BBe sonic maximizer

[kevina]

Well. Clears THAT up!! To your point about my point to refer to the unit as a fad, was that a popular sound at one time, or was there never an engineer who would use it? Was there ever an endorsing opinion on them? Just curious now that I'm cured.
K

[brandondrury]

was there never an engineer who would use it?

Never say never, but I don't know a single engineer who would gravitate towards the Sonic Maximizer for typical use.

I think it's fairly obvious from using them that there really isn't a good place for them. At least I can't think of one.

Brandon

[xdsheetsx]

It's just a limiter, compresses the sound and that's about it

[garageband]

The effect is pleasant, but they are ultimately noise boxes. Come to think of it, not unlike hardware graphic equalizers. Even the Sonic Maximizer plug is only capable of delivering horribleness and distorion.

[the.blode]

It's just a limiter, compresses the sound and that's about it

where did you get that from?.. it's not a limiter, it's a psychoacoustic processor. Kind of like the aphex exciter or Sonnox Inflator

I personally absolutely hate the Sonic Maximiser. Very early on, I used it a bit - mainly because my signal chain was terrible and I had no experience with audio.

It really makes everything sound the same. it's one of the most noticable psychoacoustic effects, and because of that it's pretty much the worst. It gives everything this horrible synthetic quality, which might feel shiny at first - but as you gain more experience you realise it's just cheap and degrading to your mix.

[MetalDave]

Originally Posted by brandondrury

I'm glad you used "out of style" because the "fad" like implications of that post are indicitive of the true nature of these devices. Wait. Way too many big words in that sentence! Let me cuss once. Shit. Okay, fixed.

These stupid Sonic Maximizers take expensive sounding mics and turn them into $100 mics. So if you have a $10,000 Neumann U47 all you have to do is run it through a Sonic Maximizer. You'll instantly have the sound of a MXL microphone or whatever.

Brandon

So you are saying it is like pushing the suck button? I used one about 10 years ago for live sound and it made everything sound better. Turning it off made it sound like I pushed the suck button... How different live is from Recording!

[MetalDave]

I use one in the studio at the end of the signal chain for reference as to what my song will sound like to the listener who uses sonic maximizers. I don't use it all the time. Only for reference. It is made to go out to speakers, not for recording. If you play bad it makes the bad playing more clear in most cases. it is not like adding an effect it is utilizing Eq curves used by the pros. There is a curve which I can't remember at this time it has a name and is supposed to be the best eq curve to sound good and not damage the hearing. 2 guys developed this curve and this is what the BBE is modeled around. Of course if you don't have the correct setup it may make your system sound worse when used. This was never meant to be used in a recording studio. Now they have the plugins which are used in studios but why run 2 eqs'? Unless you are trying to get more noise in a recording I suggest only using one or the other. IMO...

[garageband]

Thnaks for clearing that up. Now I understand the point of the interesting sounding yet studio-useless box.