I use AXE body spray or RedBull

 

sometimes an exciter can do the trick. i like the old terry west one if i'm on my 32bit windows machine or acon vitalize for my mac pro.

 

i certainly have better understanding now why rs127 sometimes did great and sometimes not .
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is it right that no avangers PD's analyzer graphs showing the boost bell shaped not shelf'ed ?

 

I think that sounds a bit ambiguous... So I'll over-explain it a bit so that beginners can follow along.

Set up a parallel chain. Either via a pre-fader send or via a plug-in chainer/plug-in container. It is important that it really runs in parallel and is not achieved via a mix-knob.

1. Filter stage:

• Either use a bandpass/highpass/lowpass filter to isolate the frequency range you want to saturate.
• or use the delta of a bell filter. You obtain the delta by splitting the incoming signal into two parallel signals. One signal goes into the filter and the other runs parallel to the filter and is inverted in polarity. Sum the two parallel streams back together. This results in a bandpass with which you can regulate the filter output level to drive the waveshaper.

2. Waveshaper stage

• Insert a waveshaper after the filter. This effectively gives you an exciter.
• or use the delta of the waveshaper. To obtain the delta, proceed in exactly the same way as with the filter and split the signal summed after the filter into two new parallel audio signals - one gets saturated, the other gets polarity inverted. This cancels out the filtered signal and leaves only the generated harmonics, resulting in a much more subtle effect.

3. Mix stage

• If you use a send for the parallel chain, use your fader to mix the effect to the main signal.
• If you are using a plug-in chainer/plug-in container, insert a clean gain plugin at the end of your chain to mix the effect to the main signal.

So it looks something like this:

 

Last edited: Jul 16, 2024

These days (for the last 20+ years lol) when everything gets encoded with various quality encoders, it is not a great idea to boost stuff higher than about 15-16k and that stuff is not so important anyway because a small amount of people can even hear it, so what I sometimes do to bring "air" up, without touching the highest frequencies is a gentle 1-pole low-passing with a Q from 1-1.4. 1.4 will give you a boost of ~3dB at ~14kHz. I sometimes do a similar thing with the bass, too, with a high pass filter at 35-45Hz and Q 1-1.3 which boosts ~3dB at ~45-55Hz so the sub is more present. Subs work best at around 50hz up anyway, and too much highs will give you aliasing with bad converters.

 

Last edited: Jul 16, 2024

yes,that is correct.

come to think about it, isn't this a little weird? Wouldn't the real life hardware units add a few harmonics?

 

Why would they? These filter circuits are 100% passive. So... nope.

 

Being nitpicky, is SPL PassEQ a proper representation of what a Passive EQ does?

Always found it strange, altho certainly Different..

 

I do a similar thing where I use the delta function with Soothe which then runs into any sort of enhancing FX that feels right at the moment.

 

60% of the time it works every time

 

For this high freq region, i don't care about phase troubles.
So i use aural exciters and similar harmonics/delay arrays generators (BBE and such).

It works wonder, even on budget orchestral banks, giving that defined "shine" you get with expansive gear ... but on the low budget ;D

It works better than trying to boost something not even existing

 

Last edited: Jul 16, 2024

i guess the really old versions ?

 

The coolest thing about this is that you can go futher after the waveshaper/saturator and add an especific processing to enhance the effect on certain sources, like a transient shaper on drums (check Jaycen Joshua's transformer fader) or a imager on guitars and strings (check Michael Brauer's Portico Imager trick). This can give some extra psychoacustic steroids on the region selected by the bandpass filter.

This video is a nice introduction on the subject:

 

2 on that. The air on my mix is just what remains and it's fundamentally on the top end. Don't like artificial top end boosts, in general they sound crap on small speakers.

 

Not in the example of a parallel circuit. This trick is very common with vocals. So let's say we are using the Maag EQ4, and it allows the Air band to be set at 2.5K. Your vocal track may squeak in underneath that, or the threshold can be raised in frequency. Everything above that threshold frequency is handed off to the "Air band" unaffected. The remaining frequency information below it is passed to the regular EQ processing. The "unaffected air" from the parallel circuit is then mixed back in, with the other lowpassed content before output. You are keeping the "air" unprocessed. If you set the threshold frequency correctly, there should be no waveform information (or very little of it) that will get boosted.

 

Generally I go foot to the floor on a decent hill and let physics take care of the rest.

 

Probably not, that

guy (who ever this might be) looks pretty suspicious.

I've heard that they are actually low freq notch filters with Q0.1, but you didn't get this from me. ;-)

 

Or by [alt]LMB click on the mix knob of the plugin window in Reaper.

 

Back in the days we tried Passeq on various sources and never achieved something special - and it has a too complicated operation for a simple digital plugin.

 

If I recall correctly, not all BBE's are adding harmonics, some of them are more or less simple EQs.