BBE Sonic Maximizer or similar

[paguitarist]

Hey once again I hope one of you can help me out. I've been hearing alot of good things lately about the BBE Sonic Maximizer. I would like to build a pedal to get that clear sound or maybe even a clone. Does anyone have schematics or PCB layouts?

Thank you

[O]

The BBE is a digital pedal, so without the proprietary chips, it's pretty much impossible to clone it. There is a frequency enhancer called the BB&E by STM that is supposed to work somewhat like the BBE.

BB&E

[runmikeyrun]

dang it! ANOTHER project to add to the list!!   

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

http://www.bbesound.com/technologies/BBE_HDS/  The last paragraph there says what it is supposed to do.
The original unit was analog & thus doable. Wasn't there an Electronic Musician DIY version that got in trouble with the lawyers?

[qwixzh]

the proprietary chip , NJM2150A, is made by JRC. a note on the datasheets says a license must be secured from BBE before anyone can buy this chip from them.

So, DIYing this one isnt feasible... as of now.

[Mark Hammer]

There are actually quite a few chips with the BBE "process" built into them, many oriented at personal listening devices.  How many require BBE approval before purchase I couldn't tell you.  There may be the option for digital control (not unlike those 5-band EQ chips that let you use push buttons to adjust boost and cut) but I don't think the process itself is done digitally, or at least needs to be done digitally.  Certainly the earliest BBE products were analog through and through.

The fundamental feature/goal of the circuit is to use "group delay" to align the phase of the harmonic content with the fundamentals it is supposed to be coherent with.  Imagine you were watching a video and there was an arbitrary point between the top and bottom of the screen where all the content above that arbitrary point was shifted in time by 10msec.  Whenever the camera had the actors' faces in reasonable close-up you would see their eye movements ever so slightly later than their mouth movements.  Because we judge facial expression and emotional intensity by the simultaneous configuration of mouth, eys, brow, cheeks, etc., we'd be hampered in "feeling" the emotion the actors are attempting to portray.  A similar sort of delay happens whenever we use multiple speaker drivers that have different acceleration times, and especially when those multiple drivers use a passive crossover network with largish caps that introduce additional "phase coherence" gaps between the drivers.  The BBE process attempts to repair that situation by delaying the high end en masse so that it reaches your ears in synchrony with the low end.

Paul,
There was the Harmonic Sweetener project that appeared in EM long ago which mimicked an Aphex Aural Exciter, but I can't recall any legal issues stemming from that, nor do I recall a BBE-like project ever appearing the mag.  Not that I've seen every issue of EM since the beginning, mind you.

[modsquad]

That brings up a question I had.  I have an Aural Exciter and don't use it.  Where in the chain would I get the most bang for the buck.  I found that it either was too much or too sterile sounding

[Mark Hammer]

That brings up a question I had.  I have an Aural Exciter and don't use it.  Where in the chain would I get the most bang for the buck.  I found that it either was too much or too sterile sounding

You certainly DON'T want to use it after anything that adds excessive harmonic content (e.g., distortion) or takes it away (e..g., wah or autowah).  Those babies WANT clean content that has as close to acoustic-like bandwidth as possible, and also demand amps and speakers that are capable of delivering acoustic-like quality.

[modsquad]

You know that's what I found.  That's why it sits in the rack unhooked and useless.  So when do you use the darn thing.  Clean sounds with crappy amp and speakers?

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

Mark H, you are of course entirely right. I was indeed confusing it with the Aphex.
I must say, I really don't get this sonic temporal alignment stuff.
Though, mathematically, it is true that (as the mathematicians would say) "there exists" a phase transform that would produce a maximum peak air displacement at teh beginning of a note. Though I would have thought that reconstructing it would require some heroic assumptions,  to do it quickly in real time.

[Mark Hammer]

You know that's what I found.  That's why it sits in the rack unhooked and useless.  So when do you use the darn thing.  Clean sounds with crappy amp and speakers?

The first use I heard for the Aphex was mic'd acoustic guitars and Steely Dan-like percussion in the late 70's.  You really need to have lots of the "right kind" of harmonic content to start with.  They sound great if you're strumming a SC-equipped guitar (with stock, rather than hot pickups) into a mixing board or something like a Twin, and sound like they don't work if you're feeding them with a Les Paul into high gain amp with sluggish 12" speakers.  That's probably the main reason why almost every attempt to market a floor pedal that does the exciter thing has never really taken off.  Aphex has a stompbox version now, but my guess is they are relying on name recognition to assist sales of that pedal.  Just about every other similar type of pedal I've seen by Boss, DOD, et al, is languishing somewhere in a music store or 2nd hand store.

[modsquad]

Anybody want to buy one

[Meanderthal]

 Which one? 

I love the BBE, those are great for bass. I just retired the remains of my rack recently, because that was the only thing rackmounted I was still using, and the stuff I learned here and built ( THANK YOU ALL!!!), has me to the point of sounding good without it...

Soooo... eventually I must build the Bb&e. If it's anything like the BBE, it will be... an improvement to... what already sounds good to me. Some might say why fix it if it ain't broke, but I do prefer sound with one over without one. Just not in a rack.

Oh, and it definitely sounds best(for me) at the end of the effects chain. It's a very clean effect. It's not an Aphex, works in a completely different way that sometimes gets described as having the same function. From what I know about an exciter, I agree completely with Mark! I'd put it first in line.

I have no idea what it would sound like with an exciter at the beginning, and a BBE at the end of an effects chain, but I have a hunch it would be overkill. But I really don't know.

And I already have 2- one old mono one(411 instrument version) and one stereo for the PA(which I do use).  The pedal is another $100.00, at this point I'd rather just build one.

[modsquad]

I may hook it up again and try it in front of the chain.  Had it last and was overkill.  I have the stereo version with "Big Bottom" control (Sounds like a Spinal Tap song).

[runmikeyrun]

i bought a half-rack sized free standing unit with stereo RCA ins/outs at a GC sale in about 2000, it's been hooked to my stereo ever since then, it's powered on 24/7.  Pretty reliable.  I had a not-so-good BBE preamp that was only usable because it had the bbe process section on it.  I was thinking of trying mine in the effects loop of my tube amp.