Breakaway Audio Enhancer

There’s a few more slight options to play around with inside the io, though I always found that it lacked that last push.

Originally I used to use breakaway inconjuncation with stereo tool.. Saying that though I haven’t used BA for a little while. I’ll try and match up some settings in the morning if you like.

(is breakaway still a CPU guzzling app? When I used to run it back in the day on my server, it felt like I was running out of steam)

Yeah, I’ve done that before, running Stereo Tool on “Constant volume, enhanced stereo with Noise Reduction” which expands the stereo but also kicks in when you start to run out of headroom.

I run the personal version on a 2005-build P4 single-core, 2GB RAM on WinXP and it’s fine.

Yes, we use this application on the family PC for streaming music and playing podcasts in the living room. It’s very effective.

Two tips:

1. Slow down the release constant.
2. Go easy on the brickwall limiter.

You won’t get any punch if you flatten off the transients – they’re what make sounds exciting and, unless you’re having to do very accurate peak control for broadcast, it’s cleaner to ease off the limiter/clipper and turn up your speakers.

This application does consume a lot of CPU because it’s doing multiple clever things with your audio in real time. That takes horsepower.

James (Lawson)... You’ll find that ‘last push’ is available with tweaking settings somewhat..but for £20 or £30 or whatever it is the Breakaway guys decide – correctly – not to make ALL the settings available.

Instead you get a handle on ‘overview’ settings – each of these control multiple settings underneath (there are hundreds changed per each overhead change) and is a nice compromise. I guess if you want more settings you can buy Breakaway Broadcast / DJ / Live …or buy an Omnia 9 then you can control every single parameter!

Also, Breakaway performs tens of thousands of floating-point calculations to do what it does per second – that’s why it is CPU heavy. Change the window size and get rid of the oscillator windows and your CPU load will drop by a large amount.

Can’t beat the punch of the compressed sound, personally.

Bump. Still struggling with this, and don’t want to have the audio spikes – I want those to be flattened. It just sounds really mushy and there’s not the volume regulation I would like.

(Cheers to, I assume JC for integrating the screenshot into the post, I had no idea how to do it!)

Very often with audio processing “less is more”. I’m not that famiiar with Breakaway, but if it is like other multi-band processors, I’d do far less in the final limter (max 3-6dB).

For that matter it looks like you might be driving the AGC too hard as well, and the multi-band part is limiting at the top end of expectations too.

Try a bit less AGC and less final limiting and let the multi-band do 80-90% of the work. Also keep switching it to bypass so you have a reference point – it is easy to lead yourself down a blind alley.

...unless you want a “wall of sound” that is (or “C2F compression” that I have heard it called!)

For James Martin (no relation), I’ve seen your screengrab now and the 8dB of very fast brickwall limiting after the 6dB of fast-release multiband = mush.

Have you tried a release of around 10-15, not 91? That will restore a lot of the clarity and punch you want because the release constant will be slower than the drop in levels that follows a transient.

It will also result is less drive of the final limiter. If that alone is insufficient to restore the accented impact you seek then try a preset that doesn’t drive the limiter so hard. The “reference” setting is a good starting point.

Glyn’s advice is very good too.