KVR Audio

fearoftigers · Post by **fearoftigers** » Fri Jul 31, 2015 11:30 am

Hi there everyone,

Can you help me emulate that super compressed, maximised FM Radio sound you get on most commercial stations?

Are there any plugins or presets that do a good job of emulating this?

I'm on Mac and ideally looking for a plugin that would work with Logic X.

Any ideas?

PS have tried Stereo Tool, but can't seem to get it to work .

djscorb · Post by **djscorb** » Fri Jul 31, 2015 11:39 am

All pass filters, levelling amps, multi band compression and more limiting.

But why would you want that sound? It destroys snares like nothing else. The BBC Radio 1 sound is awful. So annoying hearing live concerts with smooshed snares

Cheers

Scorb

fearoftigers · Post by **fearoftigers** » Fri Jul 31, 2015 3:30 pm

Thanks for the reply.

What are all pass filters?

I actually love the FM sound and want to experiment with it a bit.

Chris-S · Post by **Chris-S** » Fri Jul 31, 2015 4:51 pm

Haha.

I'm looking for the reverse.
Plugins which expand and re-hifi the squashed radio sound.

Back to your question:

EQ the sub bass and hi-end away.

Compress to death with your favourite compressor.

Add some distortion for taste (bit crushing).

ksandvik · Post by **ksandvik** » Fri Jul 31, 2015 5:18 pm

Chris-S wrote:Haha.

I'm looking for the reverse.
Plugins which expand and re-hifi the squashed radio sound.

Back to your question:

EQ the sub bass and hi-end away.

Compress to death with your favourite compressor.

Add some distortion for taste (bit crushing).

Argh

. Also, based on what I've seen in FM work, don't be afraid to push the signal far into red with the compressor.

BDeep · Post by **BDeep** » Fri Jul 31, 2015 5:58 pm

Just buy one of those

http://www.orban.com/products/radio/fm/8500/

Looking at the specs, a multiband compressor and limiter/clipper would go a long way. It's setting them up that's the tricky part.

Dean Aka Nekro · Post by **Dean Aka Nekro** » Fri Jul 31, 2015 9:38 pm

Dialog by Wave Arts is capable of that sort of thing
the best I can think of is Jeroen Breebaart's Broadcast plugin, Alas IIRC it is windows/PC only
TC Electronic's Finalizer can be had for a great priced used these days (so can the express model)
and that will definately do the job (but yes it isn't a plugin)
Behringer do a processor very much like it but I can't think of its name of the top of my head, That would be really worth a look also IMveryhumbleHO

Hope that is of some use/all the best as always

Dean

Ultrasonic · Post by **Ultrasonic** » Fri Jul 31, 2015 9:51 pm

Can you help me emulate that super compressed, maximised FM Radio sound you get on most commercial stations?

No, because once your material has been recorded, mixed and mastered, its compressed and EQ'd again by the station. Often times, multiband and/or wideband both.

EdSevered · Post by **EdSevered** » Sat Aug 01, 2015 1:52 am

I'm curious about how to achieve the opposite. How would you go about getting a scratchy mono old-fashioned radio or telephone line sound?

Thanks! Ed

nineofkings · Post by **nineofkings** » Sat Aug 01, 2015 2:43 am

djscorb wrote:All pass filters, levelling amps, multi band compression and more limiting.

This. Sometimes also with a stereo widener in front of everything.

All-pass filters adjust the phase of the signal. Most FM stations put an all-pass filter at 200Hz. This scatters the energy at that frequency around in time, which makes the sound "mushy" but, in doing so, makes it take compression better (as the peaks are less focused).

So it's usually some variation of widener -> all-pass -> multiband comp -> limiter

http://www.masterdigital.com/24bit/mastering/radio.htm
(The chain in this article is all-pass -> upward comp -> widener -> EQ -> multiband comp -> noise reduction -> limiter/clipper)

ccDuckett · Post by **ccDuckett** » Sat Aug 01, 2015 4:17 am

EdSevered wrote:I'm curious about how to achieve the opposite. How would you go about getting a scratchy mono old-fashioned radio or telephone line sound?

Thanks! Ed

The least-work (albeit expensive) way would be something like Speakerphone http://www.audioease.com/Pages/Speakerp ... phone.html
For free, other than trying to roll your own with a band-pass filter etc. there's options like Spaceman http://www.vst4free.com/free_vst.php?pl ... man&id=529
and various vinyl-sim plugins for additional scratchiness/dirtiness.

All right, all done with the off-topic now, carry on.

electro · Post by **electro** » Sat Aug 01, 2015 2:37 pm

Cupwise has some Nebula programs that might be of interest.

aciddose · Post by **aciddose** » Sat Aug 01, 2015 3:59 pm

nineofkings wrote:This scatters the energy at that frequency around in time,

That isn't actually how an all-pass filter works. There is a specific delay at that frequency (180 degrees shift), but all frequencies are shifted by some amount from 0 to 360 degrees.

Nth order all-pass filters have bigger shifts, for example 2nd order is double the effect with 360 degrees at the cutoff and 720 at zero.

The effect it has is to remove the phase correlation of all frequencies in the signal by shifting all frequencies by slightly different amounts.

A impulse or "click" becomes a "zap!" laser sound because high frequencies have less delay that low frequencies. This means that the high frequencies occur first, the lowest occur last.

https://soundcloud.com/xhip/allpass

Try Xhip Phaser http://xhip.net/effects/ and set mix to 100% (wet only), stages to maximum, modulation to zero and adjust the frequency control. Play some clicks/impulses in and notice that with lower frequency settings the clicks become "pew pew" laser noises.

With stages on max you get 128 stages. This gives a 46080 degree shift at 0hz and 23040 degree at cutoff.

Since this is frequency dependent, assuming cutoff = 1000hz it means 360 degrees is 1ms. That means we get a delay of 64ms.

EdSevered · Post by **EdSevered** » Sat Aug 01, 2015 4:22 pm

ccDuckett wrote:
EdSevered wrote:I'm curious about how to achieve the opposite. How would you go about getting a scratchy mono old-fashioned radio or telephone line sound?

Thanks! Ed
The least-work (albeit expensive) way would be something like Speakerphone http://www.audioease.com/Pages/Speakerp ... phone.html
For free, other than trying to roll your own with a band-pass filter etc. there's options like Spaceman http://www.vst4free.com/free_vst.php?pl ... man&id=529
and various vinyl-sim plugins for additional scratchiness/dirtiness.

All right, all done with the off-topic now, carry on.

Thank you, my apologies, for off-topic. Somehow the subjects seemed similar to me. I should've started my own thread.

bitman · Post by **bitman** » Mon Aug 03, 2015 12:23 pm

Stardust.

This vst is "No longer available" but can be found here and there.
It's aim was to emulate the fm radio signal chain and even includes a bass phase rotator that makes it worth the (free) price of admission.

I found it hear for ya but don't know if this site is kosher or not.

http://www.vst4free.com/free_vst.php?id=535

FM radio Compression