How about a BBE 482?

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ishou

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I'm considering purchasing a BBE482 Sonic Maximizer in order to make my home recording sound better. The problem is that my microphones have XLR inputs and the BBE482 has unbalanced 1/4" inputs. I'm using a TASCAM 424 4-track machine. Will this thing make my recordings sound better, and if so, how am I supposed to use it?!
 
"Will this thing make my recordings sound better, and if so, how am I supposed to use it?!"


If you don't know how it works or what it does, why bother spending the money? Use the stuff you got until you either do some research and find out what it does or you hear one used for yourself.

Rev E
 
You have a 4-track...
You need a BBE...

I recomend you the 362NR for a 4-track.
buy it!!! It is agreat tool.

you can make better bouncings.
 
Well, I realize that the BBE is a sonic maximizer that according to BBE, makes things sound more "live" and crisper, and has been described to me as a "fat EQ," and I have a few ideas on how to use it, too. I was wondering if anyone out there had experience with the thing enough to tell me whether my instinct is right in purchasing this to enhance my recordings. And if so, I'm asking for advice on the best way to use it - whether I get some adapters and run my music through it while bouncing tracks, or use the effect sends (of course I'd have to figure out a clever way to use both effect sends to get stereo, cause of course the sends are mono). This is why I'm holding back on purchasing this piece of equipment. And I must say, I've gotten a lot of help from this BBS, and I thank all you guys willing to put up with me!
 
Get the BBE!!! I have one between my 424 and mixdown cassette deck. It makes the final product 'come alive'. The BBE has two 1/4 inputs and two outputs, and two RCA inputs and two outputs. I use the RCA outs on the 424 to the BBE then the RCA outs to the cassette deck. The manual indicates the BBE can also be used in a rack for instruments directly, or can go to an outboard mixer, p.a. system, or amplifier. I wonder if you could use an insert cable ("Y") or two separate 1/4 cables on both ins and outs to get a stereo effect on the 424 effects sends/returns?
 
if your working analog then the BBE could be a nice effect to put on mixes. It can fatten, "enhance", or completly ruin a mix. So beware and use your ears.

-jhe
 
I'm backing the Reverend. I'm not "scolding" you, but hoping to pass on some personal experience. If you don't know exactly what every knob and switch does and what every LED means, you're rolling the dice when you make a purchase. It might make things sound better, it might not.

I know the BBE gets pretty good reviews around the web. But it is a rather specific piece of gear, and it sounds like you could improve things better in other areas at this point (possibly better mics, definitely better pre-amps and EQ than your 4-track).

Knowing the various levels you'll likely encounter is essential. Your mic operates at a very low voltage level. Your 4-track has a pre-amp built in (controlled by the "trim" or "gain" knob, probably) to raise that low mic level to line-level. There are two different standards for "line-level": -10 ("consumer") and +4 ("pro"). Most +4 gear should handle -10 stuff with no problems... it'll just need more gain. The BBE is expecting a line-level input (I don't know if it's +4, -10, or switchable). It's pretty much designed to be used on an overall mix and not individual instruments, so you'd normally run the stereo main-out from the cassette (almost guaranteed to be -10) to the BBE, adjust the gain appropriately, and mix to your final destination.

I'd suggest a good 3 or 4 band parametric EQ if you're looking to make things crisper. It's a much more versatile tool than the BBE, and can make drastic improvements on individual instruments (not the BBE's strength). The EQ on your 4-track most likely blows chunks.
 
I had a mono unit for a while when they first came out. It sat in the closet after the first week or so. It wasn't that it wouldn't do the job, only that I found it was just a glorified EQ and I didn't find anything special in the so-called upper harmonics this thing produced. It seemed to me that I got just as good a sound with EQ adjustments. Fortunately, I had bought a used one so I didn't get burned too bad financially.

If you decide to buy one, you'll find that you can slip it into an insert point just fine. There's no need to run stereo with it. You're just wanting to brighten up your tracks a bit, are you not? Just treat it like an outboard EQ. I know there's times when you would run an EQ differently but most often we just put them through the effects sends and I found that worked fine with the BBE also.

