Omnia Omnia.9 - Quality V. L Oudness

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GettingtheSoundYouWant
Qualityv.Loudness
Omnia.9iscapableofprovidingsoundqualitysuperiortoanyotherprocessoravailabletoday,andis
equallycapableofbeinglouderthanthecompetition,too.
Ifloudnessisyourprimarygoal,youwillfindthatyoucanmatchthelevelofyourcurrentprocessor
whilegettingamuchcleaneronairsound.Ifhighqualityaudioisyourgoal,youwillbeableeasily
achievethatgoalandgettheextrabenefitofincreaseddialpresence.
Omnia.9,morethananyotherprocessor,minimizestheimpactoftheclassic“qualityv.loudness”
tradeoffbyemployingprocesseslike“Undo”andanadvancedpsychoacousticdistortionmasking
clipper…butnoprocessorcaneliminatethatcompromisecompletely.
The tradeoff between quality and loudness is still determined primarily by the settings of the
Limitersand Clippers. Both processescan add to dial loudness, but do so in differentways with
differentsoundingresults(and,ifusedtoexcess,differentsoundingartifacts).
Theaddedshorttermdensityprovidedbypeaklimitingcanstillmakeaudiosounddulloroverly
dense and create intermodulation distortion, and a little still goes a long way.  The amount of
limitingactionissomewhatdictatedbytheprogrammaterialitself.Audiothatisalreadydenseand
hasa highaveragelevel–even afterbeing processedbyUndo– will still cause less peak limiting
thanmaterialthatismoreopenwithloweraveragelevelsandhigherpeaklevels.
Forexample,almostanypoorlymasteredcurrentCD that’salreadybeensquasheddownand has
only a few dB’s of dynamic range already is not going to get the limiters moving – but a well
masteredSteelyDansongwill!
Excessive clipping, on the other hand, creates harmonic distortion and can make things sound
“edgy”or“torn.”Itisimperativetorememberthatevenwhenalloutloudnessisyourgoal,there
willcomeapointwhendrivingtheclippersharderwillnotcreateadditionalloudnessbutwillcreate
moredistortion,andthereisnobenefittogoingbeyondthatpoint.
AchievingaHighQualitySound
Whenalloutloudnessisn’tyourprimaryprocessinggoal,andyouarewillingtogiveupjustabitof
dialdominanceinthenameofquality,herearesomesuggestionstohelpyouachievethatgoal:
 ReducetheClipperDrive(FMcore)orFinalLimiterDrive(HDandStreamingcores)in0.25dB
steps until you reach the point where the quality no longer dramatically improves, but
you’relosingtoomuchloudnessthengobackupanotch.It’ssurprisinghowmuchasmall
changecanopenupyoursoundwithoutgivingupmuchinthewayofloudness.
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