Sonic Maximizer... Worth it?

[Zooberwerx]

In the studio it can be useful on individual tracks (guitars, toms, even vocals) but never just patched in, I run it as a send & just mix a little bit of the "maximized" sound back in. Never on bass. Recently used it to good effect on a mandolin track.

Running a whole 2-mix through it is insanity. Sure it sounds "better" (it sounds louder, because distortion in high frequencies of a source causes it to be perceived as being louder) when you A/B it, everything gets more sparkly and a little less muddy. But it will give you a headache after about 10 minutes. I once read it described as "MSG for your ears", which I think is a pretty fair assessment.

It's just a tool, and like any other it's dangerous in the wrong hands. For me it's a device of last resort if you can't get a decent sound. IMO, not for everyday use.

I had totally opposite results when using it with our "budget" PA. I finally figured out how insert cables worked so I moved the SM from the FX effects loop to our main inserts to process 100% of house sound. I set the Low Contour by A/B'ing the processed / unprocessed signals and do the same with the Process function. A little bit goes a long way! The highest I've ever set the Process is 3.5 but I've been able to run the board's EQ almost flat in response.

Riis

 

[scotch]

Why can't BBE just dispense with the tom-foolery & label the controls "Bass" & "Treble" instead of "Contour" & "Process"?

Who are they fooling? Oh... a lot of people!

 

[Zooberwerx]

Why can't BBE just dispense with the tom-foolery & label the controls "Bass" & "Treble" instead of "Contour" & "Process"?

Who are they fooling? Oh... a lot of people!

Here's the manual for my older 462

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

Check out page 4 for BBE's explanation. To paraphrase, the unit boosts harmonic content and imparts a linear phase shift amongst the high, mid, and low frequencies with a 2 millisecond delay. Sounds more like some type of crossover to me. Don't FOH soundmen do some form of "time correction" when balancing different arrays of enclosures (mains, subs, etc.)?

BTW, the manual also suggests that you not use the device in an effects loop as it may cause phase cancellation amonst different freq's. I'll assume there is a time conflict betweenst the wet and dry signals stemming from the delays.

Riis

 

[scotch]

... Don't FOH soundmen do some form of "time correction" when balancing different arrays of enclosures (mains, subs, etc.)?

Riis

Yes, but it has more to do with the time delay due to depth-of-field. Not really the same as the BBE "process".

That's one of my problems with BBE's claims. How can they set the right time delay between highs & lows without knowing the distance between the source (amp/speakers) and listener?

The manual confirms that the controls on the front panel have nothing to do with any sort of adjustable delay.

Is there some sort of "phase processing" going on inside a BBE? Probably, but without any way to control it- it's a guesswork algorithm. Lots of end users think that they are adjusting it with the "process" and "contour" controls, but all they are doing is boosting treble & bass. It seems clear that BBE is happy to keep the knobs nebulously labeled....

 

[WalterBush]

$179 MSRP for this?:



OK, let me get this straight -- "opinions" and "personal experience" aside -- in point of fact this technology that "received 42 patents" is *nothing* but a two-band EQ?

Yes or no? ["And remember, Sir...you are under oath!"]

Knowing what I do of US patent law, that seems improbable as EQing is grossly derivative of an extremely large body of previous work.

On the other hand, I can make no sense of BBE's explanation of how it's supposed to work either.

GC sells these things for $100 and currently has them for $50 "in California only" so out of pity for the local manager and his depression-emptied store (yes, even on Saturday) I bagged one, but I'm starting to think that even at the price it's a burn.

I thought BBE was a reputable outfit.

So, what's up with this thing...really?

That's not a two-band eq. That big, black chip in the middle is a distillation (and not a good one, IME) of a couple of decades of Barcus Barry time-and-phase correction technology. The reason they'
re dropping in price is that these days, the electronics that used to take up an entire rack unit have shrunk until they took up an entire pedal, and now are so small that they can occupy a chip. BBE makes those special, it's not just a generic Eprom. It's so small they stick them in everything these days.

Having said that, anything analog in a chip that small is noisy. I think they sound cheap. In some rigs, they work better than others, but I've never found them to make any of my basses sound better.

Don't get me wrong, I use a BBE DI-1000...in passive mode. I'm probably going to Ebay the BBE preamp I've got, and never did use the circuit much. BBE is a reputable outfit, but that doesn't mean that everything they make is great.

Other companies have similar technology that sounds better. Over an entire mix, I'd say give it a shot, live or in studio. On my bass? What phase incoherency do I have in an un-EQ'd bass? What time correction is there to perform?

Give it a shot, some people swear by them, but those people aren't playing through MY rig.

 

[Zooberwerx]

Yes, the 2 millisecond delay does appear to be the SM's "one-size-fits-all" answer to time correction.

More importantly (and maybe we already addressed this), what other processors would one recommend over and above the BBE SM? Price, flexibility, and ease-of-use are of the utmost importance for weekend warriors like myself.

