• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Audio Processing Help

D

ddrop87

Looking for some help/thoughts regarding audio processors. We've got about six different units.
Orban 8200--Orban 8100 w/xt--Optimod 2200--Vorsis FM2000--Omnia Original FM--Omnia Turbo3FM

Stations and their units--
C1/100k/Country Orban 8200
C1/64k/Classic Hits Orban 8100 w/xt
C2/50k/Urban Orban 8100 w/xt
C2/40k/News Talk Optimod 2200
C3/25k/Classic Rock Vorsis FM2000

We're happy with most of the units. the Original FM and Turbo3 are out for repair. Couple of questions---
I know the 2200 is a 2band unit, but it seemed to sound better on the Urban than the 8100 or even the Turbo3.
Any reason? I thought the 2band would be inferior and would not provide enough stereo separation.

Other than that, just looking for some/any input at all on the above setups respective to the formats, etc. All using STL (Marti 10's). Switching two of them to Composite units in the near future.

Thank you for any help!
 
I'm not an engineer, however had been a PD for many years. I for sure would leave the 8100 XT on the Classic Hits station.
Had an 8200 on an oldies format and could NEVER get it to sound right. Asked my corporate engineer to find me an 8100 XT. Once on the air I was very mad at myself for not making that request/change MUCH earlier!
 
I think it all comes down to preference here, though for me personally I might consider swapping the processors on your urban and classic rock stations (put the Vorsis on the urban station and the 8100/xt on the classic rocker). Vorsis processors do some pretty bold stuff with stereo enhancement which can make urban music sound great. I like the 8200 on your country station. I voice track nights right now for a country station that runs an 8200 and it has a great beefy low end. You can find some really nice custom presets for the 8200 by searching this forum. Try settings with the 3P bass option to keep the sound from getting muddy.

If you liked the 2200 on the urban station then it probably yielded a purer sound than you were getting from the two multiband units you tried. Urban music is pretty heavily compressed to begin with and running it through the wrong processor settings can make things ugly in a hurry. But that Vorsis processor is the most up-to-date among all of your units and can handle that type of music well. Just my two cents -- good luck and happy processing!
 
I am an IT man and a PD of both an Urban and CHR.

Urban material now, is clipped really hard. I am 'guessing', but since the two band is doing less manipulation to this 'hypercompressed' source, it sounds better.

Sadly, CHR is following suit.

FWIW, I have an Orban 8300 on my Urban and it sounds really good.

I put a 5500 on my CHR due to budget and am equally impressed. For the money, the 5500 is a great processor and sounds even better with the last firmware update. It made the high's cleaner.
 
How can anyone be using a 2200 these days? Let me say this in the only way I know how, if the 2200 sound better then the processing has real issues. It is either messed up or is just set wrong.
If you are the typical white engineer (yes I played the race card) then you may not like the sound of urban anyway. This might be part of it. It isn't a shot, just a cultural difference. This from the Pillsbury Dough Boy.
Get a demo Omnia 1 (Handel's Messiah here) and take the Orban out back for when the Omnia dies and they don't provide a loaner. (Cold day in Hell Michigan.) I liked the 2200 in the day but that was 10 years ago.
Even on talk, we are using various Omnia units on Catholic radio and EWTN has admirably the worst audio at times. They sometimes uplink 4th gen audio from multiple sites. The sound difference is incredible.
 
I wish the OmniaOne had a hot switch that I could trigger from/with the live mics to switch it to the 'talk' settings during the morning show, etc.
 
I have never met a 2200 that I liked. Not one. It's analog father, the 8100 was better and smoother sounding than this digital approximation. The "HF Enhance" on that box is one of the most phony sounding enhancements ever made. Bob had made some amazing equipment, and still does, but even Mickey Mantle struck out once in awhile. That one was a swing and a miss.

Try an Omnia One in its place, and be sure to engage the 5th band in the limiter section. You can get a free demo for a month. You won't be sorry.

Try a Vorsis VP-8.

Try an Optimod 5500. Have a station running one and for the price, it's solid. Especially if you want to keep the "Orban Sound" in place but have much cleaner audio.

I'm interested in hearing a sample of the station off air that's running the 2200.
 
The original Omnia FM (that you say is in repair) can be set to have a powerful, deep and seductive bass texture and this can sound excellent on urban formats. You can try that out.


