The Infamous BBE Sonic Maximizer on Recorded Guitar Tone

[RUJoking]

I have used it on pretty much everything at least once depending on the need... Kick, snare, toms, ohs, bass, guitars, keys, vocals, master... For guitars and master I don't think I ever exceeded 1 on the high knob, nothing on the low. You can go higher for keys and vocals.

Hmmm interesting. For guitar, you barely move the Process knob off the far left and you leave the Lo Contour Knob at absolute far left. I have to admit: I rarely use Process at anything below 5.

Thanks for the info.

 

[Harry Hughes]

Source? I've never heard of him using it.

This.
If it's true, I want citations otherwise I'll assume it's bullshit.

 

[unrest]

Here's a great little writeup of the hardware Sonic Maximizer by a guy who was trying to unravel the mysteries cooked up by BBE's marketing team: http://www.radio-flier.com/bbe_data.htm.

He says:

The schematic merely shows some passive components connected to some "wonder chip", and little else. The documentation does not seem to explain exactly what the circuit does. Again, we get back to vague descriptions of the sound alterations produced with little regard for what is actually going on in a technical sense. [...] This device is not some super-duper DSP with a zillion bytes of code to modify sound. It is in fact, a fairly low-tech analog filter arrangement with a somewhat novel twist. The circuit is basically a state-variable filter with each of the three possible outputs summed by an opamp.

He goes on to compare it to the dbx 3bx, a very old "3-band dynamic range enhancer" (essentially an early multiband compressor). This leads me to believe that you don't necessarily need a Sonic Maximizer to achieve the signal processing it provides, especially because it seems like it's just a bass and treble booster with a slight twist.

 

[crillemannen]

This.
If it's true, I want citations otherwise I'll assume it's bullshit.

I spoke to another engineer who had talked to Adam D about hes guitar sound/tecniques and he recommended him to use the BBE on guitars, apparently he did it. Thats what i heard. True or not..