Manual?

I’m really liking BBM, but I wouldn’t mind a bit of guidance with what I’m doing… any chance of a manual? Or some presets?

+1

even some hints in this forum as to what the dials do would be cool.

fab

We’re in the midst of Mac beta frenzy at the moment, but manuals are on the “to-do” list immediately following.

In the meantime, picture the big grid in the middle as an X-Y graph where the X axis is the incoming voltage/signal and the Y axis is the outgoing voltage/signal. You are changing the response curve of an amplifier by tweaking the knobs…and the graph is showing you what the transfer curve looks like. When you change a control, you will be changing both positive and negative swings of the voltage curve…UNLESS you adjust the asymmetry controls to make it adjust the Positive more than Negative or vice versa.

There are no real rules to using BBM…you just adjust knobs until it sounds the way you want it to. I’ll point out that nice symmetrical graphs will tend to sound like a transistor amp (generating odd-order distortion), while asymmetrical graphs will sound more tube-like (generating even and odd order distortion).

Also, less is more…you don’t necessarily have to wrench the BBM controls all over the map to get usable results…small adjustments can yield very subtle, very nice results.

Hope this helps a bit…

Scott

Not wanting to appear to disagree with my esteemed colleague, but more is also more :slight_smile: - Take a heavy hand to the gain, mod a & mod b knobs to earn major rock’n’roll points. The beauty of BBM is the sound so very flexible, but you need to experiment with all the knobs on each sound source. By experiment, I mean just start pushing them around, hear what characters you’re getting from your source material, tweak from there. I use BBM a lot, and I still find it hard to come up with rules-of-thumb when I first add it to my signal chain, I fool with the knobs to hear what I’m getting, and adjust to suit.

Watch out for the gain…it has a seriously high upper limit. A limiter on the master buss would probably be a good idea.

Scott

Hi,

Is BBM able to more or less emulate channel amplifier saturation of some well known analog consoles like McDSP AC1 does ?

If yes, could you please kindly release some presets approximating those analog mixing systems that we could use as a start point for any wise or wild experimentation ?

Without saying that it would hugely help one to quickly decide to purchase BBM if it could really help making DAW’s mix buss sounding a little bit less sterile with a little bit more of that mojo thing :slight_smile:

Thanks a billion times
B

Since I have neither the McDSP AC1 (cool plugin, btw) nor loads of really posh gear like Neve or SSL, I can’t create something to emulate it. If I can find someone I trust to create presets that are sufficiently close, then I’d be happy to package those as presets…but until then, you’re left actually using your ears and making it sound the way YOU want it to sound…not the way someone else says it ought to sound.

Scott

Thanks,

Really appreciate your reply.

As I am only a musician, my point with presets is to get the most relevant starting point for further experimentation. Especially when it has to be subtil like Mix Buss non-linearities emulation with complex audio material (mixes) as opposed to a much more easier single channel track scenario that could be freely processed with whatever amount of saturation/distortion is needed.

I guess we’ll have to wait patiently for the manual, do you have any idea when it will be available ?

Thanks again.
B

ps : the Major Tom AU evaluation copy archive (.zip) seems to be corrupted when trying to expand it using Unarchiver v1.6.1 on Mac Pro 8x2.8 GHz running Leopard 10.5.2 (but fine with integrated OSX BOMArchiveHelper expander) while all other Stillwell AU archives are ok with Unarchiver, are you aware of it ?

Yes, we’re aware. I’m pretty sure it’s an issue with Stuffit or other archiver…if you use the native built-in “Uncompress” in OS X, it’s fine. The archive was created with the native “Compress” option in OS X.

Scott

OK,

Sorry to ask it again but do you have any idea when BBM manual should be ready ? Just to know approximatively when to come back again to check out…

Thanks very much.
B

ps : and thanks a lot in advance not to forget about BBM presets (if doable, of course…)

Sorry, but I don’t have a fixed answer for you. I’ll make a wild guess and say two months, but it could be sooner.

Could be longer, too, but I don’t think so.

Scott

Thanks a lot for all your replies.

Will come back regularly to check…

Well, that would be probably my very last question for this topic : in the meantime could you please post a snapshot or two of what could be a subtil and a little more pronounced starting point for a Mix Buss setting ? That would be super sweet…

Good Cheer ! :slight_smile:

Regards,

B

So you know your generous demo policy is not being abused here (after your excellent efforts in solving the earlier graphic problems), I am just now getting to some projects that will allow an in-depth use of the abilities of your line of plugs. As BBM is the least like anything I own, it is getting the first real day in the spotlight today.

So far, looks (sounds) to be a real winner, a very nice implementation that I am pretty sure will be a purchase soon. Am enjoying the extremes available with your design…will probably come to be a real ‘desert island’ sweetener for my toolbox and good seller for you guys based on what I have teased out of it so far. :wink:

:slight_smile:

Thanks, man. Glad you’re getting some mileage out of it. The demo and license terms are there for a reason, and I’m obviously NOT going to tell you to violate them, but I’m also not gonna give myself heartburn worrying if someone demos for 31 days instead of 30, or 60, or something like that…

We’re reasonable folks here and we like to think that the vast majority of our users are, too. Enjoy the plugs!

Cheers!

Scott

Apologies for having posted this under ‘manual’, but since the damage is already done…the short and sweet of it is I made my BBM purchase this morning :wink: , now on to the next plug for eval!

Yup, I saw that come in…thanks!

Scott

Hi Scott,

Glad to see your positive reactions here on this forum.

While I understand that you probably won’t release some general presets for BBM (and respect it), are you still considering to post here some snapshots of what could be a good starting point of typical Master Buss settings that we could use for further tweakings (say, one light non-linearities setting & a second with a bit more pronounced non-linearities) to fully evaluate & appreciate the power of BBM in this dept. and thus make a quicker decision to purchased it ?

Unless, you think that Master Buss isn’t the right place where BBM is doing all its magic (too many parameters…) !?

Rest assure that if it would be the case, I would still consider to buy it but at least I would demo it (and focuse on…) based on its strength where it really shines (ie, drum buss, el. gtr track, bass track… etc).

Thanks very much in advance for any related reply.
B

One of the joys of this plug for me is that it is ALL ABOUT THE EARS.
Full and total experimentation, which yields fantastic results.

I just start with the gain / mod A / mod B knobs.
Most of the time that is enough on the 2 buss.
But if you want to really “F” things up, the asymmetry and knees can turn the signal into a hissing growling monster.

any update on this?
I am really loving what this plug does to the drum buss. Especially when using drum machine VST’s. The knobs are beyond cryptic though. I would love a little more insight into what I am doing to the signal to get teh sounds that I am.
I often like one part of the grit I am getting but want to trim away this or add more of that. But have no idea which knob to turn!
BTW I am so so so buying some of these marvelous plugs next paycheck. The hardest part is deciding which to buy first!
I pitch these plug ins all over the Tapeop and other forums as well, hope to keep you guys in biz!