Omnia 3FM Turbo

[ILOVERADIO2]

Looking for a good setting. I have talked with Mark at Omnia but still cant get the sound I want. We are running all 80's music. I like the Urban setting but needs more high-end. Radio Systems board is feeding the Aphex 320a into Orban 111B reverb and then Omnia FM3 Turbo. I am looking for something full and very 1980's. I like the sound of the old Orban 8100 with xt2. Can someone get me close to that sound?

 

[DudeFan]

This may get you close:

Use the "Humor Me" preset as a starting point.

With the Compellor doing most of the AGC lifting, you are going to need to back off on the AGC in the O3 Turbo. You could completely turn it off, I just crank the drive down and slow it down a lot. Since you are using a Compellor, set it first and listen to it prior to the Omnia. Do this off-line first. The Omnia is really fine barefoot on the air, so you can route around the Compellor to tweak it.

The rest of the settings you will need to adjust to your exciter and transmitter to get the appropriate spectral balance. Use the tri-band mixers to fine-tune the balance done by adjusting the drive/attack/release in your tri-band limiters. (If you like the Urban setting, then here is where you would get more high-end. Again, start with the High limiter drive/gain/attack and polish it with the Hi Mixer).

The O3 Turbo is very very very sensitive to the initial levels going into the AGC. So if you have mush, try backing the audio input levels down a bit to open things up.

The 1980's sound, as discussed in another thread, is all about spectral balance and using fairly fast attack and med release times to achieve a very foreground sound, yet still have apparent dynamic range in the drums and bass guitar and the like.

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

So many stations that have tried 80s miss those points too. We have one here that basically are playing the right playlist, but the audio is left over from the previous grunge format and it sounds BAD. 80s music should be fairly loud but very clean.

 

[ILOVERADIO2]

Thanks for the info. I did notice that the Omnia sounds better without the Aphex 320A. It sounds like the Aphex is squashing the audio. I could have a bad 320a.

 

[satech]

Thanks for the info. I did notice that the Omnia sounds better without the Aphex 320A. It sounds like the Aphex is squashing the audio. I could have a bad 320a.

Turn the Compellor more towards levelling. The factory recommended setting of halfway between levelling and compression uses too much compression and gives a "crunched" sound. It should be indicating mostly levelling with only about 2 dB of compression on top.

 

[DudeFan]

SATECH is right. The one area that the Omnia One has improved on is the AGC. If you use the Compellor to assist the Omnia by pre-levelling, you can gett better results than the Omnia 3T alone, simply because the in-box AGC doesn't have to work as hard. Again, watch your input levels into the Omnia. Cranking them down can yield quite an improvement. The box does not like to be overdriven.

Just as Frank said in the manual, you can get the O3T very very loud. It won't be as clean with as wide a stereo separation as an O6, but you will only notice that by comparison with one of the newer boxes, which can get transparently loud and clean. If you are doing 1980's, then the inherent loud v. clean tradeoffs are actually part of the "sound." I heard one Clear Channel station where the 1980's leaning format didn't sound right because it was loud and way too clean and the processing was too transparent.

Also, if you use the Humor Me preset, you will want to adjust the composite clipper and drive for your situation. It wont get nasty, but you will hear a bit of a bit on commercial vocals that have already been processed to the hilt in production.

 

[ILOVERADIO2]

Thanks for the info. I will try to make some changes tomorrow. Feel free to listen on line www.wams.fm. This is the audio directly out of the Omnia 3 FM Turbo on the urban setting. Needs more HF.

 

[gtomas]

Just as Frank said in the manual, you can get the O3T very very loud. It won't be as clean with as wide a stereo separation as an O6, but you will only notice that by comparison with one of the newer boxes, which can get transparently loud and clean.

There's a mountain of difference between O-3fmt and O-6... In all aspects. As practically between any 4k and 12k box. If you "only" hear it, you're not making a comparison correctly.

