Omnia ONE pumping

[whit979]

TJM, I am hesitant to post again but since you asked...

Everything's in PCM format. Nothing in mp3 or any other kind of pre-compressed form. When I said "hypercompressed material", I was referring to the kind of music we're playing. My apologies for not mentioning that initially. We're Hot AC, so anything from the past 6 years or so is pretty smashed up before it ever hits the processor. I'm going for pretty conservative processing to begin with, and have stayed pretty close to the initial setup of the AdultContemp preset.

Thanks
Whit

 

[radiorob2.0]

It's probably as simple as finding the processor sweet spot. Call Omnia, they should be able to walk you through.

 

[busyradioguy]

Alan,

I have to disagree with you that thousands of stations are playing hypercompressed material without any problems. At best, you're still going to have extra distortion in the audio of HC source material. I am in charge of ripping material to the system where I work, and I flat out reject any source material that is HC. If a non HC source material exists, I'll use it.

 

[FFoti1]

Whit et al,

First off, now that we've sold over 2000 Omnia.One units in less than a year, this is the first I'm hearing of 'pumping.' But, be that as it may, here's something to consider regarding hypercompressed content and broadcast signal processing.

A hypercompressed signal is already 'packed' quite dense. If processing is setup using that type of material, and the processor is still showing moderate to fast 'activity,' then goofy stuff (pumping, added IMD) can result as the broadcast processor may exaggerate some anomaly from the prior processing.

If Omnia.One is setup correctly, hypercompressed content should show less dynamic activity on the AGC G/R bargraphs, as the RMS based sections will almost 'sit still.' The AGC sections have the ability to recognize dense material, and back off any dynamic aggression. This allows material, that is not hypercompressed to be processed dynamically and consistently.

My recommendation would be to setup the processing with known material that is NOT hypercompressed.

-Frank Foti

 

[fm-engineer]

Yesterday I listened to an Omnia 1 station and was very impressed. The sound was not too far off from an Omnia 6 in the same market. If Whit is not satisfied with the WB AGC of the Omnia 1, I would get an Ariane sequel to handle the leveling duties. I have two stations using the Omina 6-Ariane combo. I start with the Cosmic or C. Gould presets. Then I use Para 666 commands to raise the WB AGC threshold way up. I adjust the five band AGC's for about -5 to -8 dB of gain reduction. This is a killer combo. I would suspect it would work on the Omnia 1 as well. In no way am I knocking the Omnia AGC. It works fine. This is just another possibility to slightly change the sonic signature and quality of a given setup. Good luck.

 

[whit979]

Thanks to Frank and others for suggestions. We're running the One barefoot with no other boxes in front of it. I'm just going to keep plugging away at it.

For anyone interested, there are some specific songs that are giving us the most trouble. They are: "Shadow Of The Day" by Linkin Park, "Say" by John Mayer, "Tattoo" by Jordin Sparks, and "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol. Just some of the current Hot AC power hits that have to be run through the processor several times a day (and are already smashed up before they ever hit a processor). Hopefully we'll get it right soon as we really do love the sound of our Omnia. Thank you.

 

[fm-engineer]

Thanks to Frank and others for suggestions. We're running the One barefoot with no other boxes in front of it. I'm just going to keep plugging away at it.

For anyone interested, there are some specific songs that are giving us the most trouble. They are: "Shadow Of The Day" by Linkin Park, "Say" by John Mayer, "Tattoo" by Jordin Sparks, and "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol. Just some of the current Hot AC power hits that have to be run through the processor several times a day (and are already smashed up before they ever hit a processor). Hopefully we'll get it right soon as we really do love the sound of our Omnia. Thank you.

Try backing off the main clipper maybe by 1/2 or 1 dB. Let the AGC sections do most of the work. Back off the limiters. See if that helps

 

[DudeFan]

Definitely trying cranking the input down.. perhaps even lower than you think it should be. We had some minor "pumping" effects on a couple tracks, but needed the AGC to do a great deal of levelling. Turning down the analog inputs into the box resolved that issue. Check your release times on the particular frequency bands that are causing you issues, as well. Slowing the release times down should help.

 

[Sgeirk]

As much of an "old timer" as this makes me sound:

Today's music is mastered like crap. It's NOT crap...it's just mastered that way.

My jaw hit the floor when opening the waveform of a recently released single.

Cosmic is about the best preset I've run across that makes the hypercompressed garbage sound good next to something that's NOT.

There's one very popular mastering engineer that offers that hypercompression may very well be one of the reasons why people are buying less music and...enjoying it less. It doesn't resemble music.

