# BBE Sonic Stomp?



## Kapo_Polenton (Jun 20, 2007)

Does this thing do what they say? reviews seem to be good but is this essentially a compressor to level things out and make notes sharper?


----------



## Guest (Sep 25, 2007)

I thought it was a multi-band compressor in a box.


----------



## Accept2 (Jan 1, 2006)

A sonic maximizer is a frequency delay, so its kind of like an active EQ on steroids. Because sound travels at different speeds depending on the frequency, it can be cancelled out at the speaker and become muddy. I believe they call this envelope distortion. These units use will depend on your gear settings more than anything. For my setup, I need to use one all the time. I find it boosts my volume and clearness very well. I use a lot of bass, so without it, it all becomes very muddy. Of course its all down to taste. My sound is now processed, but I prefer it that way. Some people hate a processed tone.............


----------



## Stratin2traynor (Sep 27, 2006)

I have one and use it at the end of my chain to boost and clarify the signal. I'll repeat what I've read and heard about the BBE Sonic Stomp - you can't really tell it is on but you notice something missing when it is off.

I use it at low volumes and equate it to a "LOUDNESS" button on a stereo - it just fills in the blanks and sounds great.


----------



## Kapo_Polenton (Jun 20, 2007)

I've heard a few demos on youtube and though hard to tell, it seems like it brings out the flatness in the tone and makes it a bit more sharp and crisp. Am I wrong to describe it as such? I am interested in picking up a used one as sometimes I too enjoy things on the darker bassier side, but would like a tad more definition..


----------



## Guest (Sep 25, 2007)

Kapo_Polenton said:


> I've heard a few demos on youtube and though hard to tell, it seems like it brings out the flatness in the tone and makes it a bit more sharp and crisp. Am I wrong to describe it as such? I am interested in picking up a used one as sometimes I too enjoy things on the darker bassier side, but would like a tad more definition..


I think trying to evaluate some of this stuff via the internet and low-fi audio clips is a bad idea.


----------



## Accept2 (Jan 1, 2006)

You really do have to run it with your equipment to see if you like it. Its very dependant on your setting and current tones. You can buy them for almost nothing anyway. The rack units sell on Ebay all the time for $50-$100.........


----------



## Roidster (Aug 5, 2007)

im thinking of trying out an older sonic maximizer,with my rig
is the pedal just as good as a older rack unit,i would rather have a pedal
with all my other pedals ,easier to carry


----------



## GuitaristZ (Jan 26, 2007)

http://www.bbesound.com/demo/pettiford_high.asp

be amazed....listen to it first WITH the sonic stomp on....then turn it off and you will be like "whoa! where did the "full" tone go?"


----------



## Accept2 (Jan 1, 2006)

Roidster said:


> im thinking of trying out an older sonic maximizer,with my rig
> is the pedal just as good as a older rack unit,i would rather have a pedal
> with all my other pedals ,easier to carry


I beleive there is no difference in processing with the pedal vs. the rack. The advantages of the rack are XLR, stereo outs and RCA jacks. I havent seen the pedals, but they might not have the VU LEDs as well to see how much noise you are pushing...........


----------



## david henman (Feb 3, 2006)

...i have one of the older (rack) versions for sale if anyone wants it.

-dh


----------



## Kapo_Polenton (Jun 20, 2007)

I'm going to grab one of the pedals used for 65$ shipping in. A good price I think.. comes with the box and lightly used.. we'll see what it is all about.


----------



## Kapo_Polenton (Jun 20, 2007)

Well, 125$ is kind of an expensive price for this pedal but 65$ used and pretty much brand new is right up my alley. :smile: I got it today and yes, to me its kind of like a light chorus effect, it seems to fill out the upper sonic range whch you notice isn't there when it is off.... as such it kind of fattens the tone , or rather, broadens it through the sonic range. It isn't noisy and you do notice a difference. Could I go without it, yeah probably, but I do definitely think it makes everything sound if not bigger, fuller. Pretty cool. just thought I would close the circle on thisone in case other people were wondering.


----------



## GuitaristZ (Jan 26, 2007)

are you running this through a tube amp? If so, and it works, im going to look into a used one!


----------



## Kapo_Polenton (Jun 20, 2007)

Yep, through my plexi clone - el34's.. i definitely noticed a subtle difference which A. would be great clean, but b. really brings some tone into the upper sonic range. just fills it out and doesn't sound as wet as a chorus. I think i dig it.. pretty much both knobs set to 12 and 1 p.m. Email Scott at axeandyoushallrecieve, he had two of them, both pretty new. I got one, 65$ shipped which is pretty good for a 125$ before tax pedal!