Best wishes, :) Bill
 
Thanks for all the advice, guys.

Now that I think about it (and the fact that the used BBE 462 I found was sold) My friend has a very old EQ, an ADC-500. Is that any good? I have halfway decent mics (shures, AKG C1000S), too. I think I'll buy a preamp too, because of course, the TASCAM's suck. I was thinking about buying a DBX 286A preamp. It looks quite good, actually. Are there any other decent ones out there for as cheap? Or am I better off buying a powered mixer?
 
EEHHHYYYY!!!!
if you have the money in your hands, try the BBE 362NR.

it will help you to bounce tracks. like this:
lets say you are rec a drum kit, put the snare trk1, kick trk 2, overheads trk3 and then you will have to bounce them for add more instruments in your 4 track.
the BBE will help you to bounce the traks.

or what about rec a bass and a guitar that you have to bounce in one track because the limited tracks?

I am talking about the lose of quality when you bounce traks.

in your final mix it can help you a lot too...
the 362NR is cheaper then the 482 an it has a noise reduction. (NR)
 
BBE is not EQ.The BBE process splits the signal into three bands and delays the mids and bass so that when heard through your average POS speaker the sound is more phase coherent.It works,I own 2.Cheers!
 
Thats right Time Alighnment
I was wondering when someone was gona mention it :)

Tony
 
I must admit, I'm now throughly confused. First of all, what is the BBE lacking? Seeing as I already have a decent EQ (research shows it to be a favorite pro tool back in the 80s), is there any reason I should not invest in the BBE rather than another (more expensive) piece of equipment?
If you want to see the kid of noisy, muddled sound I want to get rid of, check out http://illuminatedwax.8m.com/recordings.html
and see the MP3s there. Or would something like a preamp help better? It's very difficult to tell whether these things will work since I can't really test them out...
 
ishou;

I downloaded Lullabye. The high end sounded okay to me as cassette 4 tracks go. The drums were maybe a little muffled like they were recorded at a distance but sometimes that's good. A lot of people have them so up front that it can be a bit destracting.

[pre]I heard 2 noise sources:
1. The old tape hiss demon
2. What sounded like digital distortion. I don't know if you mixed to a soundcard or if you mixed to another tape deck but either way it sounds like once you did hit the soundcard, you got the levels a little hot there.[/pre]

The digital distortion was the worst culprit in my estimation. Better to mix with levels too low than too high where digital audio is concerned. If you were planning on buying the BBE to give you more sparkle in the high end, I really don't think you need it. If you were planning on using it to keep noise levels down, again you don't need it. You just need to keep working on things like mic technique and level matching. There's no reason why you can't get a perfectly fine noiseless recording on your 4 track. Many people have done it, myself included. Springsteens "Nebraska" album was done on an old Tascam 144 and if it wasn't for the fact that they used a crappy SM-57 on his acoustic guitar (boom city) it would have been a great recording. It certainly wasn't noisy. Phil Keaggy did a record called "Underground Basement Tracks" that was litterally recorded in his basement on the same Tascam 144 (the first 4-track cassette) and it sounds amazing!

I'm not saying that the BBE doesn't have any merit. In the right situation it does. It's especially useful for brightening up old tracks that you want to restore. What I heard on your recordings didn't sound like they needed brightening to me though. If you think they do, then in the future one thing you can do that helps a lot is to record your initial tracks with a little more high end. In other words, get the sound right in your headphones and then add a touch more high end (usually around 3k brightens well) than you need. When you play it back it will probably be about right. Just experiment with it.

A good pre-amp will deffinately help! I wouldn't advise you to buy a powered mixer though. They usually add more noise to things.

The right mics through the right pre-amps at the right levels is the key.

BTW, the old Tascam (or Teac) 144 decks that those 2 albums I mentioned were recorded on, only came with Dolby B NR and had a noise floor of about 68db. They still managed to get good recordings with them! Think what you can do with DBX (okay so it pumps and breaths a bit when the heads are out of alignment) and a noise floor of around 90db.

Good luck, Bill :)
 
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