BBE Sonic Maximizer

I have also been through the BBE back in the later 90's when I was playing music that was about 2 shades from DeathMetal. This was also around the time that I let my 5150 go for a Laney (one of the Toni Iommi ones) and later chose a Boss Metal Zone for my gain. I was also using a Rocktron ProQ in that time. As the only guitarist (at first) it did seem to sound good when I bought it however it only took about 1.5 shows and a video of a show to tell me I was way off from where i wanted to be.

Some guys I know swear by using the sonic max stomp box into the front of their tube amps though. what do you guys think of that application?
 
Apparently, hating the BBE (and more importantly, getting others to hate it too) is now the cool thing to do. I still stand by my assertion that the product is extremely useful in the correct application (with appropriate source material and reproduction system). That video does demonstrate that the bypass mode is flawed. The rest of his "analysis" is meaningless. Totally. The resulting signal must be judged by a human ear with real-world source material, not a noise generator and an o-scope. Anyone who wants to know what it really does can research the subject. Anyone who wants to judge its effect in their intended application can do so for themselves. They shouldn't listen to anyone making global generalizations about how horrible or amazing it is. And I see no way of replicating it with existing blocks in the Axe FX. The units are cheap on ebay. Try one. If you like it, use it. If you don't, sell it for what you paid for it.
 
I used to run a BBE in the loop of some of my amps. It runs more subtle there and behaves much like a parametric EQ. So, as a matter of fact, on the Axe FX, I place a PEQ after the amp block with very slight boosting of the frequency bands to bring out whatever it is in the amp you want to hear more of.

Steve

Hello all. Since I've acquired my AFX, I have slowly been selling off my rack gear that isn't of use to me any longer. One item I have in my rack that I have used in my FX loop is a BBE SM. Now, I'm not exactly sure how they worked, but it did seem to help my tone sound better somehow. I believe that it's a frequency dependent delay that tries to obtain a better phase relationship of the sounds coming out of the speaker. Thats my understanding. As long as you didn't go crazy with the process knob, I felt it tightened things up, especially on some guitar amps that tend to have a lot of low-mids - like Mesa Dual Recs.

My question is, since I'd like to lighten my gear load, does the AFX have an effect block that could be used to simulate a BBE in the event that I would ever want to use it to experiment with my sound? Since many of you have a much better understanding of frequency and tone than I, I'm sure someone can maybe give me a good explanation on how what exactly a BBE is doing and how it may be acquired in a AFX. Thanks!
 
Or, another option on some amps is to run the block with the SAT on and open the "bright" control a bit to let the amp breaths. It will behave much the same way.
 
Back in the day I used to put one on the 2bus master fader in the studio. When I stopped doing that I put it in guitar rack. That lasted two or three gigs. Never BBE again.
 
I used to have one in my triaxis rig... used to add a little more low end, worked great. It has it's purpose.
 
Apparently, hating the BBE (and more importantly, getting others to hate it too) is now the cool thing to do.
No... they've been despised pretty much ever since the 80s were over, at least for guitar rigs. Mostly because there are better ways to get the same effect if you need it; and most of the time you don't. Sorry but, as a guitar processor, they suck. Get a parametric EQ, compressor, tube screamer, etc, if you are looking for a new piece of gear to spice things up. BBEs belong on eBay or in PA rigs, which is what they were designed for, IIRC.
 
I fault BBE as a company for actively marketing this to guitar players.
For a PA, sure, rack it up.

...and just to clarify to anyone unsure about what it does, it's a phase alignment tool, correcting the various frequencies of your tone to align the initial peaks. This keeps the highs from reaching the listener "before" (in terms of amplitude, as the speed of sound is a vacuum constant) the lows.
I'm sure there's a better technical description that could be given, but the point is it's not an EQ, compressor, etc.
 
No... they've been despised pretty much ever since the 80s were over, at least for guitar rigs. Mostly because there are better ways to get the same effect if you need it; and most of the time you don't. Sorry but, as a guitar processor, they suck. Get a parametric EQ, compressor, tube screamer, etc, if you are looking for a new piece of gear to spice things up. BBEs belong on eBay or in PA rigs, which is what they were designed for, IIRC.

Exactly. I hate it because it sucks donkey balls. I have never been cool nor cared what others think is cool. Geeks are chic.
 
I fault BBE as a company for actively marketing this to guitar players.
For a PA, sure, rack it up.

...and just to clarify to anyone unsure about what it does, it's a phase alignment tool, correcting the various frequencies of your tone to align the initial peaks. This keeps the highs from reaching the listener "before" (in terms of amplitude, as the speed of sound is a vacuum constant) the lows.
I'm sure there's a better technical description that could be given, but the point is it's not an EQ, compressor, etc.