----------



## Budda (May 29, 2007)

apparently the sonic maximizer can become a crutch to some people.

my jsx has all the clarity i can handle, no comp or anything needed


----------



## Kapo_Polenton (Jun 20, 2007)

That's what they say about compressors.. can't say I see that with this thing. The difference is very subtle.. in some cases you won't even want to use it. All it does is give you a frequency range back.. you've still got to do the work with your playing. Won't change attack at all from what i have experienced.. again though, everyone has a diff ear and to me the first thing i thought was "light chorus" effect.


----------



## Accept2 (Jan 1, 2006)

Thats what they say about electricity and guitars.............


----------



## mikerockstar (Jan 7, 2008)

I have a BBE Sonic Stomp and I love it.

I play a lot of heavy music from hard rock to metalcore and deathcore.

This little pedal is definitely amp dependent, meaning that it really helps with some amps, and other amps you won't need it at all. For me, I use it with a Randall RH300 head and a Randall RS125CX cab (2x12" + 15"). Without it, I find my halfstack lacks that little bit of extra definition and clarity that I can get with the pedal. And if you use a lot of scooped distortion tones like me, this box tends to "boost" (sort of) the bass and highs in a way that highly compliments this type of EQ'ing. 

It just gives my cleans and high-gain tones that extra OOMPH that you need. 

Definitely try one out if you're looking for that extra balls, bite, and clarity you think you're missing from your amp.


----------



## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Another one of those woefully misunderstood pedals/effects.

In the real world, when you pluck a string, or bash a drum or simply slam a door, the resonating object produces a fundamental or basic pitch, and also produces harmonics or multiples of that pitch. Different sound sources can be identified by the ratio or proportion of those various harmonics to the fundamental, how quickly they arrive and disappear, and other features like the inclusion of noise (e.g., with a flute), or vibrato.

What is central to ALL acoustically-produced sounds is that the harmonics line up in time with the fundamental. Indeed, it is partly the coherence and synchrony of harmonics and fundamental that allow a human being with only two ears to "hear" and separate many different sound sources being produced at once. It is as if your brain were able to sort the different sound waves striking the eardrums and sort them like cards in a deck into different suits. This harmonic goes with that drum, this one goes with that violin, and that one goes with the damn bird that won't stop chirping while I'm trying to listen to music.

When electronically produced or reproduced sound passes through a complex circuit - heck, even when it passes through a cable long enough - there is a certain amount of what is called "group delay" imposed on the signal. generally this is a result of capacitors and their charge-up time, but there are many other factors as well. The group delay reduces the coherence of the harmonic details, and their "assignability" to any sound source. You tend not to notice it quite so much when there is only one instrument playing, but when that instrument's harmonics are mixed in with the harmonics of other sound sources, the very tiny time gaps between fundamental and harmonics can create havoc with our ability to neatly organize the sound field into this sound, that one, and those other ones. The result is a bit like having a drawing of someone where the facial details were all bumped to the left or right by 1/2", relative to the outline of the face. They would _sort of_ look the same and be roughly identifiable, but not quite. Having a drawing of a group of people like that would make it fairly difficult to recognize any single person in the crowd. Group phase delay does the same sort of thing to sound.

On top of this, there is the perennial problem of having speakers where the separate drivers for different bands are slightly different distances from the listener. Guitar speakers, being what they are - a single or multiple speaker delivering the exact same sound - don't have that problem, but when the mic'd guitar goes into a P.A. and is combined with other mic'd sources and comes out through a tri-amped system, the group delay issue arises again.

The desynchronization of fundamentals and harmonics, whether from speaker driver placement, or from capacitor-related phase delay, is what the BBE process strives to fix. It separates the signal into broad ranges and re-aligns them by imposing very very brief time delays. In fairness, no simple analog system can do this flawlessly, in terms of identifying what frequencies need to be delayed by how much, but they certainly come close enough to make a real audible difference. It won't necessarily add more treble to the signal, but it will add more audible punch and presence by more clearly "assigning" THOSE treble frequencies to THAT fundamental. It is properly classified as a psychoacoustic effect, since it does not so much shape the tone to sound different as shape the signal in anticipation of how human hearing works. I think the description that you can't tell if its on, but you notice when it gets turned off, is quite apt. A number of psychoacoustic effects work, or can be described, the same way.

