Review at a glance...
What is it?
BBE Sonic Sweet is comprised of three plugins useful for mixing and mastering: the D82 Sonic Maximizer, the H82 Harmonic Maximizer, and the L82 Loudness Maximizer. For Windows and Mac OSX.
Who would use them?
Anyone looking to add sparkle or restore life to his or her mixes.
How does it sound?
Full, bright, will punch up your mix with very little adjustment.
What is so great about it?
Easy to operate; useful presets.
What is not so great about it?
Nothing, really. Does what it’s supposed to do for very little $$$
Review Summary
The BBE Sonic Sweet is a great product and an inexpensive way to restore clarity and depth to your mixes. If all you use are a couple of the presets, you’ll find and get good results. There’s only a couple of knobs to play with on each unit; even if you don’t understand them (the documentation is simple, so you should), proceed with moderation and you’re bound to come up with something satisfactory. If you’re in the market for a third-party Loudness Maximizer for your DAW, this bundle might be the ticket, for that plugin alone.
Full Review
Maximize yourself
The art of home recording has come a long way since the cassette tape days. Whether “back in the day” or right this minute, we still want to achieve the big, bright, full sound our favorite producers regularly churn out. How to do that on a limited budget with inexpensive gear? Years ago BBE Sound released the Sonic Maximizer, a single rack-space hardware unit for that very purpose. Here is the process it uses, straight from their web site:
“… restores natural brilliance and clarity to an audio signal by the use of two integrated functions. First, it adjusts the phase relationships between the low, mid and high frequencies through adding progressively longer delay times to lower frequencies, creating a kind of mirror curve to neutralize the effect of loudspeaker phase distortion. Second, the Sonic Maximizer augments higher and lower frequencies as loudspeakers tend to be less efficient in their extreme treble and bass ranges. The end result is a dynamic, program-driven restoration which reveals more of the natural texture and detail in the sound without causing fatigue that is often associated with exciter effects, psychoacoustic processors or excessive use of equalizers.”
That explanation is enough to make my brain fry; let it suffice to say, you’re going to get a more full sound, more sparkle, more high end. Through the 90s producers used devices like the TC Electronics Finalizer (an excellent product itself) to emulate that big sound the majors were getting with their racks of mega-zillion dollars worth of preamps and compressors. The Finalizer was very expensive (several hundred dollars); you could buy a Sonic Maximizer then (if my memory serves me) for a couple hundred bucks. The BBE, as it was referred to, saved many a project studio mix, as well as brightening up muddy-sounding live PA mixes, adding more hi-end to instrument amps, etc.
Now BBE Sound has released the fabled Sonic Maximizer as a plugin, along with the H82 Harmonic Maximizer and L82 Loudness Maximizer. Installation is easy; you can choose the iLok method, or authorizing your HD with a challenge/response code.
So, how do they sound?
Get Loud
They sound good! Now, the Sonic Sweet is not going to replace your multi-thousand dollar Waves bundle, or other audio gear of that nature, but if you are on a budget, you’re maybe using the plugs that come in Logic, DP, Live, Sonar, etc. and you can’t quite get the sound you’re looking for, the Sonic Sweet may just save your bacon and help you put that mix over the top, all while keeping the bank account intact. Even if you own every plugin known to man, this suite may just have the sound that is eluding you.
I write music for film, using Apple Logic Studio. I generally don’t employ a Loudness Maximizer on mixdown; the audio-post engineer will do that, and he doesn’t need me processing the sound any more than I have to except for tone purposes. Recently I had to do a couple of electronica pieces, though, and a Loudness Maximizer is a great tool to get that big brick-wall sound so many dance tracks use. I called up the BBE Loudness Maximizer, tweaked its sensitivity control a couple of db, and the mix came to life. Transparent, no pumping, no distortion; I was happy, the client was happy, the track sounded great.
Figure 1: BBE L82 Loudness Maximizer.
Get Harmonious
In like manner, I was needing help on a job with some acoustic guitar tracks, specifically sampled guitar tracks (all right you sampled-instrument haters, back off!). I generally look for the acoustic guitar programs in one of Logic’s EQ plugins, tweaking them a little. In this instance I called up the H82 Harmonic Maximizer. From BBE Sound’s site:
“The H82 Harmonic Maximizer is a Multi-band enhancer that generates harmonics for adding emphasis to frequencies, from low-end punch to top-end sizzle.”
I selected one of the guitar presets, and it did bring presence and high-end sizzle (sorry for the overuse of the “s” word!) to the sampled guitar sound without making it sound harsh. The sound of the pick strumming was more evident, the low end was tightened up, and no noise was introduced. I would say the sound was glassy. Excellent, no more fiddling with the EQ, no looking for a different sampled guitar that was maybe brighter, I was done and on to the next instrument track. I did find that out of the two acoustic guitar presets, one of them seemed fairly boomy, but fixing that is a slight adjustment away, and that may either be a taste thing, or an effect of pairing that setting with the particular sample I used.
Each of these plugins have a variety of presets for guitars, keyboards, bass, vocals etc. Try them out, play with their settings; you’re bound to find something that will work. This plugin works great with low-end stuff, like synth bass and “real” bass guitar, as well.
Figure 2: BBE H82 Harmonic Maximizer.
Bring it to life!
The D82 Sonic Maximizer is the plugin to use when you’re thinking the sound is close, but it needs….something. Not enough bottom, it’s dull-sounding, the highs are lackluster, don’t know what to do. Like the other plugins, the D82 has presets for all instrument types. Start with one, edit it; there are only a few controls, so you’re not going to get into any trouble here. This description is from BBE Sound’s website:
The Lo Contour – regulates the amount of phase-compensated low frequencies Process – regulates the amount of phase-compensated high frequencies Output Level – adjusts output level from 112db to +12db.
I used the D82 on drums, guitar, bass. I found I preferred using the H82 on guitar and bass, and the D82 on drums and then the whole mix. The key to using any of these plugins is to use them with moderation; a little tweaking will make a noticeable difference.
Figure 3: BBE D82 Sonic Maximize.
Maximize your potential.
While using the Sonic Sweet, I found myself thinking, “can’t I accomplish the same end with an EQ plugin, or the limiter in my DAW?” Maybe; I say maybe, because I found myself getting results with all three of these plugins that I wasn’t getting with the EQ, and likewise the limiter I normally use. The H82 and D82 in particular will make individual tracks sound very full that previously were on the “meh” side. Will having the BBE Sonic Sweet make you sound like Roger Nichols? That might take more than a plugin…. The bottom line here is that the BBE Sonic Sweet is a quality audio sweetening package that costs little more than an impulse buy, requires very little manual reading on the user’s part, and sounds pretty amazing. You are creating art with your music, and this “sweet” suite will make that art spring to life.
To purchase BBE Sonic Suite click HERE.
Review by Roger Hooper