Probelm with K-weighting in BS1770

[tpad]

Orban has for his own use in the Optimod. You can get a sampling of it by downloading his -free- software loudness meter from his website. It includes CBS, BS-1770, etc. I don't know if gating ever made its way in this implementation of '1770.

[UnderTow]

Originally Posted by tpad

Undertow. I think YOU missed the point. FM broadcasters use processing - period. Whether it is Orban's or some other brand, they all do similar things to the signal. An undesired side effect of ANY of the popular brands is that hypercompressed rock music sounds pretty dreadful after it has been run through them. Rather than nitpick about Orban's alleged bias, you should be thanking him for identifying the problem cause. He originally published that observation on rec.pro.audio in the 90's, so it is rather dated material. Similar degradation occurs when you try and encode hypercompressed material with AAC, MP3, etc. So the finger points back to the hypercompressed material, not the audio processing.

No I am not missing the point. If the master sounds fine in the studio with no further processing, the problem is the radio processing or lossy data encoding. Not that I favour the loudness war but in the studio you can carefully shape the signal while monitoring with a high quality monitoring chain in a room with good acoustics so you know exactly what compromises you are making between loudness and sonic fidelity. Radio processors (Omnia, Optimod's, Aphex 2020's or whatever) can not do that. You set them and forget about it with all the consequences that that entails.

Of course it is up to the clients to set up their radio processors accordingly but the point here is that Mr Orban didn't write a paper directed at his clients warning them and educating them on the dangers of over-using his products in the current world with the current crop of very loud masters. (Like it or not, it is a reality and let's not forget that the clients signed off on those over-loud masters). He wrote a paper blaming the mastering and seemingly washing his hands of the blame of what his (and other's) processing is doing to masters that were (mostly) carefully crafted to make maximum usage of the PCM audio format in a way that satisfies the wishes of the artists. I would have been more impressed if he educated both camps. Both his clients and the mastering engineers.

Incidentally, FM Optimods don't use mutiband clipping. That's why I suggested you do a little more research on the art of broadcast processing before trying to discuss here.

You can verify the literature and documentation yourself. Optimod's have multi-band clippers. Look it up: ftp://ftp.orban.com/8600/8600FM/Documentation/

Not only is there multi-band clipping, depending on the mode you use, there is a separate bass and HF clipper following the multi-band clipper and a final clipper after that. Three layers of clipping for maximum perceived volume.

That is all good and well, after all that is what the clients want, but Mr Orban could be educating his clients at the same time rather than just pointing the finger elsewhere. Hence my comments of bias.

Alistair

[tpad]

Now that you've finished your rant, why not get back on-topic, which is not discussing FM radio processing?

[Fredo]

Radio processors (Orban, Omnia, ...) are meant to create "a sound signature".
However, they are being used for only one purpose: being the loudest radiostation on the dial, regardless of the sound quality consequences that comes with it.


Fredo
Temple Of Tune
Belgium