These days, Barcus-Berry has licensed the process and you can buy BBE on a chip for about $3. It takes a bunch of passive components to turn that $3 chip into a fully-fledged unit, but the overall requisite circuitry has been radically miniaturized from what it started out as. You can often find BBE process on car CD decks and such.


----------



## GuitaristZ (Jan 26, 2007)

that was very interesting. thanks there mhammer!


----------



## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Glad to help. Far too many of us end up getting all our "technical" info from either sources like music store salespeople, ad copy, or underinformed reviewers on H-C or in magazines. I also see a lot of misleading info from big name musicians who get interviewed about gear that they don't understand or that they can't explain (or sometimes reveal). It's not so much that any of these sources are trying to mislead deliberately. It's just that they don't have a clear handle on the concepts themselves, and often aren't skilled enough in explanation to leave the recipient of their information clear and better informed.

At this point, I'm a veteran of what I figure are at least 15,000 posts on this and other forums, and have some 15 years of teaching at the post-secondary level under my belt. That, and following the industry closely for over 30 years, has made me a little more skilled at making gear comprehensible to people. Also helps when you build your own stuff.


----------



## GuitaristZ (Jan 26, 2007)

so...do you think that pedal would be a good idea with a marshall dsl50 head and 1960a cab? or not needed?


----------



## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

My own gut response would be that it would always depend on context. If your sonic goal is crushing sound where individual instruments do not need to be identifiable quite as much (and choice of a Marshall often points in that direction), then I can't see it adding all that much, if anything at all.

In contrast, if you goal is to produce a sound where one has the sense of many identifiable instruments at once, and where there is plenty of high-frequency content from multiple sources that needs to be "sorted" in order to do that, then something like a BBE would be helpful.

Keep in mind that the BBE process is as much about making *other* instruments easily differentiated from yours as it is about making *yours* differentiable from them. If you were playing in the Ramones, I couldn't see any need for it. If you were playing in a band that regularly used keyboards and acoustic guitar, then I could see a potential need.


----------



## erikm5150 (Mar 3, 2006)

Thanks for sharing the info, mhammer!

Are you familiar with the Aphex xciter?
Does it do something similar to the BBE?


----------



## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

"Exciters" and BBE are different processes. Both have a way of making things stand out in a mix, but do so very differently.

Those circuits described as exciters are essentially "fuzzboxes" for the upper treble, and add harmonic content that wasn't there to begin with. There are many ways to accomplish that, but what links them all is that basic principle.

They all pretty much work by splitting the signal in two, and re-uniting those twop paths again at the output, mixing an altered signal in with the original dry signal. In that respect, it is no different than what happens with a lot of effects, like delay, chorus, phaser, flanger, etc. How the altered version gets altered is where they differ. One common approach is to pass the 2nd copy of the signal through some steep highpass filtering, then through a high-gain stage that produces distortion. That distorted copy of the high end provides the sizzle that is mixed back in with the dry version of the signal. Because the clipping is only imposed on the top end, the original dry copy of the signal sounds normal not fuzzy. Another approach, used by Aphex in some of their units, is to take the highpass filtered copy and run it through a sort of octave-up generator (frequency doubler), and mix that in with the original. Since it is typical that there is more energy in lower harmonics than in higher ones, the doubling process ends up increasing the energy/amplitude of higher harmonics.

However it gets done, whenever you hear a recorded acoustic guitar whose strings sound crisper than crisp, that's usually an exciter you hear. They are also helpful in bringing out some of the detail in acoustic drums.

The thing with exciters is that there needs to be enough high-frequency content in the original source signal to be boosted into clipping or doubling, and the remainder of the signal path also needs to be able to reproduce that added high-end. A lot of players will plug a Les Paul or similarly dull-ish sounding guitar into an exciter, then plug that into an amp that doesn't have a hope in hell of reproducing anything over 6khz, and wonder why they don't hear any "effect" when they turn it on. They'd have better luck plugging a single-coil guitar (with 1M volume pot) into an exciter and plugging the exciter into a mixing board. The source has to be crisp and the exit point has to be able to show off crispness.

In contrast, the BBE process does not add high end. It only makes the high end that is already there sound clearer.


----------



## erikm5150 (Mar 3, 2006)

thanks for the info, mhammer...
very interesting stuff!


----------



## Stratin2traynor (Sep 27, 2006)

I sold my BBE Sonic Maximizer a few years ago to fund the purchase of something else - the usual story. I just picked another one up because I felt like my amp was missing a little roundness in the bottom end. This totally fixed the problem. No need to mess around with tubes etc....now it sounds awesome!


