so, who's using exciters, what exciters are you using and on what?
now, I know alot of people warn of the destructive potential of BBE's sonic maximizer and insist it does nothing but harm.....but I swear, just a slight touch of it on the master bus...say even .5 on the low and high dials, sounds great.
other than that, I've been using a touch of Waves Vintage Exciter with the "male up close" preset on vocals and have been pleased with the results.
Exciter is the generic term for a the whole class of plugins from tube and tape emulators to console emulators, saturation plugins, and even distortion plugins.
I use them all in just about every project on different tracks.
For example, on Hurricane I used Satson on almost every track. I used a shared Stripbus console to glue together the drum and bass tracks and to overdrive them. I used the exciter in iZotope Nectar on all the vocals to add tape saturation / warmth. I used RP-Distort to get that nasty distorted guitar sound. And I used iZotope Ozone 5's Exciter's 'Invisible Lift' tape saturation preset on the whole track because everything just sounded better with that little bit of exciting.
hmmmm.....okay then, I guess I mean harmonic exciters then or whatever type of exciter you would consider Wave's Vintage Exciter or BBE's Sonic Maximizer.......exciters like those.
They are all harmonic excites. Grab the Ozone 5 Advanced demo and play around with the exciter section. Each type (tape, tube, triode, etc.) just add different harmonics (even, odd, etc.) in different proportions.
ok....does anybody use BBE's Sonic Maximizer or Waves's Vintage Exciter then?
thoughts on those or exciters than have similar effect?
I may use an eq like clariphonic for the roof but that's it.
Years ago when I started back in the analog days I used a BBE on the mixbus and a well known mastering engineer gave me the business. He said I have the full mix in front of me, just make brighter the elements that need to be brighter.
Plus BBE/Aphex seems to sound better at the end of a session but when you listen to it with fresh ears you hear the damage. I can't imagine a digital version not sounding terrible if not used really lightly.
It wouldn't be surprising to me that you can do some serious damage with any exciter, as essentially what it's doing is mixing some degree of distortion back into your mix. But the right amount can really make a mix feel warmer and more glued together. Why do you think people rave about things like Waves MPX Master Tape, PSP Vintage Warmer 2, etc...
I haven't used the Waves Vintage Exciter or BBE exciter, but I'd venture to guess they're similar to the Ozone exciter and I guess if you A/B with fresh ears just do what sounds better to you... you're the artist On some tracks I use the Ozone excite (like Hurricane) because the track is supposed to have "that" sound. On some tracks (like Small), I don't because they are supposed to sound cleaner.
The BBE Max. though is not a harmonic exciter, however the way it adjusts/balances low and high phase relationships it can perceptively sound like an "exciter". It is a useful tool nevertheless!
Oddly though, and I have posted about this once before, the BBE harmonic exciter doesn't even generate harmonics so I'm not too sure about that one.
The BBE Sonic Maximizer and the Aphex Aural Exciter are two completely different units, different concepts, different circuits.
They really couldn't have less to do with each other. The Aphex concept adds additional high frequency harmonics. The BBE is like a crossover with a delay on one side.
No relationship whatsoever. The Aphex concept has been used on thousands of records that you have heard. The BBE has not, although that does not mean it can't be used creatively.
i use waves aphex and waves mpx all the time. it really gives that analog type of smoothness to your tracks instead everything sound so sharp and high end. i use it on vocals, guitars, piano's, drums, bass, master bus, group tracks. damn near where i can. i just keep it light on each path and it gives that warming glue that just helps the tracks sound like they blend a lil better. he's using the hardware unit though which im sure sounds a lot better than the vst and can probably be pushed harder giving it a warmer feel instead of a harsh feel like the plugins do.
Exciter is the generic term for a the whole class of plugins from tube and tape emulators to console emulators, saturation plugins, and even distortion plugins.
I use them all in just about every project on different tracks.
For example, on Hurricane I used Satson on almost every track. I used a shared Stripbus console to glue together the drum and bass tracks and to overdrive them. I used the exciter in iZotope Nectar on all the vocals to add tape saturation / warmth. I used RP-Distort to get that nasty distorted guitar sound. And I used iZotope Ozone 5's Exciter's 'Invisible Lift' tape saturation preset on the whole track because everything just sounded better with that little bit of exciting.
I disagree saturation plugins don't really qualify as exciters in practice. Most of those are modelled on the distortion produced by tape machines and consoles which is not what an exciter was generaly used for. An exciter short for Aural Exciter is a specific hardware device that resynthesizes upper harmonics to give some sparkle to dark sounds. Aphex make the hardware versions but there are several plug in emulations like the one in Logic.
I like a splash of the BBE sonic maximizer on the bus also. Currently, I'm pairing that with PSP Vintage Warmer and Voxengo Varisaturator, moderate amounts with each.
Because exciters bring back some life in the recorded tracks they're addictive. They should be used as a very effective drug which can kill the patient.
So let's say you have a recorded element that sounds a little dull. There is SOME high frequency content there, but not as much as you would like. Is it better, in general, to reach first for an exciter, or an EQ to add a high shelf boost? Or maybe a little dab of both?
I tend to towards exciters for the low end (a la Rbass) than high end. It's pretty rare that I feel the need for an exciter for the top end, though occasionally they work out. I guess that in a hip hop context, an especially poorly-recorded vocal might need some love, though considering the abundance of bad-sounding cheap condensers, when the top end ain't right, it's usually cuz there's waaay too much (or that it's too hard sounding). Other than that, since it's mostly gonna be samples or artificially-created sounds (drum machines, synths, et al), the top is usually pretty together, or at least, doesn't need much more than a touch of EQ.
For non-hip hop stuff, where the elements are generated by real live instruments, I rarely have any issues. So rarely, in fact, that I can't remember the last time I fired an exciter up for such a correction.
Low end exciters are a very different story. I find a place for one in just about every mix, whether it's sample-based hip hop or totally-live rock music. Floor toms, bass guitars, even guitars. There's usually something where the EQ or compression ain't doing the job to my satisfaction, and Rbass can really do the trick nicely.
True... you could also use that trick with a single-band exciter. Instead of using it as an insert, as you might the Alloy or Ozone 5 Advanced exciter, you could take any of the previously mentioned exciters and put it on an FX channel and use a send to it. Then use an EQ plugin either before or after the exciter (see which works better with your exciter of choice) and filter out the lows and just excite the highs... then blend it back in.
One other nice way to end upper end sheen is to use a nice algorithmic reverb just on the high end in a similar manner... but most reverbs allow you to control the low and high content so you typically don't need a filter/EQ, you could just turn down the low and turn up the high and blend in just a little so it's so subtle that your listener doesn't hear "reverb" but instead it just feels like a nice sheen.
I used that trick (but with enough reverb to be noticeable) on the female vocals of Small. This track couldn't be farther from rap/hip-hop (it's more downtempo/electronica), but it illustrates the concept.
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On some tracks I use the Ozone excite (like Hurricane) because the track is supposed to have "that" sound. On some tracks (like 