Looking at today's waveforms...they resemble......uh........

NOISE

 

[yeoldeschool]

Thanks to Frank and others for suggestions. We're running the One barefoot with no other boxes in front of it. I'm just going to keep plugging away at it.

For anyone interested, there are some specific songs that are giving us the most trouble. They are: "Shadow Of The Day" by Linkin Park, "Say" by John Mayer, "Tattoo" by Jordin Sparks, and "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol. Just some of the current Hot AC power hits that have to be run through the processor several times a day (and are already smashed up before they ever hit a processor). Hopefully we'll get it right soon as we really do love the sound of our Omnia. Thank you.

Something you could try. Take the worst-sounding of those cuts, and upload an aircheck of it along with the original WAV it was sourced from. Other One users could perhaps offer better recommendations based on how the pumping in question sounds vs. the source material.

Or, if you weren't against exporting and sharing your own preset, they could even experiment with the problem on their own.

 

[cmac]

Yesterday I listened to an Omnia 1 station and was very impressed. The sound was not too far off from an Omnia 6 in the same market. If Whit is not satisfied with the WB AGC of the Omnia 1, I would get an Ariane sequel to handle the leveling duties. I have two stations using the Omina 6-Ariane combo. I start with the Cosmic or C. Gould presets. Then I use Para 666 commands to raise the WB AGC threshold way up. I adjust the five band AGC's for about -5 to -8 dB of gain reduction. This is a killer combo. I would suspect it would work on the Omnia 1 as well. In no way am I knocking the Omnia AGC. It works fine. This is just another possibility to slightly change the sonic signature and quality of a given setup. Good luck.

So how do you access to para commands, thru the serial port or via telnet? How high can you raise the WB AGC threshold? I'm currently using an Omnia 6-Ariane combo and have the threshold set at its highest (7). thanks

 

[ChiefEngineer]

We have some audio that is overcompressed in Adobe Audition and it does sound no worse when the Omnia takes it in.

Some people love to use uber punch on Adobe.

I have set the gate so that it never gates. Is this off? It doesn't pump on this. I have the audio input set 100% broadcast tools (and board) is 100% omnia.

 

[whit979]

Getting closer to a solution on our end...thanks again for the help...

I'll see what I can do about uploading a clip. I'll try to get it into the huge Processing Clips thread soon. Turning down the input level cleaned things up a bit.

Somebody asked about exporting the unit's preset to somebody else. For anybody interested, I've mainly been using the AdultContemp preset (with only the WB AGC gate lowered to a setting of 1, to help bring up quiet passages a little better). A 'conservative' sound is my ultimate goal but I guess even the best of the best processors can't make a turd song sound like gold.

 

[oldiesstation]

So it appears mis-adjustment was the main cause of your pumping problem as is very evident by your above post.excessive drive,gate level too low.Now go back to page ONE and read the posts very carefully by kyscott,chief engineer and menotti1.i suspect the composite output may be a tad too high as well.The ironic thing is you want the station to sound it's best,but you make it worse by not understanding the dynamics,cause and effect of processing.posters on this board spend time to help ,so please don't get too defensive.when you said IT IS SETUP PROPERLY in response to menotti1,i knew that could not be true because otherwise the unit would Not be pumping.But don't feel badly, one can drive anywhere in the country and hear misadjusted processors.106.1 in New Orleans (True Oldies) IS WAY OUT OF WHACK FOR AN OLDIES FORMAT.Just dreadful.Scott Shannon and i are emailing back and forth on it.He is aware and pissed,wants it fixed.Oldies is probably the toughest to setup.the setting reminds me of taking a car radio,bass all the way down,treble all the way up.just sucks the low end and mids out of it.He is not happy about the sound .so fatiguing......good luck to you.

 

[DudeFan]

The noise gate doesn't "bring up" volume levels. That's part of your problem. It won't cause "pumping." It is either on or off - i.e. like a fence gate - open or closed. The AGC is what levels: lower volumes higher, higher volumes lower.

With an audio clip it will be easier to diagnose what is not adjusted correctly.

One question that no-one has asked: does your exciter have a composite limiter/leveler on it? If it does, disable it.

