Members GtrGeorge! Posted August 24, 2009 Members Share Posted August 24, 2009 To me, they can be used subtlety and can help a little..but far to many people expect alot out of them...but truthfully, to 99percent of listeners and 99percent of players could get similar results with proper EQ..which is free, already om your gear usually, and if it isnt..you never bought a good amp in the first place. In the studio BBEs Sonic maximizer can have a tiny role..but its pretty rare. hey for 79 bucks..its not the biggest mistake you could make,ya know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members petejt Posted August 24, 2009 Members Share Posted August 24, 2009 Read my signature if you want to know about the Sonic Maximiser. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rotebass Posted August 26, 2009 Members Share Posted August 26, 2009 A BBE sonic maximiser belongs in the garbage, along with this circa 2007 thread... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members MTM105 Posted September 17, 2009 Members Share Posted September 17, 2009 bump. morbidly fascinated. I am a semi-proud, but confused owner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted September 17, 2009 Members Share Posted September 17, 2009 BBE's are not designed for guitars or guitar amps. They were designed for live PA applications only. You can buy them on Ebay all day long for $20 a pop. people are practically giving them away because they know they suck. It boosts the lows and highs to make the crappy midrangey PA with small speakers sound bigger than it actually is. How well that works is about as good as many novel ideas that have died along the wayside including a Mole Bass booster. If you had a decent setup to begin with you wouldnt need the enhancement. If you use it on a crappy system, then you have a bigger crappy sounding system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members cmw Posted September 17, 2009 Members Share Posted September 17, 2009 I bought a used one on ebay after I tried the VST plugin demo long ago. I had it out of my system for a long time, actually, I used it with my stereo (which sounded awesome). Now that I've got my racks finished, I've got it back in my rig, on the "wet" side, with very subtle settings. But I'm using two power amps, and the "dry" side is completely unaffected, so I'm getting a blending of the two. This seemed like a fair and judicious use to me. It's not coloring my whole tone, just a slice of it. Then again, I'm a bedroom guy ... For $79 you could do worse, and like it said ... if you don't like it in your rig, hook it up to your stereo and it will sound awesome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rotebass Posted September 17, 2009 Members Share Posted September 17, 2009 No, it won't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 3shiftgtr Posted September 23, 2009 Members Share Posted September 23, 2009 bought one, no likey, sold it.... But Satriani uses one as a staple....Vai as well...there are others. I hear that if you are in the studio, and you run your signal into a load box, they are essential. So somebody knows something I don't. Recognize, haters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rotebass Posted September 25, 2009 Members Share Posted September 25, 2009 Originally Posted by 3shiftgtr bought one, no likey, sold it....But Satriani uses one as a staple....Vai as well...there are others. I hear that if you are in the studio, and you run your signal into a load box, they are essential. So somebody knows something I don't. Recognize, haters. I've never once heard that... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members strings&things Posted September 25, 2009 Members Share Posted September 25, 2009 it samples the input, and then applies the MAX algorithm, and then routes that directly to the output .... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jimosity Posted October 24, 2009 Members Share Posted October 24, 2009 The only good that a BBE Sonic Maximizer can do that I've found is if you use it in a PA and run your SUBS only thru it (assuming you have a cheap PA) to allow you to get a little more oomph from your otherwise lower end PA... It's already been discussed about their affect on guitar tone - it should NOT be used on guitar...but for those with a lesser ear will often hear an "improvement" in what they think is an awesome tone - they'll learn the hard way or end up quitting before long - don't worry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members NUSound Posted October 24, 2009 Members Share Posted October 24, 2009 Originally Posted by jimosity The only good that a BBE Sonic Maximizer can do that I've found is if you use it in a PA and run your SUBS only thru it (assuming you have a cheap PA) to allow you to get a little more oomph from your otherwise lower end PA... There is nothing a maximizer does to PA sound that can't be done with a 31-Band EQ. No PA should ever include one on output.As for guitar (or even vocals): A maximizer changes sound, as does every other effects unit. Used as an effect, it can be used artistically. Under no circumstance however, should you be running 100% maximizer 100% of the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members santar Posted October 29, 2009 Members Share Posted October 29, 2009 hm... interesting Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members MrCompton Posted November 4, 2009 Members Share Posted November 4, 2009 BBE's can't fix a crappy amp tone. Get a 31 or 15 band eq and make it "teh brootz." