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How is our online processing?

The final link offered works with WMP. I'll be back with an assessment. I can tell you that I listen for different things, technically speaking, than the average listener. :)
 
Not my taste in music, but.............The bass is exaggerated to the point of annoyance. For a 256K stream, the use of a surround decoder shows that something is missing, or at the very least not what it should be. From here I can't tell you if it is a phasing or level imbalance issue,but something is not right for that bit rate.
Are there any "Image Enhancements" being employed?

Still a head and shoulders above most effort. :)

And I am NOT an engineer, nor do I portray one on Television. I was permanently warped by the brief Quad era, and the afflicition mutated as Quad did, into Surround. <VBG>
 
NightAire said:
Hm-m-m... listening to Gotye's "Somebody That I Used To Know" (a rather dynamic recording) and I don't care for how much wideband AGC you have on the line... I hear it pumping and breathing with the voices, percussion, etc... the loudness and density I think you're looking for will come from driving the MULTIBAND harder, not the wideband, IMHO.

I'd slow down the AGC / reduce the compression ratio / raise the threshold or gate / lower the drive to try to get a little more natural sound fed to the multiband section... I don't know the Omina One's setting options, but I rarely have success in wideband AGC going any higher that a 3:1 ratio... and lower usually sounds even better.

I have attempted to reduce the drive in the WB, slow it down, and increase the drive to the multiband (among other things). I see what you mean and it does sound better! I can still notice a bit of pumping on certain songs that have pretty low parts and then are through the roof, any idea how to help that?

...On a positive note, the levels you're feeding your encoder look good and clean. It's amazing how many stations screw that one, so-easily-fixed, item up. No matter how good your processing was, if you were hitting the encoder too hard, your work would be in vain.

Keep after it! This is interesting to follow.

I have recently switched the station over to a fully digital audio operation and the clarity is amazing! Even our FM sounds so much better and louder than the competition now, almost no intermod and other bad sounding distortions (you should hear their FM, everything sounds 'fuzzy' hah).

My usual tool on Windows based streaming machines is the free Orban audio meter (http://www.orban.com/meter/), it's awesome and will work perfect on Windows XP+ with shared audio devices so you can adjust your audio input to just below 0dBFS while the streaming software is running.

RJ Kanary said:
Not my taste in music, but.............The bass is exaggerated to the point of annoyance. For a 256K stream, the use of a surround decoder shows that something is missing, or at the very least not what it should be. From here I can't tell you if it is a phasing or level imbalance issue,but something is not right for that bit rate.
Are there any "Image Enhancements" being employed?

Still a head and shoulders above most effort. :)

And I am NOT an engineer, nor do I portray one on Television. I was permanently warped by the brief Quad era, and the afflicition mutated as Quad did, into Surround. <VBG>

Not mine either but I'm young and can actually stand to listen to it most times, rock is still my love but I still gotta do my job! There doesn't seem to be a stereo enhancement control or option on the Omnia One unlike their other models (and the Omnia One FM as well). I have disabled the phase rotator from careful listening and noticing that it really does affect the quality on voices. This isn't a full go louder than everyone else effort unlike FM, I just hope to have it sound awesome and be loud at the same time.

I find Windows Media kinda sucks, even at high bit rates. You can try the other stream player (http://ozfm.com/mediaplayer.php?force=flash), it is flash based and at the bottom of that page there is a link you can use in VLC or Winamp to play the stream directly. It will be a 64kbit AACplus, it's my preferred streaming format. It sounds awesome for such a low bitrate and the AACplus SBR is somewhat more pleasing than WMP or MP3 by far.

Oh and the reason for the bass is just that, lots of bass for that crowd that listens to the music on a regular basis. They could just as well be streaming it to their car stereo with two 15" subs in it or their cheap as hell stereo that really can't reproduce bass that well. It shouldn't sound bad, like shoving too much through a clipper and getting that farting sound (hello competition!), but let me know if you hear it get distorted.
 
andrew867 said:
I have attempted to reduce the drive in the WB, slow it down, and increase the drive to the multiband (among other things). I see what you mean and it does sound better! I can still notice a bit of pumping on certain songs that have pretty low parts and then are through the roof, any idea how to help that?
For the most part, having slower timings works against the problem of sudden changes. I'm looking forward to a processor where this is never a problem, cos slow timings rule. :) (not that people haven't tried, believe me)
 
You really should keep the phase rotator on... it "changes" (for a non-scientific term) the voice peaks to be more symmetrical going in to the following processing stages, allowing better control of voice.
 
Andrew, I tuned in for a quick listen -- only to hear a weather statement regarding hurricane watches with 120 km of wind and 80 mm of rain. Imagine my surprise, as we here in South Louisiana are just coming out from under Hurricane Isaac (winds of 70 miles and rain of 20 inches). After a moment of concern I remembered that... oooohh... OZFM is in Newfoundland!

Best of luck with that weather, and stay safe!

By the way, the aac stream sounds just fine to me on a Galaxy SIII (via TuneIn) and on my big JBL 4411's (via Winamp).
 