 

[whit979]

So it appears mis-adjustment was the main cause of your pumping problem as is very evident by your above post.excessive drive,gate level too low.Now go back to page ONE and read the posts very carefully by kyscott,chief engineer and menotti1.i suspect the composite output may be a tad too high as well.The ironic thing is you want the station to sound it's best,but you make it worse by not understanding the dynamics,cause and effect of processing.posters on this board spend time to help ,so please don't get too defensive.when you said IT IS SETUP PROPERLY in response to menotti1,i knew that could not be true because otherwise the unit would Not be pumping.But don't feel badly, one can drive anywhere in the country and hear misadjusted processors.106.1 in New Orleans (True Oldies) IS WAY OUT OF WHACK FOR AN OLDIES FORMAT.Just dreadful.Scott Shannon and i are emailing back and forth on it.He is aware and pissed,wants it fixed.Oldies is probably the toughest to setup.the setting reminds me of taking a car radio,bass all the way down,treble all the way up.just sucks the low end and mids out of it.He is not happy about the sound .so fatiguing......good luck to you.

I will agree with you that it is obvious the dynamics are wrong for the setup we need. Unfortunately these are just out-of-the-box presets that we're talking about. So that's part of the reason why I got defensive and I sincerely offer my apologies to you. The only thing I changed in the factory AdultContemp preset was lowering the gate on the wideband AGC. Even before I did that, we still had issues in the 4th limiter band. The sound we're getting out of the 4th band is dull and just really unusual. I checked our composite output yesterday and it's still banging away at 100%. Will try to upload a clip later...

 

[fm-engineer]

Yesterday I listened to an Omnia 1 station and was very impressed. The sound was not too far off from an Omnia 6 in the same market. If Whit is not satisfied with the WB AGC of the Omnia 1, I would get an Ariane sequel to handle the leveling duties. I have two stations using the Omina 6-Ariane combo. I start with the Cosmic or C. Gould presets. Then I use Para 666 commands to raise the WB AGC threshold way up. I adjust the five band AGC's for about -5 to -8 dB of gain reduction. This is a killer combo. I would suspect it would work on the Omnia 1 as well. In no way am I knocking the Omnia AGC. It works fine. This is just another possibility to slightly change the sonic signature and quality of a given setup. Good luck.

So how do you access to para commands, thru the serial port or via telnet? How high can you raise the WB AGC threshold? I'm currently using an Omnia 6-Ariane combo and have the threshold set at its highest (7). thanks

I'll contact you off list

 

[whit979]

Uploaded a clip to the Processing Clips site that Goran set up. Look for "OmniaOneFM_Say_RocknRollpreset_stock_75us.mp3". Recorded at 320 kpbs off our studio monitor FM feed. It is not a great clip as I really wanted to get "Shadow of the Day" by Linkin Park on there. That is by far the worst. See if you can hear a sort of 'dulling' effect happen when the chorus kicks in, and happen again with every SSS in the word "say". http://fserver.redirectme.net/

user: processing
pass: clips

 

[whit979]

Just found somebody else with the problem (in a different Omnia processor) that I am having with our Omnia One. This is from Goran Tomas in the Processing Clips thread. Perhaps 'pumping' was not the correct term to use.

"These rare HF transients will cause higher band limiters in Omnia.6 to punch holes and create a prolonged dulling of the sound until the limiter releases back to usual GR. It doesn't help that the gating will cause higher bands limiters to recover very slowly because they are gated after the transient, and if there isn't any HF energy to trigger the gate (as there isn't in these songs) that will take a noticeably looong time.

To be fair, there will always be certain track that will "break" up any processor and it's most important what a processor does 99% of the time. However, and I just might be overly sensitive to this, this problem is something that I can hear often with Omnia.6 even with regular program material, not just these extreme examples. And that I couldn't (without ruining the rest of the sound) solve satisfactory by adjusting the processor. The milder effect of this problem is high-end breathing and changing frequency balance throughout the song (or with radio program that has lots of voices/cuts/jingles being mixed quickly and/or simultaneously)."

THAT is the problem I'm dealing with. Help! Thanks

 

[fm-engineer]

Check your inbox

Yesterday I listened to an Omnia 1 station and was very impressed. The sound was not too far off from an Omnia 6 in the same market. If Whit is not satisfied with the WB AGC of the Omnia 1, I would get an Ariane sequel to handle the leveling duties. I have two stations using the Omina 6-Ariane combo. I start with the Cosmic or C. Gould presets. Then I use Para 666 commands to raise the WB AGC threshold way up. I adjust the five band AGC's for about -5 to -8 dB of gain reduction. This is a killer combo. I would suspect it would work on the Omnia 1 as well. In no way am I knocking the Omnia AGC. It works fine. This is just another possibility to slightly change the sonic signature and quality of a given setup. Good luck.

So how do you access to para commands, thru the serial port or via telnet? How high can you raise the WB AGC threshold? I'm currently using an Omnia 6-Ariane combo and have the threshold set at its highest (7). thanks