#1661829 - 03/05/04 02:15 PM
Aural Excitement!!!
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Phil B
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Registered: 06/10/03
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(Phil: great forum. It's got to be the fastest start ever for a forum.)
I have the PMI Bosendorfer 290 piano plug-in and over on the Cakewalk forums someone else who owns it was saying that he runs it through the DSP-FX aural enhancer plug-in, but that you could use any aural enhancer with a "drive" setting.
1- What are the options in software and hardware for an aural exciter with "drive"? Is there any reason to think a hardware aural exciter like Aphex's 204 (link) would be better/worse than a plug-in?
2- How versatile are aural exciters for a project studio? Do any of you have one? Do you use it often and/or in any interesting ways?
As always, thanks for the help!
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#1661830 - 03/05/04 02:28 PM
Re: Aural Excitement!!!
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Faruk
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Loc: Sarajevo, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVI...
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Regarding softs, I think u should trust your ears and computer behavoir. I myself never used them much, but if I had enough money I would go for hsrdware sollution.
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#1661831 - 03/05/04 02:30 PM
Re: Aural Excitement!!!
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aliengroover
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Loc: Cydonia, Mars (By way of PA)
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To sorta answer #2:
I know a guy who has an Aphex as a permanent fixture in is guitar rack, and says it's part of his "sound". Though I've used both the Aphex and BBE units, I just own the little BBE 264. There are a few cases where I use it, particularly for cleaning up older/less than "hi fi" quality sources. It's even good for adding a little sheen in some places. I've heard that most of the keyboard manufacturers use a little excitement on their sounds.
To me, it's a tool that, if used sparingly, can be effective. Too much is gawd-awful sounding. I've found that a little can go a long way.
Peace
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#1661832 - 03/05/04 03:06 PM
Re: Aural Excitement!!!
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djwayne
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Registered: 08/23/03
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I have the Aphex Aural Exciter with Big Bottom, and a BBE Sonic Maximizer 462. I use the Aphex in my mobile dj rig ,and the BBE in the studio. If adjusted right, it adds a lot brightnes and bass, presence to the music. Never had a problem with either one, but I would replace them if they broke down.. I like them both a lot.
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#1661833 - 03/05/04 05:48 PM
Re: Aural Excitement!!!
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Phil B
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Thanks guys - but now I'm a bit confused as to why I'd use the Aphex over the BBE in a given situation, such as brightening up a piano track. I did see this on BBE's site about the difference between their product and "aural exciters":
Do BBE Sonic Maximizer processors create any harmonics like exciter and enhancer effects units?
No. BBE technology does not work like exciter and enhancer effects. Typcially, exciter effects are associated with creating artificial harmonics through small amounts of overdrive in the high frequency band. This can prove useful in some recording studio situations, particularly in remastering older analog tapes. However, in today's recording and playback audio environments, there is no need to artifically simulate high freqencies lost through degradation of the original source tapes.
Enhancers are generally associated with equalization, however there are some products which attempt to combine exciter and enhancer effects with the result being harsh and fatiguing to the ear with no actual improvement in clarity and definition. Generally, enhancer products are marketed to appear as though they are more sohpisticated than multiband or parametric equalizer units, however, this is seldom true.
BBE is totally different than exciter and enhancer effects units. BBE High Definition Sound technology is not an effect, but restructures the signal in such a way which allows speakers to more correctly and faithfully reproduce the signal. The best analogy for BBE technology is like eyeglasses for your audio system.
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#1661834 - 03/05/04 08:18 PM
Re: Aural Excitement!!!
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Philip O'Keefe
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Boy, it's been a while... but if I recall correctly, the Aphex Aural Exciters (TM) generate upper harmonics to "enhance" things, while the BBE Sonic Maximizers (TM) use time alignment - it's more of a phase related thing, getting the highs and lows into phase, which makes the HF content more apparent. Something like that. Sorry I couldn't be more specific. Maybe someone else will come along with a better / more detailed explaination.
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#1661835 - 03/05/04 09:59 PM
Re: Aural Excitement!!!
