- This topic has 22 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 15 years, 4 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Howdy!
I’ve been working on the clipper lately. I believe I’ve made a significant improvement on voice.
Please compare the following examples. (MPX clips! Play with MpxTool. No special hardware required. Simply launch MpxTool, select all three files in explorer, and drop them onto the MpxTool window together.)
http://bredband.leif.cx/browse/voiceclip
"Before" is every previous version of Breakaway Broadcast.
"After" is with the improved clipper.
"After with phase rot" is the improved clipper and a new improved phase rotator.The clipper improvement is a back-end change, not a front-end change. The compression settings (Plutonium, +1.0 final drive) are the exact same for all files.
What do you think? 🙂
Best,
///Leif[quote author=”Leif”]
What do you think? 🙂Best,
///Leif[/quote]Well the "after" seems to be cleaner indeed then "before".
The phase rotation gives the voice audible more body.
I don’t know how this sounds with music…quote :I don’t know how this sounds with music…Better, actually.
Luke-san found a problem case before where distortion was audible. Yes, they were crazy settings, but sudden crackling distortion is not the sound Breakaway is supposed to be associated with 🙂. The latest clipper improvements fix it almost completely.
http://bredband.leif.cx/browse/luke-san
Settings are as shown in the images.
Regarding the comparison with Sonos (originally uploaded by Luke-san), it’s apples to oranges — and it’s interesting how, at first glance the much simpler Sonos algorithm actually appears to do a better job than Breakaway. Once you dive into it, things change somewhat:
Sonos is based on look-ahead limiting as opposed to clipping. It’s very easy to make look-ahead limiting sound clean on strings and other smooth sounds, but it’s at the expense of transient headroom. Yet, the drums sound nice and punchy on the Sonos example. Why is that?
The simple explanation is that the compressors duck down as soon as the drums kick in, and the drum part actually comes out quieter than the strings!
Running the examples through the Orban loudness meter (ITU BS.1770) verifies this:
Sonos: Intro strings -7.5dB, Drums part: -9.5dB. (Listen! It’s very obvious)
Breakaway (with these insane settings): Intro strings -6.0dB, Drum part -5.0dB.
That’s a huge increase in loudness, especially considering the peak level is already 0.8dB in Sonos favour.
The reason why this song is so difficult for clippers is that there’s tons of midbass and midrange energy on the strings, but no treble energy to mask the clipping distortion. The clippers in BBP normally do a very good job of masking their distortion, and they did in this case as well, but a tiny bit of overshoot was left, and handled by the safety clippers. That was where the distortion came from. To fix it, I simply made the main clippers overshoot less. What could be simpler? 🙂
I can’t say exactly when the next BBP version will be out, but at least now there’s something to look forward to 😀.
Best regards,
///LeifHey Leif, I already have my directory on your server LOL.
Leave the -san out of it, it’s still an old thing when I dealt with Japanese techies 🙂, Luke will do fine.Insane settings, nope, have you ever listened to French radio like NRJ, FUN and Skyrock? especially in the end of the 80’s and beginning of the 90’s? I still remember the IDTs and other voiceprocessing stuff that they where using, all very very secret because of the competition.
Their processing is still very heavy. Listen to a couple of streams here http://nl.delicast.com/radio/Frankrijk/Fun_Radio
They also use insane voiceprocessing.
…. I just love it 🙂That phase-rotator is a good indeed and should add body and stability to the sound as it tends to make asymmetrical signals symmetrical.
Looking fwd to that new clipper …. and sorry for giving you more work (but for a good cause)Gotcha, Luke!
I checked out that page.. The Fun Radio stream just sounds broken! Something is going wrong somewhere on that stream, there is no reason to compress things that far down, it has plenty of headroom upwards. Crappy codec, too.
The Cherie FM stream, on the other hand, sounds good! Loud, punchy, reasonably open. That’s a properly done stream, in my opinion. I do hear some typical look-ahead limiter distortion, which leads me to believe they’re running an 1100 for the stream. 😉
FG DJ Radio also sounds alright, but as for stream quality, Cherie FM is the best of the three (i didn’t listen to the others yet).
Best,
///LeifHi Leif,
French radio is a bit strange. More then enough money for transmitters and other nice stuff than a decent stream.
There is also a law that says that 1 out of 5 songs has to be French 😕In a couple of weeks I will be in the South of France, google ‘mount ventoux’ and check the images and you’ll know what I’ll be combining my holiday with. I will try to take some recordings with.
Check out this processing, also check the voices.
http://radio.lebest.fr/radio-nrj.htmlFirst in 2 weeks South Africa, no idea what I’m going to be looking at there 😀
rgrds,
Luke
Nice!
You don’t happen to have an MPX tuner in your luggage do you? 🙂
I’ve been recording lots of stations both in Sweden and here in the states. I’ll post them on mpxtool.com some time soon.
Dell Inspiron 1420 laptop (192k input on-board!) and modified Tivoli Model One. That’s it! Awfully convenient mod monitoring / mpx recording setup.
///Leif
[quote author=”luke-san”]Hi Leif,
In a couple of weeks I will be in the South of France, google ‘mount ventoux’ and check the images and you’ll know what I’ll be combining my holiday with. I will try to take some recordings with.