The Humor Me preset in O-3 is there to showcase how loud the unit can get. Subsequently it's a quite squashed and distorted preset and I personally wouldn't recommend it to anyone for on-air use.


Regards,
Goran Tomas

 

[DudeFan]

Goran,

With all due respect, every time I discus with a fellow O3T user that the box is capable of getting them where they wanna be with the expectation that it isn't going to be an O6 but will be satisfactory subject to some tradeoffs that are obvious between the two boxes, you harp on about how the O3 isn't an O6. Honestly, we get it. We understand that. Some folks are lucky to have 10k processing budgets, the rest of us work with the entry-level box that we had the budget for 5 years ago. For the format he is doing and the sound he is looking for, the O3T will be fine. In fact, back in the day, the Unity2000 was achieving what he wants to do. And the Unity2000 is clearly NOT an O6.

Second, I didn't say that he should put the HumorMe preset on the air. I suggested it as a starting place for modifications. In fact, we ARE using a heavily customized HumorMe preset on the air. It works with our air chain and it sounds right where we want it to be. But it, again, is heavily modified. And, as discussed ad infinitum here, the presets are a starting point.

Again, we get it. An O3T is not an O6. But it is a darned good tool in a number of circumstances.

 

[DudeFan]

ILR2:

I've listened to the stream. Because of the bit-reduction going on, I can't comment on the spectral balance/EQ.

Overall, I think it's a good setting for you. There seems to be a slight inconsistency between cuts. Again, because of bit reduction, I can only guess, but there does seem to be a bit of a cut-to-cut timbre change. Ask Mark for his suggestions, one may be to squish everything a little bit more with the AGC. Tradeoffs with that, though.

I don''t know whether your announcer is riding gain or not and manually ducking the audio. If that is the case, don't do anything. If he isn't, you need a slightly faster recovery/makeup gain on the AGC. After the jock stopped speaking, it the Mellencamp track "faded in," which means his voice may be punching things down and it is taking a while for the O3T to bring the audio level back up on the music.

Ideally, for this format, you want the announcer voice to lay down into the music, so it's cutting through the tracks, but isn't louder than the music. For the 1980's era, the thought was that the jock was part of the uninterrupted wall of sound.

Doing a lot of leveling with the Compellor may get you that sound.

 

[ILOVERADIO2]

DudeFan, thanks for the input.

 

[dutchpirateradio]

Hi and greetings from the Netherlands!

The 3FMT is al very warm sounding box comparing to the Omnia one... to me, it sounds much more musical and much bigger!
Set the compellor's leveller / compressor knob a quarter to nine driving the level to "0" dB... and only activate the "unlink" button... ref levels (on the backside) @ +4dB...

Set the WB AGC drive in the Omnia to +6dB
attack @ 2 or 3
release @ 4 or 5

for starters:
the warm bass on +1dB
the deep bass on +6dB
the phat bass on +2dB

Just play with the gain section toward the Multiband AGC to get a good balance en enough gain reduction to get a consequent sound.

keep the attack time on the MB AGC slow... in the lowband modest gating (4), in mid band the gating @ 2 or 3, in the high band depending on how much gain reduction you'r doing about 3 or 4...

attack / release in the MB AGC for starters:
4 on the low band, 4 ore 5 on the release
3 on the mid band, 1 on release
3 on the high band, 3 or 4 on release

Try to avoid much limiting in midband en highband.
set the threshold level for the limiter in the low band below zero! (-1 ore -2) to keep a consistant signal! you can gain loudness by setting a faster release time on the low band limiter... If you go for a faster release on the limiters, don't forget to set the end mixer newly!!


Remember: less is more
Set the main clipper at max. -0,5dB!!! the main clipper on the 3FMT isn't that good!
The composite clipper however is very useful! set it @ about +2,0dB!

Try keeping the gain in the end mixer between -2dB in the low band en +2dB in the high band...


good luck setting up a great sounding box! ;D



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