Omnia.9

[Goran Tomas]

I was hoping to have that app on my PC and feed it from my frequency agile mod monitor to compare the competition.

I'd like to mention here that the R.128 loudness metering, as good as it is, should not be taken for granted. Simply put, the loudness that the meter shows does not always correspond to subjective perception. One has to take into account that the meter is just an approximation, a tool designed to ball park the loudness, but should not be trusted blindly.

Both Leif and me noticed that sometimes the meter can show lower loudness, while in fact we felt that source was louder than the one that we compared it with.

So in my opinion, it's better to use your ears to judge the competition, rather than trust the numbers on a meter.


Regards,
Goran Tomas

[FFoti1]

Frank, great to hear! Is this update going to be a download or swapping of the CF card again? I am currently running on 1.03 on two stations now.

MPX Tool will be added to Omnia.11 in a later release. It's always been planned for. We've just released V: 1.1, and more of those tabs are now active. This release added a few more processing tools, refines a few algorithms, and brings more utility functions to life.

-Frank Foti

It's the last card swap.

-Frank Foti

[celar]

Simply put, the loudness that the meter shows does not always correspond to subjective perception. One has to take into account that the meter is just an approximation, a tool designed to ball park the loudness, but should not be trusted blindly.

Definitely.  In particular, we have found that attack & release times can have a noticeable effect on perceived loudness, while having only a negligible effect on the metered loudness.  Many "moving targets" that contribute to the overall perception.

[WNTIRadio]

That's great!  Is the V1.1 card shipping now?

If so I'll make a call to Omnia tomorrow and swap them out on the 11.

As for a comparison from the 11 to the 9, they're a bit apples and oranges.  I will say that the 11 is the box I would recommend more for the non-expert.  It's a lot harder to get into major trouble with the 11 than it is with the 9, just because there are less controls and a two stage control process, with the basic and advanced tabs.  The WB-AGC edge goes to the 11, with it's very smooth window gating.  You really can't hear it working.  The 9, sometimes I can hear AGC action on the WB side.  A window like the 11 would be good, where it doesn't do anything if the programming stays within the limits set.  The addition of a downward expander on the multiband is helpful in the 9, especially with talk or older source material.  The clippers are two different animals altogether, both sound amazing and open even when pushed.

With the tools in V1.1, the 9 and the AirAura to analyze the audio and see exactly what is going on, as well as hearing, Orban has a lot of catching up to do.  The simple G/R meters on the 8600 were state of the art on the 8200. 

I think the 9 should have two levels of control, a more Breakaway style control for the average Joe PD and then the full on every control under the sun (like it is now) for the engineers and processing geeks.

[Goran Tomas]

I will say that the 11 is the box I would recommend more for the non-expert.  It's a lot harder to get into major trouble with the 11 than it is with the 9, just because there are less controls and a two stage control process, with the basic and advanced tabs.

I wouldn't say it's because of the controls (there are probably more controls in the 11 than there were in the 6, and you could very easily get into trouble with the 6). It's because Cornelius' algorithms are so clever and adaptive that they work over a wide range of settings and program material. It's amazing to watch AGCs into 20 dB of gain reduction, but without any artifacts you would associate with deep GR!

I love the 11 for the fact that you can adjust any control and fine tune just that aspect of sound, while everything else stays exactly the same and doesn't need constant re-adjustment. It's a very nice box to work with and has that major market contemporary sound you'd expect from it.

And I agree with you that the 9 is quite complex for non-experts. There's so much in there that most people probably wouldn't understand everything and how to use it. It's more of a box for tinkerer's at the moment and I suggested to Leif that he should have a simpler mode. But I'm not sure that fell on fruitful ground Leif?


Regards,
Goran Tomas

[FFoti1]

That's great!  Is the V1.1 card shipping now?

Yes it is!

-Frank Foti

[satech]

It's because Cornelius' algorithms are so clever and adaptive that they work over a wide range of settings and program material. It's amazing to watch AGCs into 20 dB of gain reduction, but without any artifacts you would associate with deep GR!