----------



## Lemmy Hangslong (May 11, 2006)

This is an older thread and Ive been away a while but recently the BBE Sonic Stomp has found its way back into my signal chain...
About 10 - 12 years ago I bought the rack version and tho I liked it I decided I didnt want to go rack and returned it for the pedal. I used the pedal version for a while but after a few amp changeouts I decided I wanted to find an amp that did not need further "help" to sound great.
Now 10 years later and having moved from Randall to Soldano to Mesa and now Revv amps Ive re-evaluated my tone and decidedly dont use pedal comps, EQ's, clean or dirt boosts because for the most part my experience has been they take away from the amps original voice and feel more than they enhance. Which is something I dont want. Exciters are another option but for me they only deal with top end (treble).
My other amp is a 1969 Marshall JMP (Plexi) and again I dont want the original voice and feel of the amp altered. I tried a great stomp comp for a while but overal did not like it as much as the natural compression from the plexi.
Another setup I use which is for rehearsals is a Blackstar HT Dual Metal and/or Distortion ( I own both and bounce between the two) which I use to get a decent tone. Its compact and offers "two channel" operation and has speaker emulated and non speaker emulated outputs. I add reverb and delay from the mixer and off I go. What I have been noticing with both these pedals is that they sound good but to sound great they need some help. Mostly because the top end is dull and the bottom end is muddy and its not possible to dial this out without a significant drop in gain and loss of punch... Thinning out the tone. Ive learned to settle on this because overal its a pretty good tone (but not great).
Enter a friend of mine selling off some gear. He gave me a list and I bought some stuff. Then he sends me another list of missed items which included the Sonic Stomp. I remembered liking my old one but also having the mindset of wanting to keep my amp signal as true as possible. Ive achieved that with the Revv and Plexi but the Blackstar Needed help and help it did. Upon trying the Sonic Stomp again after a decade of being away from it I was greeted with a simple to dial in solution to my problem. After years of playing guitar and tone chasing to my ears the Sonic Stomp is the missing link in the tone chain that Ive been seeking out for a long time. I dont really need it in the chain with the amps I own but to be honest it is able to not alter the amps tone, drive, compression and feel. It does take away some audio problems that to my ears cleans up and polishes the tone you already have. 
That all said it can be missused or used incorrectly which usually means it sounds over processed and add to that it might not work as well with one rig as it does another BUT when it is used properly I find it not as subtle as some have described. To my ears its a huge change and I do not stive to hear what it does however I can see why others would say what they do as its a subjective thing and its does not change the inherint sound of your amp rig much.
Im a gigging musician doing 50 nights a year on average. I also do our sound 90% of the time and find the greatest struggle from venue to venue is monitor clarity. 
This weekend Im going to try the Sonic Stomp in my live rig and then bring to a gig for real world try outs. For now tho its a staple in my simple rehearsal rig and Im very happy with the added sustain and pop/punch and clarity. The Sonic Stomp brings.


----------



## mister.zed (Jun 8, 2011)

mhammer said:


> What is central to ALL acoustically-produced sounds is that the harmonics line up in time with the fundamental. Indeed, it is partly the coherence and synchrony of harmonics and fundamental that allow a human being with only two ears to "hear" and separate many different sound sources being produced at once. It is as if your brain were able to sort the different sound waves striking the eardrums and sort them like cards in a deck into different suits. This harmonic goes with that drum, this one goes with that violin, and that one goes with the damn bird that won't stop chirping while I'm trying to listen to music.


I'd often idly wondered how the brain discriminates all those different instruments in a recording. You've described it wonderfully. Thanks for that.


----------



## mister.zed (Jun 8, 2011)

mhammer said:


> What is central to ALL acoustically-produced sounds


So it makes me wonder, if we made a synth that purposely arranged the harmonics differently in the time domain (or even moved them dynamically), would that sound otherworldly? Would it sound different/good/bad in a mix?


----------



## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

I suspect it wouldn't sound terribly different, but would feel more laborious to listen to, like trying to drive when the rain is coming down harder than your wiper blades can easily clear away.

One of the things my attention was drawn to by my cognitive psych prof in undergrad was the area of "auditory scene analysis" ( https://www.amazon.ca/Auditory-Scene-Analysis-Perceptual-Organization/dp/0262521954 ). The basic approach is the application of many of the same principles in visual perception to auditory perception, the idea being that we are always attempting to construct a perceptual world, with things located in space and time.


----------

