Using my old 8100 to process my stream

[OKCRadioGuy]

Can you find a Aphex Compellor laying around? That's what you'd be better off using, if you're going to do it strictly with hardware and not something like Breakaway. I've got several stations using Compellors happily for their streaming needs. I agree that the 8100 isn't your best choice. With that being said, you could do it by de-emp the test jacks as suggested before and turn the clipping down as much as possible. Ive heard stations that just take off-air monitors and pipe them right into a stream. They sound supprisingly decent. Unlimited sounds better though .

 

[WNTIRadio]

After reading this thread I hooked up my trusty old 8100 here in my home studio/mad scientist room and ran it to the exciter on the dummy load. I compared it to Breakaway, just to see. It needs some help up front; I used the Ariane. Used the stock card 5, RCF-1, RCF-2 and the Cobalt Blue to play around.

The result? The 8100, with some help in front, sounds amazingly good. It's like I've been in the world of digital everything for so long I forgot what a masterpiece it really is. The Ariane makes it competitive, I wouldn't go barefoot unless I was in a Podunk market somewhere. Even then, it would need some AGC in front, at least a Compellor to keep it in the sweet spot.

The stock card 5, set to independent, gate all the way down and a release time of 3 with about -8dB total gain reduction sounded damn good. The highs weren't as clean as Breakaway, but hey, the box is a 30 year old design. I'd like to see most other 30 year old things hold up that well. The RCF-1 and 2 were about the same, a little more crunch and a bit more bass. The Cobalt Blue was balls to the wall, even with -3 to -5 dB gain reduction. Kind of reminds me of driving an 8000 in "Limit Only" with a barrage of boxes in front to -3dB. I don't think I'd use that on anything but a rock station, the mod monitor hung at 100% like I glued it there!

Bob created the first truly modern FM audio processor in the 8100 that opened the doors for almost everything that came afterward. It truly was more than an evolution, it was a giant shift. Like from AM to FM. Read the manual on the 8100, especially the appendices that explain the operation in detail and it's amazing what he pulled off in 1980 and that it can still hold it's own today. A box from 1950 would not have come close to competing in 1980 as this one does today.

Thanks for the trip down processing memory lane with this thread!!

 

[Tom Wells]

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.

Ahh, but the ART PRO VLA was nothing special by itself. Lackluster, even.
Very smooth, but no multiband action, so more useful for vocals or less complex audio.
The automation and Breakaway Broadcast run on one HP 8430 laptop, remotely controlled.
Breakaway runs about 33% avg on settings and audio is nicely balanced. Then the ART PRO doesn't have to be
"fooled" by uneven spectrum balance. It then adds the "humidity" I desire.
Microphone comes in after BBP but does get VLA, reverb on a side chain only gets BBP processing.

It would probably sound just awful if the ART touched it first.


Old designs can sound fantastic, you just have to re-discover the quirks that someone else already did,
because it CAN be done, people HEARD how great they can be. Which is why such boxes still have
such popularity and acclaim.
And I still kinda long for "live", but the "real time" ASAIO (sp?) Breakaway will have to wait for
the next economic upswing. I'm satisfied that the mic is live and does have 30db of variable smashing.

 

[rorban]

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.

Lief interned at Orban for a relatively short time about 10 years ago and the 8600 was developed without his input -- the first research for what was to become the 8600 project started about three years ago after I had completed work on the audio processing algorithms for our 8585 surround processor for digital TV.

Bob Orban

 

[gtomas]

I think Leif used to work for Orban, I wonder if any of his ideas made their way into the new box?

Leif (Leif, please correctly if I'm wrong) worked at Orban for a couple of months a decade ago on product testing. So the above idea is, if nothing else, silly...


Regards,
Goran Tomas

 

[fm-engineer]

OKC,

What kind of settings are you running on the compellors?

Can you find a Aphex Compellor laying around? That's what you'd be better off using, if you're going to do it strictly with hardware and not something like Breakaway. I've got several stations using Compellors happily for their streaming needs. I agree that the 8100 isn't your best choice. With that being said, you could do it by de-emp the test jacks as suggested before and turn the clipping down as much as possible. Ive heard stations that just take off-air monitors and pipe them right into a stream. They sound supprisingly decent. Unlimited sounds better though .

 

[earshot]

Hi All,

This doesn't directly relate to the original (and good) question but since you're talking about hardware, I'd like to ask anyone's opinion about the CPU. I'm a hobbyist who wants to start a stream. Let's say the computer is tasked with automation (such as Station Playlist) and Breakaway to process sound but the encoding is done separately with a Barix box.

Keeping in mind a moderate budget, if some of the hardware dollars are spent on the Marian Trace soundcard, how much processor would you buy? An Intel Core i7-930, 2.80GHz processor? A little more for a Core i7-960, 3.20GHz? Something else entirely? What CPU suggestions do you have that's a good compromise between stable performance without breaking the bank? Thanks for your input!

 

[SRP]

Hi All,

This doesn't directly relate to the original (and good) question but since you're talking about hardware, I'd like to ask anyone's opinion about the CPU. I'm a hobbyist who wants to start a stream. Let's say the computer is tasked with automation (such as Station Playlist) and Breakaway to process sound but the encoding is done separately with a Barix box.

