BBE Sonic Maximizer 882/882i

M

Major415

New member
Questions on the BBE Sonic Maximizer. Lots of people go either way on them, hate em or love em. Church was going to had one and listening to it in the system (on pre-recorded music), it definitely sounded better with it on. It is used for live sound only. We rarely play recorded music to just play it other than ambience before/after.

It was a 882i installed as the last item in the chain before the amps, not somewhere else (882i's in the BBE manual say that is the only place for it). Reading on how it works, it would be not good to put in the chain anywhere else but last before the amp (or crossover if you use one). And I don't think I would ever RECORD something thru a SM at all.

A friend of mine wants one for his system and I found a 882 (not i) for $80 and was considering it. But mixed with the reviews both ways. So not sure if I should. Right now the system is used for a speaker, and then to play music. Soon live band. (startup church)

So for live performance just before the mains (not on monitors), is it worth it? We will never record through it.

All we have are Crown DC300A for mains, D150A for monitors, a dbx 160x for the main vocal mic, a dual CD recording deck and for now, a bheringer 8 channel mixer (that is first up to get replaced, yuk.... :) We have a long way to go, but I want to make sure we are going in the right direction. We are still looking to pick up mic's, considering a Heil PR22 or PR35. Currently the Nady wireless we have it driving us nuts for EQ... And RF, well, it is VHF.... The speakers are ok, dual woofer no name speakers. They are ok, not the best, lack good horns. But for the price they were ok.

guitar zero said:
BBE Sonic maximizer. Bought it, used it for two days and got rid of it. Useless piece of hardware....
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My experience with the sonic maximizer has been a little of both love and hate. I HATE it for metal or any heavily distorted tone. It makes it sound thin and almost like the speaker is smaller. It has has a "scratchy" type of color to it. Granted this is going to be different depending on the gear but I did NOT like it for distored stuff.

That being sasid I thought it was pretty nice for clean tones and some low gain crunch. It seems to make the sound a little bigger and a little more high end clarity. It really is dependent on the tone your starting with though. A lot of people think it sounds like an EQ but it really doesn't. It affects the timing of frequencies rather than the gain of them. I can only really see it being useful for live applications so its good your not considering it for recording.

Hope this helps!
 
That makes more sense, I am more from the hardware design side of things, worked in Development Engineering for the former #1 cell phone manufacturer for nearly 14 years (and got laid off) and tend to be the more technical side of sound than playing (being I don't play anything). So reading that the BBE SM does more for timing of the high/low freqs in intriguing. Seems like though it would be overall house size dependent, where you are in it having a big effect on how it sounds to the listener.

But recording with it seems just plain wrong. Then everyone would hear it and I would think it would mess with your ears in a bad way.

Betting with the distortion on with metal, the SM gets confused on what it is and hoses it up badly.



GuitardedMark said:
My experience with the sonic maximizer has been a little of both love and hate. I HATE it for metal or any heavily distorted tone. It makes it sound thin and almost like the speaker is smaller. It has has a "scratchy" type of color to it. Granted this is going to be different depending on the gear but I did NOT like it for distored stuff.

That being sasid I thought it was pretty nice for clean tones and some low gain crunch. It seems to make the sound a little bigger and a little more high end clarity. It really is dependent on the tone your starting with though. A lot of people think it sounds like an EQ but it really doesn't. It affects the timing of frequencies rather than the gain of them. I can only really see it being useful for live applications so its good your not considering it for recording.

Hope this helps!
Click to expand...
 
I've found that for both live and for recording that if the bbe unit is a two channel you can insert one side into the kick drum channel and bring up the bass on the bbe, then insert the other side into the snare channel and bring up the highs on the bbe.
This helps to bring them out in the mix without have to turn up the volume of them.

I would not use it as an effect in the chain of the PA for live. I have heard a dj use one in his chain and the canned music did sound better but when he spoke the effect was to much and in the wrong direction.






:cool:
 
Thanks! We are staying away from the idea of the BBE SM for now unless we get a freebie to try out in the system, I don't wanna spend a dime on one to see if we like/don't like it.

Thanks!



moresound said:
I've found that for both live and for recording that if the bbe unit is a two channel you can insert one side into the kick drum channel and bring up the bass on the bbe, then insert the other side into the snare channel and bring up the highs on the bbe.
This helps to bring them out in the mix without have to turn up the volume of them.

I would not use it as an effect in the chain of the PA for live. I have heard a dj use one in his chain and the canned music did sound better but when he spoke the effect was to much and in the wrong direction.






:cool:
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Major415 said:
That makes more sense, I am more from the hardware design side of things, worked in Development Engineering for the former #1 cell phone manufacturer for nearly 14 years (and got laid off) and tend to be the more technical side of sound than playing (being I don't play anything). So reading that the BBE SM does more for timing of the high/low freqs in intriguing. Seems like though it would be overall house size dependent, where you are in it having a big effect on how it sounds to the listener.

But recording with it seems just plain wrong. Then everyone would hear it and I would think it would mess with your ears in a bad way.
Click to expand...
By changing the timing of the different frequencies, you end up with comb filtering which de-emphasizes some frequencies and over-emphasises others. You end up with an EQ that has a goofy response curve.

One of the problems with using something like this is that your ears become numb to the effect very quickly, so it's easy to add too much. (the 'high process')

These things are just band-aids that can help cover up a problem with something else, but there is nothing better than just getting a good sound to begin with and leaving it alone.
 
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