Saturday, October 14, 2023

PSYCHO-ACOUSTIC ENHANCER- BBE Sonic Stomp Pro ... pixie dust always on pedal

BBE SONIC STOMP PRO
SONIC MAXMIZER
$160.00 USD
Originally a rack mount in the 1980's it was primarily made for vocals to try help put back detail lost by the use of recording tape. The key thing is to brighten the signal but leave it sounding natural. The idea to do this was found by accident. In a speaker box designed for HiFi it often has a speaker for lows and mids and a small horn for the highs. The key for accurate sound was to have all 3 drivers have their sounds reach you ears at the same time. It is a simple matter of location. Speakers sounds that arrive late would be located on the face of the box and the two others recessed. When getting a basic idea in a prototype the engineers would litteraly push back and pull forward the units. By accident it was noticed that pulling the horn forward added clarity if it arrived to your ears first.
$105.00 USD
There are noticeable nasty phasing problems if done very much. 
On the other hand a delay of nano seconds fools your ears into perceiving more clarity.
It can be obtained electronically by delaying the mids and lows. 
A small down side is it creates the illusion that the lows sound a bit distant, but that can be fixed by a small tight bass boost.


CONCLUSION ___
It does the trick. I have the mini that was discontinued. It has the Bass and Process knobs stacked and does
not have the mids I recently read it is slated to be 
back in production? Only Pedals has new old stock.
The easiest way to describe it is put it on and it seams subtle. 
But leave it on for a month. Turn it off. The second it's off 
your amp sounds like someone just thru a wool blanket
over your speaker cab, lol.



3 comments:

  1. Thx for this explanation!

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  2. Taurus Amp in Poland do somethingsimilar with their Servo pedal, but it also has a gain boost switch integrated into it. http://www.taurus-amp.pl/guitar/effects/white-line/servo.html

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  3. The BBE is all about crystal clean chimey, The Taurus is half comp and a bit ts upper boost. I know because I own both. both are excellent but the Taurus is more about warming up a brite brittle sound which is opposite of giving a dark sounding rig some shine.

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