As FaR aS tHe BasS mAKINg tHe pRoCeSsOr JumP,  ;) there are a couple of potential solutions:

Mind you, I'm still unfamiliar with the One, so you may have to translate these ideas into their settings.

Let's start at the encoder and work backwards.  There may be a final clipper that might be getting hit a bit hard.  Chances are any final peak clipper will be broadband just for absolute loudness, and backing off what you're feeding it MIGHT help...  although usually broadband clippers chew up highs more than lows...  plus, your signal really doesn't sound clipped....  doesn't look clipped on the Breakaway's scope, either...

Now let's back up to the compressor / density portion of the processor.  First, does the processor give you the option to adjust how linked the bands are?  If you can run them more independently (or completely independently; I'm an extremist), the bass should stop "pumping" as much.  Second, how high is the input and / or the output of the bass band of the compressor?  This could also be a problem area.  Maybe it's clean going in but at too high a level creating greater density...  or perhaps it's just fine going in but gets a bass boost going out to the clipper, resulting in the pumping there.

Often any multiband AGC will have the "link" and "level" options mentioned above.

Finally, look again at any compression ratios and input levels from the front to the end of the box.  Ideally (in my book, at least) you want a very gentle AGC to start, then a "density" section of multiband compression, then multiband limiting to catch the peaks, and then a final broadband peak limiter to catch only the highest of peaks (in other words almost never activated).

One more possible source of EQ issues could be the board itself.  You may be able to lower any bass boost in the board and then speed UP the bass compressor and get similar results.

Personally, I really like your current sound.  Yes, it sounds like you are using the "smiley face" EQ curve (with boosted bass and boosted highs) but for what you're playing it sounds right.

I heard something strange at the beginning of Nicki Minaj's "Starships" that I'm suspecting was ultra low bass driving everything else down in volume... that really sounded like it was the compressor or, more likely, the AGC.

Two possible solutions:

#1, a high-pass filter.  It may even be built in the One.  Try even as high as 50 Hz and if anybody actually complains about the missing low bass (unlikely, and your peak right now is at 60 Hz anyway), drop it down to 35 Hz.  That MIGHT help.

#2, if you have the option to put one more piece of software processing in front of the One, consider grabbing Stereo Tool http://www.stereotool.com/ and turn on ***ONLY ONLY ONLY*** the "Multiband Compressor / Limiter section.  Set max output level for all to 10.00, up speed all to .00001, down speed all to .0001, clipping all off, EQ off.  Set compress / limit to all compress...  Then set the pre-amp input so that the input meter in the main window NEVER turns red.

This will "dynamically eq" every signal coming in BEFORE it hits your broadband AGC.  If anything is set faster, or anything else is turned on, it will be too much (and if you turn on certain features, they would cost you money).  On my station, I've had ballads where the vocals were totally ducked and burred when the band kicked in... this fixed that problem once and for all.

If you have any money to work with, I'd see about getting a multiband to put in front of the One...  I thought the one everybody likes was called "Airianne" by Wheatstone, but I can't find any trace...  it was a 30-band AGC / compressor.  Can somebody else fill in this detail for me?

Really, though, the One should be all you need; and personally, I would be THRILLED with your current sound.  I'd back the bass boost off a touch and maybe see if there's a high-pass filter that you could switch on to dump the ultra-low bass your transmitter may or not be passing, much less likely your listener's radios are picking up.

QUICK HISTORY LESSON:  The Orban Optimod started out broadband, but quickly turned into a "broadband+"...  The main AGC handled all of the audio...  down to 200 Hz.  A secondary AGC tracked exactly with the main AGC UNTIL you got a big bass burst.  Then the secondary AGC would "unlink" and duck the bass to avoid getting "holes punched" in your sound, just like you're describing.

Good continued luck... and GREAT job!!!  The stream sounds really hot.

EDIT: After listening for... an hour? maybe, that bass is beginning to fatigue me. I actually reached up to turn DOWN the volume a little... and I like the song that's playing. Not good. Just a db or two down should do big, good things for your signal. Food for thought, anyway.
 
ADDENDUM: The longer I listen, the more I hear. (Isn't that the way it always goes?)

I can't believe I'm saying this... I NEVER say this... but... I think your attack times may be a little too slow across the board. I fEel lIke eVery pEak tEnds tO jUmp iN vOlume bRiefly tOo mUch.

Normally attack times are set so fast it slurs the highs, but in your case, I think the release times COULD be sped up a bit.

Just to give you an idea on my settings (because of COURSE I'm right) ;) I have our 5-band processor set as follows:

Band 1 (bass): attack 40 ms, release 400 ms
Band 2: attack 30 ms, release 300 ms
Band 3: attack 20 ms, release 200 ms
Band 4 (highs): attack 10 ms, release 100 ms

Hopefully two things jump right out at you: first, the higher the frequency band, the faster the attack and release. Second, the attack is about 1/10th of the release time.

Hope this helps!!
 
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