question for Don...

[witesol]

I've seen you defend the oft slagged psycho acoustic processors, like the BBE. I had one some 20 years ago. From what i understand, these type of things introduce subtle even-harmonic distortions and delays to have a perceived volume increase.

I admit to jumping on the "not ever needed" bandwagon but am open to enlightenment

 

[dboomer]

Well the way you framed the question it looks a lot like the question "Are you still beating your wife?"   There's no way to win. 

"phycho-acoustic blah, blah"  That pretty much comes from the fantasy marketing department.  The "exciter" function in the BBE process is a simple dynamic filter.  Basically it tracks your levels and boosts the treble if you get lower in level. The idea is to make up for the way human ears track dynamics and compensate for it.  Your basic Fletcher-Munson stuff.  I think it does this well when applied to the right problem.  It tends to drive an channel you put it on to a more front spot in the mix without actually increasing the level much at all.  It's also a great way to get a lot more percieved level in a monitor speaker.

Does it add distortion ... yes ... but everything does so what's the question?  I think that BBE's get a bad rap here because all of them in the past but the 800 series need special care when hooked up to a live sound mixer (a fact that too many users ignore).  If you are not careful they work but have very little headroom, so they are easy to clip ... now you've got distortion.  Otherwise, nah they dont have a problem with distortion any more than anything else.  

Delays?  All filters create delays.  So the regular EQs on your mixer shift the timing of some frequencies and not others too.  That's "phase shift" and it's basically in all tone controls.  Nothing new here.

 

Next problem is that almost everyone uses way too much of the process.  It's almost like if you can hear it and identify it you are using too much.  I never push the process knob past 1 o'clock ... never.

The bass control is just a simple bass boost, like any other boost so there you go.  Appearently the bypass function isnt a good way to compare what you've done with the processing.  Not a big problem, I don't switch it in and out during shows so I can work around it (although they should fix it).

[witesol]

i wasnt framing it in any way, i truly wanted to know. I deem you smarter than me by far! 

[Dookietwo]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LosL-gdHLpk

EDIT:  I wanted to add something. I noticed when I saw this awhile back. When he set the levels to 8 and 8 as an example the the high end never became stable. The highs seems to wabble up in down a DB or so. Is this the processing? It doesn't seem to effect the phase but I bet with a steady tone you'd here the volume change. Odd.

Dookietwo