Always leave the BBE ON!!!! I love the instrument separation it enhances

I don't understand how this thing works but it has hugely improved my stereo system.

this channel is gonna be huge in a year

I'll try to explain what it does as simple as possible... As musicians it should be understood that when we play a note on an instrument we hear not only the fundamental tone but also overtones of the same note. When you squish all that information together and push it through a speaker or cable to be duplicated and amplified, you lose many of those overtones that produce clarity and definition. When you record that sound, even at CD quality, it will still lack those overtones. A sonic maximizer will analyze the sound being processed and will artificially recreate overtones to reproduce sonic qualities lost in the recording stages. It was definitely more useful during cassette recording days but still makes a nice difference when added to almost any setup. BTW, great channel! Keep up the good work 💪

Easily my favorite channel on KZfaq. Golden nuggets of wisdom and inspiring me to get into analog!

I had BBE on an old Aiwa stereo system!

OK so my unit said in the manual ( my unit talks! ) that it separated the tone into THREE Bands Low, Middle and High The Bands are separated and go into a Delay. The Lows got no delay so you hear the Fat Lows First. The Mids hit a 0.5 Millisecond delay so that frequency is separate and clearer. And the Highs get delayed by 2.5 milliseconds. Again the Bass is pure source time, not delayed. The controls are subtle Gain structure tone boosters. The two boost controls you used are for Mid and High boosting, no real process bar the sound of the unit...and Volume. In essence I see it as similar to a Speaker Crossover into Woofer, Mid Cone and Tweeter. Only the crossover hits two delays on the way to the Mid cone and tweeter. And the 3 bands are way under the 30 Millisecond "Human Perception" Rule, around the speed of an FET compressor! It reminded my of Abletons' 3 Band Compressor, as I've gone digital but now I'm Hybrid like yourself..as soon as I service my Tascam 688's heads and capstan. But someone, in the DAW could make an approximation, but you'd lose the preamp sound and the inherent vibe machines add. I used to run my around 12 o'clock just like you Mr Cassette. I've got it out now from storage!! Lastly as it separates bands it is harder to tell on one instrument, especially bass as it's not delayed it's the main start tone in the Signal Path. Excellent on the Bus and for checking drums and making it fatter with way less Eq'ing as each Band hits the ears at a DIFFERENT but slightly Imperceptible delay. I've had a long day got a new desk for my studio! to sit the 688 next to my Audient Sound Card and My Push2. Take care, excuse typos long day.

the MSG of audio engineering

I had the 422A nearly 30 years ago. I remember it making all my mixes sound great. Recently, I went back and revisited those mixes. Guess what? They STILL sound great. I miss that unit. I don't know whether it would make sense now since I do everything in the box, but dang whatever witchcraft was happening was amazing.

Your channel brings me smiles everyday. Keep up the great work. Fun Stuff, GREAT STUFF 🍕

In your final mixes I really like the slightly duller kick on the version without the sonic maximizer - though I can imagine other tracks where the more present drum sound would be better. Another great video - Well done good sir.

I'm already a convert, but I guessed B. What I must say is that it was harder to hear because your original mix was already excellent. But once I picked it out I couldn't un-hear it! Obviously this wasn't a very scientific test, but you did a really great job proving this works in the right circumstances. Bought for $60 (ish) bucks 2nd hand, even a cheap studio setup can benefit from a BBE.

A great BBE my band (Psycho Echo) . Your video helped other people to explain friends. I have using for BBE its great. Thanks again.

Good demo, thanks.

Loved this video!! Would be great to see one solely on recording drums with the portastudio

Have a 1992 Aiwa hifi amplifier with BBE circuitry inside. Amazing sounds to this day, thru a decent set of Polk Audio passive speakers 👍

Twenty nine years ago I walked into a music store in LaPorte, Indiana (Roxy Music and yes, it's actual name) and there was a side by side demonstration going on between the BBE Sonic Maximizer and a Behringer Ultrafex processor. The guy demoing was using a high end sound reproduction system and everything could be heard clearly EVERYWHERE in the store. I had went there to purchase a synth module but the sound permeation my brain drew me over to the sales guy and after about an hour of critical listening, I went with the Behringer unit as it sounded so much less artificial and full. It was my personal opinion and I used in on many tape recordings then but it still works fine now in the digital age on my computer recording all these years later.

The trick with these is to never use them in parallel. Individual inserts or on the master is fine but the phase shift will cause comb filtering in parallel. So long as you keep that limitation in mind they’re a useful studio tool when not overdone.

Coolest thing I discovered today

holly fuck, that's awesome!