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members funktional Posted September 6, 2010 Members Share Posted September 6, 2010 What a joke! For all you guitar-slinging metal-thrashing folk, that's right, the Sonic Maximizer WASNT MADE FOR YOU. For the rest of the world, the sonic maximizer can be a really useful tool that does things that NO OTHER outboard device will do. You CAN NOT recreate the sound of it just with an EQ. In contrast, depending on which EQ you use, you're going to throw your phase all over the place!. If you use a maximizer directly after your EQ, then you can correct the damage that you do to the phase and GET RID OF SOME OF THAT MIDRANGE HARMONIC DISTORTION. It's not a loudness button. It's not an amplifier. If you use it like that, then YES, it will sound terrible. Don't use it on distorion. Don't use it on guitar. Don't use it on bass. Go ahead, I dare any one of you to throw a sonic maximizer on your drums bus and tell me that it doesn't make the toms and the kick SING. Buncha freakin' knobbly curmudgeony 60s engineers, the lot of ya. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SomeoneYouKnew Posted September 6, 2010 Members Share Posted September 6, 2010 Originally Posted by funktional *rant* Interesting choice of thread to put your first post in. It was started over three years ago, and has been dormant for ten months. Just out of curiosity, what was your username on your original HC account. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted September 6, 2010 Share Posted September 6, 2010 No.. I looked at his account. He just registered today, and is using a non-proxy IP address that is not, and has never been used by any other member.In other words, he looks legit to me. Sometimes people find old threads via a Google search, or while merely browsing around the site. Occasionally one of those posts will be enough to make them drop out of "lurker mode" and register so they can reply to it - even if it's a two or three year old thread... It happens a lot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SomeoneYouKnew Posted September 6, 2010 Members Share Posted September 6, 2010 Thanks Phil! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted September 6, 2010 Members Share Posted September 6, 2010 Phil speaks truth. Not that I'm surprised, of course Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Tubefox Posted September 8, 2010 Members Share Posted September 8, 2010 PROTIP: Don't buy the $79 sonic maximizer pedal. A guy I know has one of the expensive, rackmount ones. Try one of these, and run it into your effects loop. It sounds amazing. Also it is meant for us thrash metal people - I screwed with the abovementioned sonic maximizer for about thirty seconds and got a totally insane tone. I was using a metal zone, and it basically stuck all the bass back in the metal zone had sucked out. Of course, then I was so happy it didn't sound like trebley crap that I cranked the gain way too high and had to rerecord it later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Rezrover Posted September 8, 2010 Members Share Posted September 8, 2010 Kinda funny since BBE advertises the Sonic Maximizers in Guitar Magazines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members StratGuy22 Posted September 8, 2010 Members Share Posted September 8, 2010 I have one, it has balanced inputs and outputs. It gathers dust in the corner next to a behringer "noise reducer" which reduced a bunch of noise, when I took it out of my rig and placed it in the corner, to collect dust. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Xenoanthropus Posted September 10, 2010 Members Share Posted September 10, 2010 The only time I ever found a sonic maximizer to be useful (except for straightening a short sofa leg) is in a PA, used to compensate for the room it's playing in. When we play out, I have a little 4-space rack with the BBE 482i, a power conditioner, and some useless junk with blinky lights. We run all the stuff to our mixer, through the BBE, and into the house mixer. all our tones sound fine in regular venues with good acoustics, but sometimes we need a little more oomph or a little less bite, depending on how the room itself is. for everything else, I find it to be somewhat less than useless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Xenoanthropus Posted September 11, 2010 Members Share Posted September 11, 2010 double post Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members TuMadre Posted October 7, 2010 Members Share Posted October 7, 2010 A 3 year old thread with only 3 pages. I use a BBE SM in my wireless in-ears rack. Works like a charm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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