Riis

 

[Bongolation]

That's not a two-band eq. That big, black chip in the middle is a distillation (and not a good one, IME) of a couple of decades of Barcus Barry time-and-phase correction technology. The reason they'
re dropping in price is that these days, the electronics that used to take up an entire rack unit have shrunk until they took up an entire pedal, and now are so small that they can occupy a chip. BBE makes those special, it's not just a generic Eprom.

But still, how much is that chip containing a bunch of fully-amortized, expired-patent research?

Two bucks? Three? Five?

That's not much Chinese stomp for $179...or even the fifty I paid, come to that. Not that most other stomps with fancy names give you much more for your money.

We are talking "worth it?" here, remember. I'm thinking no, especially if it's NOISY.

On the other hand, these are going used for more than I paid for mine new on eBay, so...

It's so small they stick them in everything these days.

So, there's not a whole lot more in the rack units, either?

Give it a shot, some people swear by them, but those people aren't playing through MY rig.

Some people swear by Monster cables, too. Not that it's necessarily the same thing, but you get my point.

 

[Bongolation]

That's one of my problems with BBE's claims. How can they set the right time delay between highs & lows without knowing the distance between the source (amp/speakers) and listener?

The manual confirms that the controls on the front panel have nothing to do with any sort of adjustable delay.

Is there some sort of "phase processing" going on inside a BBE? Probably, but without any way to control it- it's a guesswork algorithm. Lots of end users think that they are adjusting it with the "process" and "contour" controls, but all they are doing is boosting treble & bass. It seems clear that BBE is happy to keep the knobs nebulously labeled....

Check Page 3 in [Invalid or Expired Link Removed], the manual that came with this stomp.

Apparently they maintain that "one size fits all," pretty much, whatever it is that they are actually doing.

"[T]he overall pattern of correction needed is remarkably consistent."

 

[scotch]

Check Page 3 in [Invalid or Expired Link Removed], the manual that came with this stomp.

Apparently they maintain that "one size fits all," pretty much, whatever it is that they are actually doing.

"[T]he overall pattern of correction needed is remarkably consistent."

I'm not sure if my response is "Well, how convenient!" or "Thank Goodness!".

It's like the BBE engineers feel that all pa's or amp's inherently suck & need BBE Sonic Maximization to fix them. How convenient!

 

[Bongolation]

More useful links:

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Link Removed

The analysis indicates that the unit is wildly overpriced for what it is, pretty much my conclusion as well.

 

[cowsgomoo]

it does give a scooped sound, and I can understand that for some fingerstyle players it might not do desirable things to the desired frequencies

I have to say, as someone who plays a jazz bass mostly with a pick, the effect sounds great to me... but you have to be subtle with it, or risk losing too much low mid character... I have a 362 SW, and never have the bass/treble above about a quarter

A/B'ed in and out, it just sounds like someone took a blanket off my amp.. this might be a signal processing trick, but what in amplified music isn't a signal processing trick?

and although it scoops the sound a little bit, i've never been able to replicate that sound with straightforward EQ... I think those who claim it's just an eq sold under false pretences haven't listened hard enough

having said that, it's not a panacea for everything, and certainly not an essential piece of kit

I don't know what's going on (and have no wish to argue with anyone about it, particularly if they haven't ever owned one).. maybe there's the 'tiny delay of certain frequencies' thing going on, who knows..? maybe it does introduce those tiny bits of distortion to selected frequencies..? maybe there are some subharmonics added...? I don't care as long as it works...

anyway, I'm keeping mine and very happy with it in my rack

I have no opinion on putting everything through a sonic maximiser, but i'd imagine having every instrument scooped in the same way would lead to a bit of an eq trainwreck.. still you guys are the experts (especially the ones who've never used one)

 

[jruberto]

I had totally opposite results when using it with our "budget" PA.

I would agree that it can be a good recipe to spruce up the sound coming out of a "less that great" PA system. However, in that context I don't think it can do anything that I couldn't do better with a 30 band EQ.

 

[jruberto]

BTW, the manual also suggests that you not use the device in an effects loop as it may cause phase cancellation amonst different freq's. I'll assume there is a time conflict betweenst the wet and dry signals stemming from the delays.

And that's part of the "coolness" if using it sparingly on a single track. Phase cancellation isn't good or bad, it's a fact of physics. If you are recording a source with 2 microphones (or a mic and a DI for that matter), then there is going to be phase cancellation. Period. The art of it comes in when you start manipulating the phase relationships to make your track sound really really good.

 

[IbanezATK]

IF you can Borrow one I recommend it. What it does is Clean up the noise as it goes through the bass to the amp so all the levels come out equal

watch this video to help you understand it.



for some reason a lot of the other bass players where I live invent this idea that it's a distortion, or an EQ when its not at all.

I have one in my bbe Bmax preamp and I like having it.

Same.

BBE has a ton of patents on it... if it were just another Bass and Treble EQ nob I doubt they could have those patents.

I like it in moderation, to each his own

 

[IbanezATK]

"Loudspeakers have difficulty working with the electronic signals supplied by an amplifier. These difficulties cause such major phase and amplitude distortion that the sound reproduced by speaker differs significantly from the sound produced by the original source.