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djwayne
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"The best analogy for BBE technology is like eyeglasses for your audio system."
I just did a quick A/B test with the BBE, and I'd have to agree with that statement, the music is much cleaner, more defined, more presence, ect...
In other words it makes it overall sound better, more realistic.
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#1661836 - 03/06/04 01:28 AM
Re: Aural Excitement!!!
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Griffinator
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Yeah, I had a friend who bought an Exciter for his recording rig, and I told him he pretty much wasted his money.
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#1661837 - 03/06/04 02:13 AM
Re: Aural Excitement!!!
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djwayne
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Well, they've been available for years, maybe you should go listen to an A/B test and decide for yourself.
I like mine alot.
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#1661838 - 03/06/04 10:51 PM
Re: Aural Excitement!!!
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kylen
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OK - I've got a BBE462 I keep in the live rack and the BBE plugin - I pull these guys out every once in a while when folks start talkin about such things.
The 462 is tricky cause a 'flat' setting is somewhere around 10 o'clock and it's different on the bass and the process (hi) knobs - I had to get a scope and a can of pink noise out to find it exactly.
This time I popped the top to see the electronics and sure enough there's 3 or 4 tiny monkeys in there sceechin' their little fingernails on a tiny chalkboard, hehe so a little goes a long way.
I tried the BBE plug again an about 12% process brings out some life, 0% bass. That's what sounded good on the particular thing I was working on anyway, it's a tape recording. For artificial bass I've been using a touch of the free VST Baxxpander - sounds better to my ears anyway...
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#1661839 - 03/13/04 09:06 PM
Re: Aural Excitement!!!
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kylen
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Ok - here's my EXCITEment for the day !
I'm listening to Xcita (free VST):
http://www.kvr-vst.com/get/712.html
It is beating Baxxpander (written by the same person) for nice kick bloom...I've got both settings on 15 and I am claiming that it beats BBE too, hehe. It doesn't seem to stretch things out of proportion if you don't want it to.
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#1661840 - 03/13/04 09:42 PM
Re: Aural Excitement!!!
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Philip O'Keefe
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I tried Xcita, but it seemed to be a bit of a CPU hog. Maybe it's just me, but my system's fairly fast, and it's definitely hitting it pretty hard. Didn't sound to shabby though. Price is certainly right though. 
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#1661841 - 03/13/04 10:43 PM
Re: Aural Excitement!!!
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kylen
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Hi Phil 
I just downloaded the 'performance' version and it only eats about 4% cpu on a 2.6GHz P4 so it got faster - in fact I guess there was an update to synthedit so any plugs based on that all got faster if they were recompiled...
I backed the controls down to 10 on bass and highs - I was in the cans before - hehe.
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#1661842 - 03/14/04 01:17 AM
Re: Aural Excitement!!!
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Philip O'Keefe
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Thanks Kylen, I'll give it another try.
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#1661843 - 03/14/04 03:47 PM
Re: Aural Excitement!!!
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kylen
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Well I gave it the good ole American try but I ended up only using Xcita for a setting of 5 on bass and 0 on highs...
To be fair and balanced, hehe I was working with some home-brew garage recordings that were mixed down from 1/4" 8-track. I use spectrum analyzers to assist along with listening - so when I mention shapes and curves it's a reference to how it looks on an RTA...
To really get the job done and clean those old recordings up I used Eqium and set a tight parametric EQ (about .06 octave) at both at 20Hz and at 20KHz to roll off the extremes to taste.
Then using the downward expanders in Ozone3 I set a hard knee using about a 1.3 ratio to mostly kill the noise in each of the 4 bands (20-140, 140-2K, 2K-10K, 10K-20K) and a threshhold set at least 20dB or so below the average of the music level in each band.
Then I used PSP MixSaturator to shape the bass and synthesize a small bit of missing bass at a user selectable cutoff freq. It didn't add noise like the other plugs did...
Holy Cow - things sure sound different when you clean all the garbage out first ! hehe
I'm still trying yo work on my top end technique - who isn't ? hehe
Report from the Garage: Ozone3 and PSP MixSaturator saved the day for bass restoration.
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