Thinking about using my old Optimod 8100 to process our webstream at my station.
Is this feasible?
Is this feasible?
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Using my old 8100 to process my stream
- Thread starter ThatGuyOnTheRadio
- Start date
A station I do contract work for uses an 8100. Just make sure you build a de-emphasis network out of the test jacks. I also had to use an isolation transformer to eliminate a ground loop but overall it works pretty well.
ThatGuyOnTheRadio said:
I would not recommend using any processor for streaming that employs preemphasis and clipping. Even though you can deemphasize the outputs of the 8100, there will still be hard clipper artifacts in the signal, and streaming coders DO NOT like clipping. If you can defeat the clippers, and make use of the dynamics sections, then you have a useable option.
-Frank Foti
I bought a 16 channel Presonus to do all my streams. It only uses 4 rack spaces and it sounds great.
We're using a Behringer bottom of the line compressor right now... and I have no budget for any replacement, which is why I asked about the 8100, but I will stay away.
Thanks for the advice guys!!
Thanks for the advice guys!!
Breakaway is CHEAP, I'm sure someone can scrape up the $129 to clean up your web stream. I know it's radio and budgets are tight, but you could spend that on modifying the 8100 (with so-so results). It will sound better than any other reasonable piece of hardware. The Omnia AX/E is also good for conditioning a web stream, and has the stream encoders built in. A little more pricey than Breakaway Live, but very stable. I have it on a couple of my stations right now, the others are running Breakaway.
See if you can find anyone with a copy of the old MBL4 limiter. It's not Breakaway, but isn't half bad either if you tune it up right. It's the "software guts" essentially of the Inovonics Omega processor.
Or Sonos 4, for $99. http://www.burnill.co.uk/index.html Requires a little more tweaking than Breakaway (and if you go to far you can get into big trouble) but I've managed to make it sound very close to the Omnia 6 playing with the demo.
See if you can find anyone with a copy of the old MBL4 limiter. It's not Breakaway, but isn't half bad either if you tune it up right. It's the "software guts" essentially of the Inovonics Omega processor.
Or Sonos 4, for $99. http://www.burnill.co.uk/index.html Requires a little more tweaking than Breakaway (and if you go to far you can get into big trouble) but I've managed to make it sound very close to the Omnia 6 playing with the demo.
It's not as good as Breakaway, but if you have something that can use a Winamp plug-in (Station PlayList Studio & SAM are a couple of examples) you can use Sound Solution & get a sound reminiscent of the 8100 with the XT-2 limiter chassis... and Sound Solution is free!
http://tmsweb.dnsalias.com/SoundSol.htm
It has tons of tweakable settings, and you can drive yourself crazy adjusting this and adjusting that... it usually takes me a couple of months to be satisfied with a combination of settings. A good place to start might be others' presets, which you can then begin tweaking:
http://tmsweb.dnsalias.com/ss_user_presets.htm
It's not as loud as Breakaway, & when pushed hard the texture is different from the XT-2, but if you're willing to sacrifice some absolute loudness (which really isn't needed on the internet anyway!) you can get some very nice sounds out of this box.
P.S. - WARNING: many of these presets come from European stations which, to my American ears, sound like they really PUMP the music. Don't let the "default" setting scare you away from experimenting with it. I heard a lot of bad before I got what I think is good.
P.P.S. - I use it on my all-80s web stream, processing a combination of high-bitrate mp3s & uncompressed wav files which have all been peak normalized, not set to average loudness. I've tried to set up the station to sound reminiscent of that slower attack / heavy multiband, analog processing of the time. (I'm sure some would say I've failed, and that's OK.)
If you like what you hear let me know & I'll send you my preset: http://loudcity.com/stations/blacklight-radio/tune_in (AUDIO WILL LAUNCH AUTOMATICALLY WITH PAGE)
For web streaming, nothing beats Breakaway. An outboard processor might be my next choice (Vorsis is starting to make some noise with their multiband compressors), but third would be Sound Solution.
As much as I love the 8100, I agree with previous posters who have discouraged you from using it. Using a barefoot 8100 to process a web stream feels a bit like using a baseball bat to capture a butterfly. I don't think you'd be happy with the results.
http://tmsweb.dnsalias.com/SoundSol.htm
It has tons of tweakable settings, and you can drive yourself crazy adjusting this and adjusting that... it usually takes me a couple of months to be satisfied with a combination of settings. A good place to start might be others' presets, which you can then begin tweaking:
http://tmsweb.dnsalias.com/ss_user_presets.htm
It's not as loud as Breakaway, & when pushed hard the texture is different from the XT-2, but if you're willing to sacrifice some absolute loudness (which really isn't needed on the internet anyway!) you can get some very nice sounds out of this box.
P.S. - WARNING: many of these presets come from European stations which, to my American ears, sound like they really PUMP the music. Don't let the "default" setting scare you away from experimenting with it. I heard a lot of bad before I got what I think is good.
P.P.S. - I use it on my all-80s web stream, processing a combination of high-bitrate mp3s & uncompressed wav files which have all been peak normalized, not set to average loudness. I've tried to set up the station to sound reminiscent of that slower attack / heavy multiband, analog processing of the time. (I'm sure some would say I've failed, and that's OK.)
If you like what you hear let me know & I'll send you my preset: http://loudcity.com/stations/blacklight-radio/tune_in (AUDIO WILL LAUNCH AUTOMATICALLY WITH PAGE)
For web streaming, nothing beats Breakaway. An outboard processor might be my next choice (Vorsis is starting to make some noise with their multiband compressors), but third would be Sound Solution.