Check out this processing, also check the voices.
http://radio.lebest.fr/radio-nrj.html
Luke[/quote]Hi Luke-san and Lief,
If you are in france in a couple of week, and if I were you, you should listen 2 national french radio : NRJ and Cherie FM. They are radio from the same group, the same firm. As far as I know, they use Omnia 6 for FM broadcast. They probably use more hardware but I don’t know exactly what. The sound of their stream is diffrent from the FM sound.
If you are in "mont ventoux", I particulary recommand you a regional radio from the national and public group "radio france". This radio is called "France Bleu Vaucluse" (RDS name is BLEUVAUCL) They use IDT hardware and some other things. They sound loud but not too. You can hear this radio on 100.4 FM (transmitter of the mont ventoux) or 98.4 in Avignon. They sound like many french radios at the end of the 80s or beginning of the 90s. This station is for me carracteristic of the french sound. (some people like, other don’t…)
If I can help you, you’re welcome. But I’n not in the south of France (I’m in the middle)
PS : sorry for my bad english, but I hope you’ll anderstand what I mean.
I’ll guess and say they’re also using an Ariane, just a stab in the dark on that, I’d heard that they were rather popular in France back 6-7 years ago.
[quote author=”Guillou”]
Hi Luke-san and Lief,
If you are in france in a couple of week, and if I were you, you should listen 2 national french radio : NRJ and Cherie FM. They are radio from the same group, the same firm. As far as I know, they use Omnia 6 for FM broadcast. They probably use more hardware but I don’t know exactly what. The sound of their stream is diffrent from the FM sound.
If you are in "mont ventoux", I particulary recommand you a regional radio from the national and public group "radio france". This radio is called "France Bleu Vaucluse" (RDS name is BLEUVAUCL) They use IDT hardware and some other things. They sound loud but not too. You can hear this radio on 100.4 FM (transmitter of the mont ventoux) or 98.4 in Avignon. They sound like many french radios at the end of the 80s or beginning of the 90s. This station is for me carracteristic of the french sound. (some people like, other don’t…)
If I can help you, you’re welcome. But I’n not in the south of France (I’m in the middle)
PS : sorry for my bad english, but I hope you’ll anderstand what I mean.[/quote]
Hi Guillou,
Your English is perfect and much better then my French 🙂
Thx for the hints. Yup, they use an Omnia 6 in the studio and some more, don’t know if I can get to see it this time. (there is a reason why I staying at the mount Ventoux (hint) )
I know they also loved to use the stereomaxx but I don’t know if they still use it.But I actually never knew what they used for voice processing since some had a voice that made God sound like a little boy 😆
Maybe Leif can make an awesome voice processor that blow the socks of most competitors.
Regards,Luke (Luc pour mes amis)
[quote author=”Leif”]
The Cherie FM stream, on the other hand, sounds good! Loud, punchy, reasonably open. That’s a properly done stream, in my opinion. I do hear some typical look-ahead limiter distortion, which leads me to believe they’re running an 1100 for the stream. 😉
[/quote]I agree with you, Cherie FM stream sounds clean !
What kind of settings in Breakaway would be nearest of this sound for you ?I grew up on this type of 80s "French Sound" have to admit that as a result, I am irremediably a fan of over the top processing. 😀
NRJ, RFM and Skyrock certainly set the stage for the "French Sound" in the 80s. Nowadays NRJ is still known of it’s very powerful sound, it just hits you when you stubble on it in the car, very loud! While it probably lacks some transmitter stage processing you can check it online at http://www.nrj.fr They use Omnia 6 FM in Paris and TC Electronic P2s at the transmitters. They do keep their sound formula very secretive, it is a bit of myth among audio "engineers" in France, just like the Coca Cola formula in the drink industry I guess 😀
Initially I thought the "French Kiss" preset in BBP was meant to emulate this type of French Sound, but it is lacking compression in comparison though, the brightness is there. What’s the background on this preset?
Speaking of French radios, you might want to check RTL2’s sound on http://www.rtl2.fr they have a very bright yet highly processed sound, which I like a lot. They play a lot of 80s stuff and suspect they are trying to emulate that 80s French Sound.. I believe they use Orbans or IDTs.
I would hope for the "French Kiss" preset to be headed towards these NRJ or RTL2 type of sounds. Check them out online they have very good feeds. In any cases I’d love to hear your opinion on these or how to emulate these with existing presets.
Cheers,
Zeb
So am I !
I’m very interrested in your opinion and suggests.
When you broadcast some 80s this kind of sound is excellent ! That’s the "french touch" 😉This is exactly the sound I desire here in London, unfortunately for me I set up the audio for a lot of stations here and convincing a lot of these stations to switch to BBP is very hard because they all want their own taylor made type of sound! Using the stock presets just isn’t enough for these people, no offense Leif and everyone else who made the presets, they are very good but you really need full control to satisfy everyone! I know you guys are working on the future versions so all is good.
So in the meantime we are only using the Final Limit 12db preset with our own array of plugins and settings in front, to get the sound we want…..
See what you think of this Gwen Stefani track… 😀
- The forum ‘Breakaway Professional Products – [discontinued]’ is closed to new topics and replies.