Where to place BBE sonic maximizer in mastering?

[> DiGiT <]

most any program used for production employs an internal resolution of 32 bits. this is done simply because effects can be represented much more accurately at that resolution, allowing you to avoid truncation errors that would be introduced if your processes were all done at 16 bits.

its fine to work at 44.1 khz all the way through, but its very much to your advantage to keep your audio at at least 24 bits until the last stage of the process.

[Jason Brian Merrill]

what if you work at 16 bit?...major noise?....a tad dramatic don't yah think....

o, well yeah.. if youre using a 32 bit engine, then I think you should prolly use dither for the mix calculations... I dunno about major noise tho, right

[djanthonyw]

BBE Sonic Maximizer is meant for a live sound situation. It's not meant to be part of a mastering chain. What BBE SM does is line up the high freq and the low freq so they hit your eardrum at the same time during playback.

Do people use it in there mastering chain? Yes. Are you supposed to? Not really.

[Hink]

BBE Sonic Maximizer is meant for a live sound situation. It's not meant to be part of a mastering chain. What BBE SM does is line up the high freq and the low freq so they hit your eardrum at the same time during playback.

Do people use it in there mastering chain? Yes. Are you supposed to? Not really.

so just how many people do you know using pluggins live...yes the hardware version is best suited for live use...but what do you suppose they developed the software version for?

[Jason Brian Merrill]

personally, I dont think BBE sounds good at all..

hink, do you have a before and after example I could hear? It has been a long time, after all.

[djanthonyw]

BBE Sonic Maximizer is meant for a live sound situation. It's not meant to be part of a mastering chain. What BBE SM does is line up the high freq and the low freq so they hit your eardrum at the same time during playback.

Do people use it in there mastering chain? Yes. Are you supposed to? Not really.

so just how many people do you know using pluggins live...yes the hardware version is best suited for live use...but what do you suppose they developed the software version for?

Well, the plugin can obviously be used, but it kind of strays away from the point of what the original hardware unit is for.

[Hink]

personally, I dont think BBE sounds good at all..

hink, do you have a before and after example I could hear? It has been a long time, after all.

no because I only sold them, I never did buy one (actually they sold themselves) I use lampthruster from voxengo and for hardware (in my guitar rig) I use an Aphex Aurel Exciter type C...better for tweaking (in both cases)...

[zircon]

djanthonyw brings up a good point. The ear, at anything but LOUD volumes, has a particularly bad frequency response where the low and high frequency content sounds lower to us than it should. This phenomenon is referred to as the Fletcher-Munson curve. What maximizers do (and many stereos, CD players, and MP3 players come with similar effects) is compensate for the curve with selective equalization.

[Hink]

BBE Sonic Maximizer is meant for a live sound situation. It's not meant to be part of a mastering chain. What BBE SM does is line up the high freq and the low freq so they hit your eardrum at the same time during playback.

Do people use it in there mastering chain? Yes. Are you supposed to? Not really.

so just how many people do you know using pluggins live...yes the hardware version is best suited for live use...but what do you suppose they developed the software version for?

Well, the plugin can obviously be used, but it kind of strays away from the point of what the original hardware unit is for.

true and probably why I haven't bought one...but the question here was where would you use it? I reckon if I did have one I would use it on the final mix, not as an insert...

[kritikon]

Back to topic...


BBE->limiter->dither


You can do the mastering at 16 bit, but it makes alot of sense to remain at higher bit-depth until the very very last render.

I wouldn't dither the mix and then do any mastering - dithering adds (admittedly only small amounts of) noise, so any compression, limiting etc has the potential to increase that to noticeable levels. And if you're going to send out for mastering, they're going to prefer 32 or 24bit masters to 16bit if they have the choice.

Dither should be last. You don't have to limit after the BBE, but again common sense dictates you limit after the enhancer to avoid relimiting any new peaks.


Personally I prefer Spectralive over the BBE too, but I don't know how anyone can not hear a BBE when in use. Even at low levels it adds a lovely sheen and clarity. And they may have been originally designed as a live gadget, but they very quickly realised that they were being used as master enhancers. When I bought mine it was bought from a studio supplier specifically marketed as a master enhancer - no two ways about it.

[Kriminal]

Muliband comp> EQ> BBE> Limiter

[kritikon]

Sounds like a sensible chain to me.


I once read a thread a while ago where some guy posted up his master chain, and it went something like:
Limiter->Eq->multiband->limiter->limiter->limiter




I can't remember if the 1st 3 were in that order, but I distinctly remember he used 3 limiters in a row.

Weird huh?

[CypherOne]

in my case - big spliff->Ozone->relax

[kritikon]

If I did that, it would be more like

Big spliff->Ozzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz................


Sad innit?

[jmh]

The correct position for BBE would be outside the signal chain - especially the master channel. Might do something for individual elements. Taste thing and all that, it's not to my taste. Just as this opinion isn't probably to anyone's taste.

JMH