CRL was doing that 25 years ago, with their linearized multiband AGC. You can drive 'em up to the eyeballs, and they still sound smooth. The G/R meter on the TVS-3001 goes up to 40 dB!

[cgould]

It's because Cornelius' algorithms are so clever and adaptive that they work over a wide range of settings and program material. It's amazing to watch AGCs into 20 dB of gain reduction, but without any artifacts you would associate with deep GR!

CRL was doing that 25 years ago, with their linearized multiband AGC. You can drive 'em up to the eyeballs, and they still sound smooth. The G/R meter on the TVS-3001 goes up to 40 dB!

Driving Multiband AGC's harder vs. a wideband are two different animals.  When you split audio into multiple bands, it is always easier to drive multiband AGC's harder as each band only has to deal with a small segment of the overall signal.  Wideband has to do everything, and (IMO) has to deal with this wide range gracefully.

The wideband AGC in the 11 is just about as complicated as the entire multiband sections...combined!   It took just as long to develop as the rest of the multiband sections.  This was no trivial achievement!

CRL's (to me, anyway) have always been sort of a one trick pony.  They work OK for certain programs / programming styles, but as a general processor for everything, they fall short.  I never liked the "murky" sound they had....lack of transient detail, etc.  But that's just me.

A CRL driven harder to me always sounded like a CRL driven harder.  Yes, you probably could get 40 dB of gain reduction...but it didn't mean you REALLY could in any practical sense.  It may sound OK that way on some material, but to run them that way as a general rule would be a different discussion all together.

Processing is subjective, and what I don't care for is someone else's pot of gold.

The wideband AGC in the 11 is one that I felt would be the perfect match to my multiband AGC designs.  Much of my multiband AGC concepts pre-date DSP processing by quite a bit.  My challenge back in the analog day was to develop a wideband AGC to go with it.  To build the 11's wideband AGC in analog would require a chassis the size of an 8100, and then some!

The era of powerful DSP's have made my wideband AGC a possibility, and a reality.   Pegging the meter out at 20 dB of GR, and having the audio sound no different than if the AGC were running at 5 dB of GR was the goal here.  All while easily handling dynamic / highly transient material with ease was the icing on the cake.

-C

[satech]

The era of powerful DSP's have made my wideband AGC a possibility, and a reality.   Pegging the meter out at 20 dB of GR, and having the audio sound no different than if the AGC were running at 5 dB of GR was the goal here.  All while easily handling dynamic / highly transient material with ease was the icing on the cake.

If the AGC is fully linearized, as CRL's were, then increasing amounts of gain reduction do not necessarily result in increasingly fast attack and release times -- therefore, when given the same source material, the resulting audio will sound nearly identical regardless if the AGC is driven to -10 dB G/R or -25 dB G/R. The Omnia.9 may do this better than anything before, but it is not a new processing concept. 

Here's a short demo of the CRL TVS-3001 (a 1986 design) being driven up to about -25 dB G/R:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmV63FTTUBY

[cgould]

Ahh!

I'll leave this to Leif to comment on.  Don't know if this methodology is what he is following with the Omnia.9 or not.

The portion of the thread you commented on was specifically mentioning the Omnia.11, NOT the Omnia.9.

Omnia.11 does NOT use linearized time constants anywhere as I generally prefer the sound of time constants in the logarithmic domain. 
To my ear, there is something about that method that fits music like a well fitted leather glove.  Never could get into the sound of linear time constants.

The 11 uses smart algorithms to manipulate these logarithmic time constants on a real time basis to achieve the characteristics that Goran was referring to.

My response to your was to simply state that I am NOT using any of the techniques used in any CRL product for the Omnia.11.
 
-C

The Omnia.9 may do this better than anything before, but it is not a new processing concept. 

Here's a short demo of the CRL TVS-3001 (a 1986 design) being driven up to about -25 dB G/R:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmV63FTTUBY