And to clarify even further, the process and countour knob at their neutral settings are anything but, bypassing the unit while set to "neutral" is NOT an effective ab comparison. It's to trick you into hearing huge changes at false " min" settings.

Now as for the phase alignment, the math they used is not exact, it's an average found to be consistent. Yuck.

Scope your signal and be disgusted.phase distortion etc... Again yuck.

Oh and I'm still uncool. ;)
 
Apparently, hating the BBE (and more importantly, getting others to hate it too) is now the cool thing to do. I still stand by my assertion that the product is extremely useful in the correct application (with appropriate source material and reproduction system). That video does demonstrate that the bypass mode is flawed. The rest of his "analysis" is meaningless. Totally. The resulting signal must be judged by a human ear with real-world source material, not a noise generator and an o-scope. Anyone who wants to know what it really does can research the subject. Anyone who wants to judge its effect in their intended application can do so for themselves. They shouldn't listen to anyone making global generalizations about how horrible or amazing it is. And I see no way of replicating it with existing blocks in the Axe FX. The units are cheap on ebay. Try one. If you like it, use it. If you don't, sell it for what you paid for it.

Based on:

"The resulting signal must be judged by a human ear with real-world source material, not a noise generator and an o-scope."

You and I could never, EVER see eye to eye (ear to ear) on anything audio related, period.

I would never trust the human ear and subjectivity over irrefutable data, EVER.
 
BBEs belong on eBay or in PA rigs, which is what they were designed for, IIRC.

I have a BBE in our PA rig and it works like a charm aligning the various frequency ranges, thus tightening the sound of the PA.

To be honest guys, no self-respecting PA/soundman - at least those that have any idea of what they are doing - would ever have one in their rig either!! The pro's wouldn't be seen dead with one... because the unit masks the underlying problem with a PA, which is that it isn't configured correctly.

I would run/use auto-RTA and auto-FBE/FBS (FeedBack Eliminators/Suppressors) on my PA BEFORE I'd install a BBE in my PA.. and I don't ever use those artifacts. They do nothing that can't be corrected with a rig that is setup correctly and has a couple of 31-band EQ's available for monitor mix.
YMMV
 
Based on:

"The resulting signal must be judged by a human ear with real-world source material, not a noise generator and an o-scope."

You and I could never, EVER see eye to eye (ear to ear) on anything audio related, period.

I would never trust the human ear and subjectivity over irrefutable data, EVER.

This is the only point I think I have to disagree with you on.
The whole point for me is to make my ears happy. If I have to make an impulse of a cigarbox guitar to do it, and it works, so be it, even if every other pair of human ears hates it.
My philosophy is something along the lines of "F them. This is for me."

The BBE still sucks tho.

sOc9 makes a great point about good systems not needing them either, but I would argue that a lot of PAs are put in place by untrained and unconcerned individuals... blah blah, the end result is they sound like shit. If the SMs can mask that to produce an acceptable live sound, so be it. I'm not saying that's the "right" way to do it, or that it works in all of those cases. I'm just saying you go to war with what you've got, not what you wish you had.
 
This is the only point I think I have to disagree with you on.
The whole point for me is to make my ears happy. If I have to make an impulse of a cigarbox guitar to do it, and it works, so be it, even if every other pair of human ears hates it.
My philosophy is something along the lines of "F them. This is for me."

The BBE still sucks tho.

sOc9 makes a great point about good systems not needing them either, but I would argue that a lot of PAs are put in place by untrained and unconcerned individuals... blah blah, the end result is they sound like shit. If the SMs can mask that to produce an acceptable live sound, so be it. I'm not saying that's the "right" way to do it, or that it works in all of those cases. I'm just saying you go to war with what you've got, not what you wish you had.

Id like to argue that guitar modeling then would still be stuck at POD 1.0, but to each their own truly, at least we agree it doesnt add anything positive.

Im a numbers and proven science kind of guy for better or for worse. Im cool with that albeit still uncool. ;)
 
My understanding of the original Sonic Maximizer was that it was meant to time-align high and low frequency content in dual driver systems where the high and low driver voice coils were not typically aligned along a vertical axis [incidentally the JBL 4200 Series monitors were designed with the bulbous bottom front to eliminate this exact issue].

It did this by introducing a tiny delay in high frequency content. What it was actually doing, I do not know, but that's how it was marketed at the time it was introduced.
 
I should add that the BBE Sonic Maximizer wouldn't make much sense AT ALL outside of that specific use case scenario because of the phase issues it would introduce -- i.e. guitar cabs only have one driver.
 
Back
Top Bottom