some processing before breakaway asio?

[quote author=”Q106″]Most compellor uses are pre-STL and usually the processor AGC is defeated .Otherwise you may have 2 AGC’s fighting eachother.I don’t believe the AGC in BBP can be defeated.Also the compellor is not as transparent as you would believe.ARIANE probably has the best AGC leveler on the market.It works MAGIC on audio.[/quote]

I have heard that the ARIANE is a sweet box, but it is multiband, and as far as I know, cannot be run in a wideband mode. It would seem this would ‘color’ the sound too much to feed it into another major multiband processing stage, unless the desired result is ‘killer’ loudness. On the other hand I have not heard this done (that I’m aware of) so I will not judge until then… At any rate, dropping another $5K on a pre-processing box would defeat the frugal advantages of using Breakaway.

I agree that the Compellor is not transparent, but being a wideband device, it would not alter the tonal quality of the source material. Besides, in my ultimate planned use for Breakaway, I would need a pre-STL device… and I know I can always grab a decent 320A for a hair over 300 bucks.

Having said all this, I’m now wondering about the AGC/multiband relationship in Breakway. When I increased the RANGE control it increased the drive to both the AGC and multiband, so I assumed that any increase in input gain from an external source would have the same result… HOWEVER, this could be a false assumption if the AGC section has a high ratio (like a compellor, close to infinity-to-1) that will act first on the incoming signal, keeping the drive level to the multiband consistent. This way, if I desired a greater range of AGC and less multiband action, I could decrease the RANGE control on Breakaway, and then increase the output level of the source of the source that’s feeding breakaway (as long as there’s enough headroom)

Leif, if I’ve made myself clear enough, could you tell me which result would be more accurate?

Since I can only process ‘on-board’ audio for the time being, I can’t experiment with increasing external gain. When I tried to load Breakaway Broadcast version and run setup, I got an error message. I assume this is because the sound card will not support it.

[quote author=”Q106″]spectral intermodulation is the most serious flaw with wideband AGC’s.The Ariane leveler is in a class of it’s own.You would have to demo one to find out what i mean.[/quote]

I would love to hear one!…

Still, I have test driven many hours of music through my Compellor followed by various multiband devices (usually between it and my conservatively adjusted 8100A). While there is always ‘some’ hint of spectral artifacting, I have never heard it ‘pumping’, or causing any artifacts that would be considered ‘unacceptable’. (particularly on the 320A, which has more bass rolloff than previous models)

Maybe I’m also a little ‘old school’ in the sense that I like to hear just a little hint of wideband ‘slam’ on some bass attacks. To me, it gives the music just a little bit of excitement. Some of the modern processor settings are bright and loud, but having everything multiband and look-ahead takes away some of the ‘classic’ compression sound. It’s kind of like when I’m shooting video and aiming for the ‘film look’.

Sorry for the excessive use of single quotation marks… and sorry for continuing to hijack the thread.

Yes, still I want to demo an Ariane! I can never seem to feed my compressor fetish quite enough!