around the house… consider switching to EdCast, because you can stream with FLAC muxed with Ogg… aka OggFLAC. This is not only lossless, but fairly low delay as well. You’ll need to use IceCast v2 server for this purpose.

-J 😳

p.s. for personal use, Leif’s suggestion of setting the final drive low enough where the final limiters are not kicking in is a great idea no matter what other processing or playback system EQs are being used or not. your ears & especially your brain/emotions will thank you.

It’s been so long that I don’t remember (but i think i do)… is SAM4 allows you to pick this or that from the list of FhG codecs…

But if you can select the F.A.S.T. codec… instead of the HQ codec… that alone should be a pretty good upgrade in the transparency of the encoding since that has been, for a while now, FhG’s reference codec.

I don’t know why I always forget about this too, but you can use Lame as a DirectShow codec, which you can select in SAM4’s encoder. Here is the full Lame 3.93.1 WIndows binary package…
http://stashbox.org/867062/lame3.93.1.zip
Unzip, navigate to the "ACM" directory, right-click on LameACM.inf and select "Install". You should then be able to see this codec in SAM4 under which-ever of the mp3 encoder types allows you to select one of your system’s codecs. You should see "Lame ACM MP3 Codec" in the list of codecs. (you might have to restart SAM in order to see it, check if it’s there without restarting 1st of course)

p.s. Sadie’s show sounds pretty decent right now. Higher quality source files perhaps? Also sounds nice without the constant and sometimes inappropriate "sizzle" of the BBE… Are you still hearing the BBE texture to your liking?