I played a BBE sonic maximizer last night.....

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Tawlks

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...and it weirdly didn't sound that bad. It made everything I played sound like it'd been run through a rack and been mixed etc, which was kinda weird, it was noisy as fuck and made everything I played sound like generic metal riffing but oh well.

What the fuck do these things do?! in a way I was like "Woah that sounds cool!" but in another sense I was thinking "This shit's wank"

The "This shit's wank" part I assume comes from my tendancy to boost my mids while on my own and have 'band' settings while I'm on my own, the BBE kinda made it sound like the guitar mix inc bass of a band.


None of this makes sense because I'm tired and silly. :S But anyway.
 
Where is the mailman ? He loves them.
I do not like what they do at all myself. :rock:
 
What's weird is... I can't decide if I like it or not, it just doesn't feel natural, and I just have the feeling that it'll sound shit in a live setting.

I don't really understand what they do, mind you.. I was drunk at the time.
 
:lol: :LOL: Drinking always makes everything sound better. I think they sound good with some amps and with some they don't. Depends :dunno:
 
I gotta rack mounted version if anybody's interested. It's the mono version. Can't remember the model off hand. Make me an offer if you're interested. :thumbsup:
 
Motorpud":3tn1snh3 said:
:lol: :LOL: Drinking always makes everything sound better. I think they sound good with some amps and with some they don't. Depends :dunno:
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lol... I was playing some jazz stuff... and this girl thought it was sweet, then her and my mate Ryan started making out on the other side of the room, it was all romantic and stuff with the smooth stuff I was playing (I wasn't staring by the way!)

Anyway, Ryan gets into his making out and then hits the footswitch to turn the lead channel on... Hahah :lol: :LOL: He's like "Much better"
 
They are not usually noisy, was it in the loop or out front?
 
I use one in my loop and it makes no noise at all. I honestly really like the way it makes me sound and never play a show without it. I just set the knobs at noon and sounds great.
 
Death by Uberschall":z7px5qpv said:
They are not usually noisy, was it in the loop or out front?
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Loop, he did say his loop wasn't working great though.
 
Weren't those designed to run with PA systems? I don't like them. Tone killers. :no:
 
ACShreds":34rkhckp said:
I use one in my loop and it makes no noise at all. I honestly really like the way it makes me sound and never play a show without it. I just set the knobs at noon and sounds great.
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Exactly.......
the trick with the BBE.....make it sound like 'its not on'......
but you "MISS IT" when its shut off.......
fine tuning.

Love mine! ;) :thumbsup:
 
I think they work better on a full band mix than anything else... when you use one with a guitar amp, it does hype the highs and lows but thins your tone out where it doesn't work as well as part of a mix IMHO.

Pete
 
IMO...the sonic maximezer is a great tool for polishing turds.
 
facepalm.jpg
 
Tawlks":5uflgc9v said:
...and it weirdly didn't sound that bad. It made everything I played sound like it'd been run through a rack and been mixed etc, which was kinda weird, it was noisy as fuck and made everything I played sound like generic metal riffing but oh well.

What the fuck do these things do?! in a way I was like "Woah that sounds cool!" but in another sense I was thinking "This shit's wank"

The "This shit's wank" part I assume comes from my tendancy to boost my mids while on my own and have 'band' settings while I'm on my own, the BBE kinda made it sound like the guitar mix inc bass of a band.


None of this makes sense because I'm tired and silly. :S But anyway.
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The unit delays the bass frequencies of the signal to reach the ear simultaneously with the mids and treble. it also boost the high frequency content if you raise the process knob higher than zero.

The unit creates many phase distortions of the signal and is far less than perfect. The formula used by BBE to determine the ratio of delay is only a "consistent" formula. it is not perfect across all frequency bands.

I for one hate the phasing issues and the way the unit seems to scoop the mids "life" out of the guitar signal.
 
I have one and it actually sounded OK with my Uber to punch up leads, but it typically makes a good amp sound like a SS POS.

It's actually pretty good though on drums. When we record, I've run the drum tracks through the BBE to add punch to the kick and snare.
 
Sonic maximizers have their uses...guitar is NOT one of them.

In a guitar rig, they effectively act as a 2-band shelving EQ.
A decent rack EQ will be able to get similar results with less "processing" to the sound and more overall flexibility.
 
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