Regards,
Goran Tomas
 
Good or bad, these are the units i'm working with and something new is not in near future. I like the Vorsis, and i'd like to
try it on our Urban, but the Classic Rocker needs it worse at the moment. Until I get the other units back from repair i'm basically stuck with the 8100 w/xt for the Urban and honestly i'm not even sure this has been benched. We did get one recapped by Bill Sacks about a year or so ago. So I'd like to adjust the 8100 on the Urban for the time being, maybe it's set to aggressive for the crunchy format. I'll take a look tomorrow.

Thanks for all the input!
 
Pull back on the density on the XT2 and it will sound better. I used to run that combo on my Urban with very good results. Mind you, the music sounds much worse now...
 
I'm with Chris on this. I love pushing the XT/2 limiters to death, but for Urban, you'll suck all the life out of it. Push the AGCs as hard as you can, and get your final loudness from your clippers... drive the limiters as lightly as you can.

Others ave already said this, but as much as I'm a fan of the old 8100 / XT2 combo, I'd think it would be lousy for modern Urban. It's pretty hard to handle those huge, clipped, low bass peaks.

I was trying to think of something you could put in front of it to help, but I suspect any additions at all would muddy things up. That's a tough one!
 
It IS a cryin' shame--the state of Urban, or Hip Hop. It's worse that the New Rock. Intentionally distorting the final audio. Not even a decent "light grunge" on a decent rock tune but flat out DISTORTION!

I'm going to play with the 8100 in the morning with the tips you've supplied and see if I can get it close to something to live with TFN.
 
ddrop87 said:
It IS a cryin' shame--the state of Urban, or Hip Hop. It's worse that the New Rock. Intentionally distorting the final audio. Not even a decent "light grunge" on a decent rock tune but flat out DISTORTION!

I'm going to play with the 8100 in the morning with the tips you've supplied and see if I can get it close to something to live with TFN.
Click to expand...

That's what I get for being riled up and not previewing.
 
ddrop87 said:
ddrop87 said:
It IS a cryin' shame--the state of Urban, or Hip Hop. It's worse that the New Rock. Intentionally distorting the final audio. Not even a decent "light grunge" on a decent rock tune but flat out DISTORTION!

I'm going to play with the 8100 in the morning with the tips you've supplied and see if I can get it close to something to live with TFN.
Click to expand...

That's what I get for being riled up and not previewing.
Click to expand...

My CHR content is going the same way. They are pushing the clipping, but at least they are not killing the bass to make IM distortion yet. My Urban tracks have IM distortion built in.

I set up another Urban over the weekend and they had an Omnia 6. My first Omnia to play with. It's not bad. I think I'm an Orban man, though (due to familiarity). I did end up getting a nice sound out of the Omnia. It seemed to artifact the extreme high end less, but it was crunching the midrange pretty hard. Once I figured out it's interface, it cleaned up nicely.
 
chriscollins said:
My CHR content is going the same way. They are pushing the clipping, but at least they are not killing the bass to make IM distortion yet. My Urban tracks have IM distortion built in.

I set up another Urban over the weekend and they had an Omnia 6. My first Omnia to play with. It's not bad. I think I'm an Orban man, though (due to familiarity). I did end up getting a nice sound out of the Omnia. It seemed to artifact the extreme high end less, but it was crunching the midrange pretty hard. Once I figured out it's interface, it cleaned up nicely.
Click to expand...

The best Omnia I heard was a Omnia.FM that had a Ariane in front of it - I'm a fan of Vorsis & Orban, but the low end on the .FM was so smooth, round, and "bouncy." The station was a CHR - and unfortunately, every CHR song that comes out these days seems to be hard limited to -.01 and looks like a square wave in Adobe.

Any way to convince the labels to give stations non processed copies for on air use? The way songs are mastered these days is almost criminal.
 
Turnpike Tuner said:
The best Omnia I heard was a Omnia.FM that had a Ariane in front of it - I'm a fan of Vorsis & Orban, but the low end on the .FM was so smooth, round, and "bouncy."
Click to expand...

The original Omnia FM had a very nice, warm and sort-of seductive bass. For the markets and formats that are more bass heavy than treble heavy, this was quite appealing.


Regards,
Goran Tomas
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom