Sonic maximizer?

N

Nathan1984

New member
Ok, so on a whim I bought a bbe 328i sonic maximizer for 50 bucks. I had a producer buddy just rip it apart lol. Called it a waste of 50 bucks and said all it is, is a mid scoop for dummies. So, is he right, should I sell this sucker fast, or does it serve any purpose in a studio?
 
It's got some pretty lights, don't it?
:D

I'd think you could still use it for some sparkle on some things. My buddy likes to use it on his bass guitar. I've never heard it myself but that's what he says. "Sparkle"... heh heh...
 
I figured, hell for 50 bucks why not. I know alot of shitty sound guys and guitarists who would buy it from me if I don't wanna keep it.
 
It's 50 bucks. Most people spend more than that on cigarettes, fast food, and beer in a day. Keep it. It's just another tool you can use, or not.
 
I've got a sonic maximiser clone my mate made for me for christmas a couple of years back. He messed it up slightly so the pots don't go as far as on the real one but, to me, it's awesome. Like most gear, if you crank to the extremes it it very quickly sounds horrible. If you use it very subtly it can be wonderful. I've used it a lot on flat sounding basses to bring some life back in to them, and i've used it on a pair of drum overheads to align the snare and kick to the centre (worked really well!). It's weird that so many people just say it just scoops the mids, although at extreme settings the mids do sound quieter in comparison to the highs and low. The guy who built mine explained what it did but i can never remember his wording exactly. The short answer is something like a delay relative to the mid's. One knob adjusts the low frequency information in time against the mids by delaying one or the other (i forget which way round) and the other adjusts the highs against the mids. Again, in my head, it's a similar thing to adding delay to subs on a live PA to make them more phase coherent (something i've never done but a friend of mine swears by it and rants at me about it all the time). For $50 at the very worst you have a cool door stop :)
 
Yes, using phase cancellation it cuts the mids while effectively boosting the upper mids and highs. The low knob does the same thing in the other direction. This type of thing was originally used to restore tired old tape recordings that had gotten dull sounding. Once people by and large stopped using tape, they started marketing it as a magic box that makes everything better.

If you have something that is just really dull sounding, for whatever reason, this box might be able to make it useable. But it is really easy to go overboard with it because your ears get used to the sound very quickly and suddenly, everything that isn't that bright sounds dull to you...so you start adding it to everything, and you end uo with a mix that can peal the paint off the walls.
 
Farview said:
But it is really easy to go overboard with it because your ears get used to the sound very quickly and suddenly, everything that isn't that bright sounds dull to you...so you start adding it to everything, and you end uo with a mix that can peal the paint off the walls.
Click to expand...

^^^This^^^ As i said, i'm a fan of the sonic maximiser but it's best to use it very sparingly. At first i fell into the trap Farview descirbed about just turning it up and up and listening back to stuff the next day would make my eyes melt and my face implode. Now when i use it i normally set it fairly low, listen to it in context, turn it off for a bit, turn it back on and listen to how much it's working and, more often than not, turn the knobs down a bit. It can be a wonderful tool but it really should come with a big warning sticker and the pots should stop at half way (if that)
 
Unfortunately, the "bypass" bit on some models actually makes the audio going through the unit sound duller than it really is. That was designed to make the process seem like it really is a magic box.
 
Really!?!? Cheeky bastards! The clone i've got is true bypass so i've not had that issue but it does seem very underhanded
 
I have it as a VST.
I use it occassionally because when it works it works.
It's always better to retrack etc but sometimes that's not a viable option.
A little goes a long way too.
Def part of a range of exciters & enhanvers tht had home Hi Fi as it's original target. Old tape & vinyl can be "enhanced" by the things.
I have a Omnisonic 801 Imager that was made to be used in a record loop or inline with a home stereo. It does similar things but isn't adjustable. I use it every now and again on a stereo mixed track just to hear what it can do. Sometimes it smears & sometimes it gives guitars a bit of sparkel that makes them cut through better.
I wouldn't sell it or throw it because it can be useful.
I've used it playing back vinyl as well and it can "find" "hidden" information - on an old Lp of Hendrix material it brough forward some bits of JH talking to himself/the guitar/the engineer whilst playing. Cool, fun but not important.
 
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