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Quick question: I’ve been torturing our BBP lab instance as a colleague at the station recently mentioned that our stream sound (rock preset) was burying voices and that it took some efforts to decifer some songs’ lyrics… I did not think much of it first but that kept creeping up in my mind and ended up bugging me as lyrics should indeed stand out 😡
I have tried a few things: to lower the power a bit, increase the 5K frequencies in the PEQ, played around with the Stereo Challenger (testing Jesse’s settings) and so on… But the real question might be: which preset works best with modern & classic rock while keeping voices up front and center? CHR is good with voices but doesn’t cut it with rock music.
Wouldn’t the ideal rock preset have strong low range coverage (bass, guitars, drums, …) and an open higher range stage for voice and clarity? All I seem to hear is mid range in the rock preset…
Audio
see if you like this:
http://91.121.201.88:8000/listen.pls
it’s the birthplace/test-grounds of the Motor City preset, and still runs it.Thanks Jesse,
I have listened to RockRadio1’s stream for the last few days, it sort of fits what I was talking about… How did you / they achieve such thunderous bass starting out of Motor City, which is fairly light on this end. Bass EFX, Bass Boost?
Cheers,
Audio
Part of it is "Phase Rotator" into "Impact/Clunk" on Impact 2, Clunk 1. After that is a MaxxBass to push some low bass up an octave. On that, medium crossover with a pretty high roll off and slightly above 0 dynamics (like 0.07 or something) and crossover frequency of 91 Hz. Pretty low mix levels. There’s something else between those but it’s a secret. Breakaway’s Bass Boost is not used on it.
Breakaway’s Bass Boost by itself can work wonders though. Part of it is effecting the bass clippers, so you can add some nice density that way, as well as increasing the overall loudness of it just before it hits the final limiters.
If you do do bass processing before Breakaway, make sure it’s subtle on its own. Something that you don’t really notice much when the processing is bypassed, because that effect will usually be emphasized when a track with lower bass comes along and gets ridden up by the processor. Basically so that you’re adding to the consistency *after* processing way more than you’re taking away from bass punch on the loud bass songs. Don’t break that one rule and you’ll be fine and shouldn’t ever go to mushy bass land that everyone hates to visit.
I’m not actually a fan of Bass-EFX because while it DOES make a huge freakin thud on many tracks that have low lows, it also tends to want to take away from upper bass (lower than mid-bass) punch, like actual kick drums. In only a few cases I have also heard it make the low lows less louder, but I’ve only heard that happen maybe 2-3 times out of a *lot* of listening to it.
Thanks for the detailed answer, it is very interesting to understand how you structured your chain, I shall have to look into this. It still hard to believe we are talking Motor City’s bass, that’s quite a transformation…
I have tried to use MaxxBass before but could never load it into BBP. I have tried loading it using Adaptx via DirectiXer but unfortunately DirectiXer won’t let me load Wave’s Shell VST plugin… That’s for the MaxxBass Native version 7 (or 8). Any idea what could be the trouble?
Cheers,
Audio
@ Waves, not sure. I think Joe’s using version 6 still since we set it up. If it ain’t broke… yeah.
Waves 8 is out I guess. But personally not a fan of Waves at all overall, especially their company & "support". The MaxxBass plugin is great though, and reference quality for what it does.
Another secret that most people don’t know about is Waves R-Bass running into a MaxxBass, with the R-Bass crossover at around half of the MaxxBass crossover… and you get this INSANELY huge bass thud that’s double harmonics upward… But the real secret that you should know about is that many Waves plugins preset files, which are XML, can be edited and there are sometimes *many* more settings in the presets than what you see on the interface. R-Bass is one of them, and with the right tweaks in the preset file, you can get a redonkulous bass sound from it, without overloading the peak levels and without sounding muddy.
First time I’ve ever talked about that one publicly. 🙂 That’s one part of what I was using on Radioio.com which held the #1 spot online for 2.5 years straight, so I know it "works". 😉
Hi Jesse,
[quote author=”JesseG”]Breakaway’s Bass Boost by itself can work wonders though.[/quote]
Where in chain is Breakaway’s Bass Boost (if it’s not secret)?Where is it inside of Breakaway? It’s actually just a combination of effecting things that are already there. It’s not some specific thing that is at one place, just changing things. 🙂 Mainly parametric EQs (for bass boost) and changing Band 1 & 2 thresholds (boost and cut).
Here’s Leif’s notes from another thread about the Bass Boost and Bass Shape controls, for reference:
[quote author=”Leif”]Bass boost, when turned up, will:
Apply Parametric EQ before the multiband
AND raise the b1/b2 agc thresholds
AND raise the b1/b2 out mixBass boost when turned down will only:
Lower the b1/b2 agc thresholdsShape adjusts the shape of the PEQ as well as how much of b1 vs b2 to adjust.. shape minimum will adjust more of B1, shape maximum will adjust more of b2.
The crossover frequency (-3dB) point between B1 and B2 is 36hz, however the filters are nice and gentle, so in reality B1 is sub bass and B2 is mid bass.[/quote]
Yah I’ve always wondered about that Band 1 cutoff myself! At 36 Hz it seems like you’d never get much Band 1 action in the mix. Yet the meter for Band 1 does indeed move about during most tracks.
Here are the crossover points which Leif posted in another thread:
[quote author=”Leif”]The crossover cutoff points for the 6-band presets are:
(1) 36,
(2) 49-145,
(3) 171-507,
(4) 599-1775,
(5) 2097-6212,
(6) 8235.Note that the first one is low-pass, the last one is high-pass, and the remaining ones are band-pass.[/quote]
And, even beyond that low 36 Hz cutoff for Band 1, over here I’m using Leif’s recommended setting of 45 Hz for the final low-cut (the HPF). So theoretically, anything from Band 1 isn’t even getting on the air. Probably not true in practice, but perhaps someone will expound on that.If HPF is 45Hz and first band is 36Hz and HPF is before MB, your 1st band shouldn’t move ?
And what’s that mean that first band is "low-pass" and last "high-pass" ? 😯[quote author=”Boki”]If HPF is 45Hz and first band is 36Hz and HPF is before MB, your 1st band shouldn’t move ?[/quote]
You would think not! But it’s true; you can try it… set the HPF to 45 Hz, and you still get some Band 1 in there.This sorta makes sense, because 36 Hz is only the "mid-point" of the Band 1 cutoff, not the absolute maximum.
If you set the HPF real high, like 120 Hz, then the Band 1 does drop out completely.
[quote author=”Boki”]And what’s that mean that first band is "low-pass" and last "high-pass" ?[/quote]
Ah, that’s easy- "low-pass" meaning "frequencies below X will pass through the filter"…."high-pass" meaning "frequencies above X will pass through the filter".
[quote author=”celar”]Ah, that’s easy- "low-pass" meaning "frequencies below X will pass through the filter"….
"high-pass" meaning "frequencies above X will pass through the filter".[/quote]
I know that .. But first band can be HPF and last LPF!
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