As much as I love the 8100, I agree with previous posters who have discouraged you from using it. Using a barefoot 8100 to process a web stream feels a bit like using a baseball bat to capture a butterfly. I don't think you'd be happy with the results.
If you'd like to hear what it sounds like, pull up the stream for KRBE Houston. It's processed by an 8100 with XT2 and deemphasis.
Agree...plus, if you sell the 8100 on Ebay for $1200 or so (that's a realistic number), you can buy a lot of instances of Breakaway Live & have money left over.SRP said:
Sound Solution was good for its time, but is now 5 years out of date, and software audio processing technology has improved dramatically since then (at the expense of higher CPU usage). And there is simply no way Sound Solution can emulate the sound of any major broadcast audio processor. Its fixed time constants and non-anti-aliased, non-distortion-cancelled clippers put it at a huge disadvantage, and makes even a misadjusted 8200 sound smooth as silk in comparison!NightAire said:
As others have suggested, Breakaway is now the definitive way to go for software-based audio processing.
I'm just now airchecking my AM pt 15 off a diode detector, with Breakaway Broadcast making magic happen.
Good files sound better, bad files sound good, no longing to tweak, sounds intuitive.
I'm still waiting to hear anything I can gripe about. There's certainly no artifacting to confound streaming.
I'd always sorta hoped I could afford a used processor, but I cannot afford to not use Breakaway.
Few things in this world seem like magic for the money, and Breakaway is one of them.
I use French Kiss with most settings at about one third, and then use a tube based ART PRO VLA in a two pass
setup that yields another average 25% compression and adds distortion and a certain dirty wetness that sounds like a hot
June night in 1966.
It is crashing and silky at the same time. Not only is it loud, but it also manages to leave room in audio for reverb.
I want reverb at -12 db or so.
And when it's doing well, like today, it sounds like the best I've ever heard, WLS on WCFL in the late 60's and early 70's.
Even in mono, it allows a huge soundstage that is not possible to imagine until you audition it.
If sounding "huge" is of any value, then you owe yourself a trial of Breakaway.
It would be possible to use almost any processor even WITH artifacting IF you were wililng to roll off your highs with a simlple
passive capacitor filter and eliminate much "zizzing" , depends on your the upper end audio of your stream vs the the encoder
capability to handle the data without sounding stupid.
Example- Don't stream a 78 recording with lots of surface hiss. It is the best way to show off artifacting. Too much data.
If the data's not there, the encoder doesn't have to figure out what to do with it.
Filter it off the hiss first, and the stream won't screech with noise, and the (likely) lower audio passband that does stream
will sound 3 times good for not having to fight the noise.
In only slightly lesser amount, high-frequency data asks the most of any stream. ( Cymbals, Hi-Hat, impact pecussives )
If the stream sounds wavy, fluttery, shimmery, etc, consider a soft but definite rolloff of high frequency info before streaming.
It can only sound better.
Good files sound better, bad files sound good, no longing to tweak, sounds intuitive.
I'm still waiting to hear anything I can gripe about. There's certainly no artifacting to confound streaming.
I'd always sorta hoped I could afford a used processor, but I cannot afford to not use Breakaway.
Few things in this world seem like magic for the money, and Breakaway is one of them.
I use French Kiss with most settings at about one third, and then use a tube based ART PRO VLA in a two pass
setup that yields another average 25% compression and adds distortion and a certain dirty wetness that sounds like a hot
June night in 1966.
It is crashing and silky at the same time. Not only is it loud, but it also manages to leave room in audio for reverb.
I want reverb at -12 db or so.
And when it's doing well, like today, it sounds like the best I've ever heard, WLS on WCFL in the late 60's and early 70's.
Even in mono, it allows a huge soundstage that is not possible to imagine until you audition it.
If sounding "huge" is of any value, then you owe yourself a trial of Breakaway.
It would be possible to use almost any processor even WITH artifacting IF you were wililng to roll off your highs with a simlple
passive capacitor filter and eliminate much "zizzing" , depends on your the upper end audio of your stream vs the the encoder
capability to handle the data without sounding stupid.
Example- Don't stream a 78 recording with lots of surface hiss. It is the best way to show off artifacting. Too much data.
If the data's not there, the encoder doesn't have to figure out what to do with it.
Filter it off the hiss first, and the stream won't screech with noise, and the (likely) lower audio passband that does stream
will sound 3 times good for not having to fight the noise.
In only slightly lesser amount, high-frequency data asks the most of any stream. ( Cymbals, Hi-Hat, impact pecussives )
If the stream sounds wavy, fluttery, shimmery, etc, consider a soft but definite rolloff of high frequency info before streaming.
It can only sound better.
I am doing the split chassis 8100A for a stream & using just the studio portion sounds very nice...stha said:
WJCP North Vernon,IN http://radiotime.com/WebTuner.aspx?StationId=21588&erwin33 said:
I can only nth the love for Breakaway here - I had been using MBL4 and Omnia A/X at WRRC, but Breakaway sounds above and beyond better than any other out of the box option. If I had a compellor or the tube compressor that Mr. Wells has in front of it, I'm sure it would sound better.
http://s2.viastreaming.net:7030 is the link to the stream (128k mp3) if you want to hear what it sounds like. Oldies preset, +1 for both bass settings, 60 for others.
http://s2.viastreaming.net:7030 is the link to the stream (128k mp3) if you want to hear what it sounds like. Oldies preset, +1 for both bass settings, 60 for others.
B
BabyDJ
Guest
Speaking of the Breakaway, I heard an 8600 earlier this week. The box sounds ALOT like Breakaway.... effortless. I think Leif used to work for Orban, I wonder if any of his ideas made their way into the new box? Especially when the 8600 specs have a looong latency with the new MX peak system.
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