In the past, these problems proved unsolvable and were thus delegated to a position of secondary importance in audio system design. However, phase and amplitude integrity is essential to accurate sound reproduction. Research shows that the information which the listener translates into the recognizable characteristics of a live performance are
intimately tied into complex time and amplitude relationships between the fundamental and harmonic components of a given musical note or sound. These relationships define a sound's “sound”.

When these complex relationships pass through a speaker, the proper order is lost. The higher frequencies are delayed. A lower frequency may reach the listener's ear first or perhaps simultaneously with that of a higher frequency. In some cases, the fundamental components may be so time-shifted that they reach the listener's ear ahead of some or all of the harmonic components. This change in the phase and amplitude relationship on the harmonic and fundamental frequencies is technically called “envelope distortion.”

The listener perceives this loss of sound integrity in the reproduced sound as "muddy"
and “smeared.” In the extreme, it can become difficult to tell the difference between musical instruments, for example, an oboe and a clarinet.

BBE Sound, Inc. conducted extensive studies of numerous speaker systems over a ten year period. With this knowledge, it became possible to identify the characteristics of an ideal speaker and to distill the corrections necessary to return the fundamental and harmonic frequency structures to their correct order. While there are differences among various speaker designs in the magnitude of their correction, the overall pattern of correction needed is remarkably consistent.

The BBE Process is so unique that 42 patents have been awarded by the U.S. Patent Office."

If you are into high end stereo gear (I collect vintage audio equipment)... I suppose you could relate this to time aligned speakers. The higher frequency the speaker produces, the further it needs to be from the listeners ear.

My supposition is that the Sonic Maximizer "time aligns" the frequencies produced through your speakers.

It's science, not snake oil... some people like it and some people don't. Some people accept it, some people don't. If the frequencies don't reach your ears at the same time there will be cancellations and a drop in various levels. It's science.

I'm just an audiophile hobbiest so I can't explain it as well as someone more knowledgeable could... but it is a fact to my ears, time aligned speakers sound better than speakers that aren't time aligned.

If you ever get a chance to listen to Dahlquist DQ-10's with proper power, you will know what time alignment can do for speakers... even 30+ year old speakers.

 

[scotch]

...

My supposition is that the Sonic Maximizer "time aligns" the frequencies produced through your speakers...

Sure, but how the heck does BBE know what speakers I am using or how far I am likely to be from them? Professional sound engineers do their own time-delay correction all of the time, but they are using more sophisticated tools tailored to the pa equipment and environment they are working in.

I'm not saying that BBE is lying about their 2 millisecond delayed high frequencies - just that this "phase correction" is less what end users are hearing compared to the scooped eq they get from employing the front panel eq controls. (Given, increasing the "process" results in a larger mix proportion of the aforementioned time-delayed treble frequencies... along with a healthy dose of increased overall treble!)

Phase cancellation is inevitable. Employing a strategy of targeted frequency delay can help reduce it, but the end user needs more control & knowledge of how to control it. Just putting some shelving eq adjustment doesn't really give you much control over the phase correction - just effectively reducing mid-frequency content (which, of course, is another of avenue of improving "clarity").

As always, if a Sonic Maximizer works for you - great! There are no rules when it comes to judging tone - it's science!

 

[Bongolation]

There are no rules when it comes to judging tone - it's science!

I'm presuming rampant irony here.

[Totally subjective = wildly unscientific = utterly meaningless.]

Anyway, the answer to the mission-drift question, "does it work and if so, how?" is still up in the air, however for the OP question, "worth it?" in view of its simplicity and Chinese dirt-cheap construction relative to its $179 MSRP for the cheapest stomp, the objective answer is clear: No. Not for this:

 

[Eric Perry]

IMO and IME, it certainly affects your tone, initially giving the impression that it makes some impressive improvements. Use it for a while, then yank it from the chain, and here how full your tone sounds again. I know all the claims about what it's supposed to do. To my ears, it's a pretty basic eq, that scoops your signal. That's about it, to my ears.

I have one in my rack. I use it once in a while, mainly to tinker. Generally, it's completely bypassed, however.

 

[v-12]

........ It does incorporate some kind of phase trickery which to my ears is fatiguing and very "process-y" sounding.

In practice, I don't think it's great for bass. Something funny happens in the low-mids, right where the meat of the bass guitar is. But if you are into the scooped mid sound it might be just the right thing.

In the studio it can be useful on individual tracks (guitars, toms, even vocals) but never just patched in, I run it as a send & just mix a little bit of the "maximized" sound back in. Never on bass. Recently used it to good effect on a mandolin track.

Running a whole 2-mix through it is insanity. Sure it sounds "better" (it sounds louder, because distortion in high frequencies of a source causes it to be perceived as being louder) when you A/B it, everything gets more sparkly and a little less muddy. But it will give you a headache after about 10 minutes. I once read it described as "MSG for your ears", which I think is a pretty fair assessment.

It's just a tool, and like any other it's dangerous in the wrong hands. For me it's a device of last resort if you can't get a decent sound. IMO, not for everyday use.

pretty much sums up my experiences- overuse is VERY fatiguing and unnatural sounding.