Preprocessing

[quote author=”Guillou”]Maybe this can help you because someone try to clone the orban’s sound…

http://www.soundprocessing.nl/settings.html[/quote]
That looks like the work of Christofer Bustad. I had high hopes for his "Energize" processing plugin, but I could never get it to sound just right… either it was too aggressive, or barely doing anything:

http://www.bustad.com/energize/index.html

And as for using pre-processing ahead of Breakaway, that just seems backwards to me. I used to use Sound Solution as pre-processing ahead of a CRL AM Stereo Matrix Processor. With lots of tweaking I could get SS to serve well as an AGC and multiband compressor, but it had terrible clipping and no provisions for AM broadcast limiting/filtering, so I left that part to the CRL box.

Here’s a little sample I made back in January 2004 of that setup, transmitting in Harris AM Stereo (now an obsolete system, as C-QUAM became the standard) and received on a multi-system Sony AM Stereo receiver:
http://mysite.verizon.net/tekel/harris.mp3

Someday I’ll make a similar test recording, just using the output of Breakway right into my Panasonic multi-system AM Stereo generator. Name the system you want: Magnavox, Kahn, Harris, or Motorola C-QUAM. 🙂

No Shit!

I know that guy (Christopher Bustad). He was sitting in at a meeting at Swedish Radio when I was there last month, as an MPEG expert! Small world 😉.

Best,
///Leif

[quote author=”JesseG”]I like the SS and CRL sample. Not bad at all. Does that do asymmetrical limiting/clipping?[/quote]
Yes, I have the CRL set to do +125% / -100% modulation, measured and tweaked with an oscilloscope. 🙂

Hey Kingniels,

Sorry to disappoint.. If you’re looking for smashed audio without distortion, then you have succeeded — it’s "clean" — but you won’t catch me listening for more than a couple of minutes. 🙂

I hear the multiband compressor in the 1100 going nuts in the R&B tracks starting at 13:00 — the bottom of the voice falls out every time the kick hits, causing extreme spectral gain intermodulation. The voice thickens and thins in reverse sync with the drums — I absolutely cannot stand this error, and none of my processors have ever done this — not even the original OctiMax! Orban processors do this because of how their multiband stage is designed, and it cannot be tweaked around other than by making it so slow that it does nothing at all.

Other than that.. Smashed, smashed, smashed. No hint of dynamics. It does have the "Orban-sound" to it. It used to be that you HAD to make the audio sound like this, in order to be loud. It was a side effect. I can see recreating the sound for nostalgic reasons, but to actually listen to it? Count me out.

Best,
///Leif

Whoa, multiband in Breakaway? What?? 🙂

Dude, if you’re running an 1100 in front, you need to be running the Protection Clip preset, and not use any compression in BBP at all! Likewise, turn "Final Limiter Drive" (or whatever it’s called in the 1100) all the way down, so that the 1100 doesn’t do any limiting. Split the workload, don’t double it!

Some compression, to remove long-term dynamics, certainly helps a lot with smaller speakers and/or noisy environments.
However, removing short-term dynamics (i.e. smashing the audio), contrary to popular belief among audio processing enthusiast, does not come through better in any speaker or environment! Short term dynamics contain the "punch" of the audio, and no speaker, big or small, will recreate it once lost.

You’re right, that song is a good torture test cut.

///Leif

Kingdaniels,

You may be pleased to know that I am working on a preset for this kind of "Top 40" sound for BBP but hopefully without the side effects, as Leif mentioned.
I agree with both your comments and Leifs, there is a big demand for this flavor with the HIT/CHR stations, it seems to be the type of sound that they want. But weather or not this type of sound is preferred because people actually like it or because people are just following every else’s sound because that’s what they are used to, is another story altogether. It’s not my personal favorite type of sound, (it used to be!) but I’m designing a preset with this sound in mind. I’ve got stations here in London busting my balls for it…..

I’ve not had enough time on it yet…but I’ll upload some clips soon for some feedback.
P.S, don’t get too excited also, because it’s up to the main man Leif and the other guys to decide if it will ever go into the BBP package.

Also, Kingdaniels, I’d strongly recommend running BBP in 6db clip mode with your setup also. 😉