Keeping in mind a moderate budget, if some of the hardware dollars are spent on the Marian Trace soundcard, how much processor would you buy? An Intel Core i7-930, 2.80GHz processor? A little more for a Core i7-960, 3.20GHz? Something else entirely? What CPU suggestions do you have that's a good compromise between stable performance without breaking the bank? Thanks for your input!

Just get the best CPU you can afford. No need to overthink this.

 

[gtomas]

This doesn't directly relate to the original (and good) question but since you're talking about hardware, I'd like to ask anyone's opinion about the CPU. I'm a hobbyist who wants to start a stream. Let's say the computer is tasked with automation (such as Station Playlist) and Breakaway to process sound but the encoding is done separately with a Barix box.

Keeping in mind a moderate budget, if some of the hardware dollars are spent on the Marian Trace soundcard, how much processor would you buy?

There's so much distorted or wrong assumptions in this thread, that one just doesn't have the time or energy to set them straight. Keeping that in mind, I'm just going to address this one thing above - if you want to do web streaming, you don't need to spend money on the Marian soundcard... You don't necessarily need soundcard at all. You don't necessarily need Barix neither. Get yourself a software encoder (preferably AAC encoder and not MP3) and keep everything in the digital domain.

Computers these days are pretty powerful and you don't need the latest and fastest to do what you want to do...

By far the best solution of all suggested in this thread would be to get a complete professional solution from Omnia (A/XE) or Orban (Opticodec).


Regards,
Goran Tomas

 

[earshot]

I'm definitely over-thinking it. I tend to do that when shopping for new electronic toys. I'll look into the Omnia and Orban products. Thanks to both of you for the input.

 

[BROADCAST]

Goran,
Talking about digital on a stream,i tested what you are saying some time ago.
Consisted of laptop playing automation software,digital out to 8200 optimod with digital i/o card,and digital out straight to digital in of esi julia card in my main pc on the stream.

Sounded excellent with mp3 stream at 192kb !

Also noise floor was exceptionally low to boot.

 

[gtomas]

I'm definitely over-thinking it. I tend to do that when shopping for new electronic toys. I'll look into the Omnia and Orban products. Thanks to both of you for the input.

You can read about the Orban product here (streaming encoder):
http://www.gorantomas.com/?p=484

and here (processing card):
http://www.gorantomas.com/?p=493

These articles are a bit older (2007), but still relevant. The processing card has changed slightly (in terms of I/O and processing algorithm) and the encoder now support streaming to Flash server and more metadata options, but the basics are the same.

I haven't had time to write the Omnia A/XE article although it's an idea sitting on my desk, but in short it's a software processor (3-band algorithm taken from Omnia.3net) integrated with an encoder. You can get audio either from a soundcard or directly from automation software via virtual audio cables. The system is very flexible. You can can attach multiple encoders with different bitrates to the same processor. You can also run multiple processors with different processing settings. With more licenses, you can process multiple audio signals (taken from multichannel audio cards). So you can easily build an scale the system as needed for multiple streams, bitrates and stations. The encoder supports MP3, AAC and HE-AAC (aacPlus) v1 and v2, as well as metadata options. It supports RTMP (to be played in the Flash player integrated in the web page) but via Wowza server. It does not support Adobe Flash server at the moment.


Regards,
Goran Tomas

 

[gtomas]

Consisted of laptop playing automation software,digital out to 8200 optimod with digital i/o card,and digital out straight to digital in of esi julia card in my main pc on the stream.Sounded excellent with mp3 stream at 192kb!

If you are using streaming processor as a hardware in a box, that's definitely the way to go!

With the mentioned products above, you can actually have everything on the same computer and the audio doesn't have to leave the computer or go through any conversions. You can just go automation system -> processor -> encoder -> encoded stream out to streaming server. In the extreme scenario, you don't need to have the soundcard in the computer at all.


Regards,
Goran Tomas

 

[radiogooroo]

Speaking of the Opticodec... I wonder how much money Orban has lost by requiring that you use their Optimod card with it? I was looking at it seriously for a growing retail background music service I do some consulting work for and decided against it almost solely because of the Optimod PC requirement. They've lost 6 codec sales already.

 

[ThatGuyOnTheRadio]

Wow! Thanks for all the good input guys! We're going to look into the Breakaway processor.

 

[Sgeirk]

It has the best sound for the most economical price. By leaps and bounds.

 

[SRP]

Speaking of the Opticodec... I wonder how much money Orban has lost by requiring that you use their Optimod card with it? I was looking at it seriously for a growing retail background music service I do some consulting work for and decided against it almost solely because of the Optimod PC requirement. They've lost 6 codec sales already.

You only need the Optimod card for the PC & SE editions. The LE edition runs on any sound card.

 

[gtomas]

You only need the Optimod card for the PC & SE editions. The LE edition runs on any sound card.

Orban stopped the LE And SE editions a while ago. Now it only comes bundled with the processing card (former PE edition).


Regards,
Goran Tomas