BBE is awesome

this thing is just plain cool

I have the guitar pedal version of the maximizer. The best use case I've found so far is pairing it with a late 60s telestar guitar. The guitar only has one single coil pickup positioned right in between where a neck pickup and a middle pickup would be on a strat. Having the maximizer be the first thing the signal hits gives me a tone closer to a bridge pickup. I also use it on old grooveboxes.

It sound less like a cassette with the thingy turned on

I have it, a rack version, I'm a sinner and there's barely room for humans in my house :) I like it and agree, it is clearly a case where less is more.

Hey! Love the channel but could I ask? Your melody on your opening music is it inspired by the film Running man? I watched it recently and when fireball took to the stage, his song and melody was a fragmented version of yours. Hope it was a little easter egg. Great channel and great film

Always engage the BBE, ALWAYS

Hahaha, You got the name right first time. We are still in lockdown in Melbourne, hopefully I can get my 688 serviced this week! And yes, I have the BBE 422A. I can let you know the basic version of what it does. I just wanna watch your video it first. I'm putting mine at the end of my Audient Card into my Monitors... tonight!! I'll be back later as the comments and opinions grow.

I use it for mix kick snare and toms and works amazing!

I dont understand it but it for sure makes my stereo gear .....yes my stereo gear , im not a Musician, but do have high end stetro gear , sound far better then any other single Piece of gear at any price i have ever Encountered and could never even consider having a system without one, Now that I've had one.

Very, very cool video and channel in general, it's really engaging. Apologies if this has asked before, but have you used the deq2496 before? It has so many incredible functions and would probably pair very well with this.

Nice, the BBE is definitely noticeable going from the 4-track right into Logic, but I listened to the reel to reel comparisons several times with different headphones and had a really hard time telling them apart. Probably wise to use it subtly though, I guess the snare sounded a tiny bit different...? You should definitely share this in the portastudio FB group, I feel like sonic maximizers have been a hot topic recently

Your music is so simple, but so good, and this mix sounds beefy. Btw. I guessed it was wat it was in blind test by nicer to my ears hi Freqs. Cheers!

my problem with these type of audio things is that they are so subtle nobody except an experienced audiohead can tell the difference, and only when they expect there to be a difference, and only when listening at a loud enough volume on good enough headphones(let's face it, 99% of music is listened on really mediocre headphones), and only when the stars align. So is it really worth it in the end? For me, not really, but maybe I am wrong

I like this thing. Even if it seems like a gimmick to some, and a few people even seem to hate it, I love the idea and how simple it is to use. Could easily give some low end boost to a kick for example, or add some sparkle to a drum kit. Although if I had to pick between this and an analog EQ I'd pick the EQ, those typically cost a LOT more though!! Definitely gotta be careful with it because of course it can sound tinny and artificial with too much. That's true of a lot of gear, tho.

It's a MUST HAVE tool to sweeten any average sound. Use sparingly because you can overdo it. Give your ears a rest during long sessions. Listen through different size and quality speakers if possible. Another awesome tool is the SPL Vitalizer, which is available now as a plug-in. I have both the plug-in and the rack hardware versions! The Secret Sauce used throughout the recording industry!!!

Yeah, it can be considered a glorified EQ. Yeah, it doesn't always improve the sound. And yeah, too much of it will sound lousy. But man, sometimes, it just hits the spot to provide clarity and separation. And on a bass rig it adds nice tight punch.

i use bbe on my power amp for sub purpose the difference is big. less temperature produces by the amplifier. preamp is big lots of headroom less distortion.

Could we get similar result with the stock Logic Pro plugins ?

I'm gonna guess B for the maximiser. B is especially clean in the way your prior tweaking of it was. Let's resume and find out...

I just found out there's a guitar pedal version of this thing

Are you using normal 1/4" cables in/out of the unit?

I had no idea the BBE Sonic Maximizer was English

The relentless door-stopper and boat anchor jokes in gear forums make me want one more. No thanks, Dave Gearman, I don't want to sound like SRV or get "tight pants chicks" to dance.

BBE phase-fucker….IN PARALLEL!!! I had to let mine go for want of rack real estate. Maybe I should have kept it in the closet for experimentation? You get good results! Keep up the great work!

Makes my helix sound amazing but people keep warning me that it will sound good at first and then it will give the audience listening fatigue ?? It sounds so much better idk how?

Keine Ahnung, is this a limited multiband compressor? So wirkt das

I'm not familiar with that Cecil Taylor record.

$60?? Where?

Used BBE for years, less is more approach is best.