exciter or maximizer

bunnyfunk1

New member
I am thinking about buying one of the following, the bbe sonic maximizer, or, the aphex aural exciter. both run about 200.00 bucks. I am recording on a sony md 4 trak, and bouncing tracks in stereo. when I do there is some quality loss. I am looking to add a little to that, and also, I would like to add some overall punch to my mix when mastering. I am looking for some opinions on which of the two would work best for me, or maybe if neither would be of help. Thank you for your opinions.
 
Hey Funk Man:

You might think about buying an 8 track MD instead of the "enhancers."

Whenever you bounce, you isolate the bounced tracks to one volume control plus one tweak control; so, if you bounce a horn and keys, the horn can no longer become an up front solo. So instead of spending your cash on a gimmick, upgrade your recorder to 8 or more tracks. I use the Yamaha MD-8. It's not CD quality but it beats my old Tascam tape 8 track in many ways, including better sound.

Go out and look and evaluate before you buy a band aid.

The Green Hornet
 
Hey BunnyFunky Person:

Just wanted to add this note to my previous post:

If you buy a good reverb box you can really go wild experimenting.

I have this Esonique DP-4 and it has all kinds of stuff on it. One verb room in particular is called SWEET HARMONY. This will add harmonics to a vocal or any other track/horn/flute, etc. Now, just opposite the SWEET HARMONY is a patch called NASTY HARMONY. This add minor harmonics and makes certain patches sound spooky, like a Friday the 13th movie track.

Just wanted to let you know that a good reverb box will give you much more than some little box that does very little.

Green Hornet
 
I just read a review of the sonic maximizer and it stated that it amplified the noise of noisy tracks so if you are bouncing... idonno...
Also I dont think that the maximizer adds "punch"... I think that it is mostly designed to accent highs and lows.

S8-N
 
If you are going to use an enhancer/exciter then I would wait and use it on the final mix only. Get the best posible mix you can without it, then see how much extra the e/e helps (or hurts) your music.

I have found e/e to be most useful during the mixdown process. If a certain setting on the e/e sounds great for most of the mix with the exception on one or two tracks, then you can adjust those tracks accordingly. If you have a final mix down on tape or disk that sounds good, applying the e/e may be difficult due to the track levels being fixed in the mix.

Most e/e do increase the noise that is being processed. The noise may warm up loud signals, but softer signals may become to dirty.
 
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