OTO Machines FX - BIM BAM BOUM

The Lounge Other Gear
#767

Yeah boum is quite easy to manage. Bam is also doable. Except for the reverb types. But I guess I’ll be able tonrember it eventually. But if you don’t use it for a month or less often it’s easy to forget. Same goes for presets. I don’t use it often but names are way easier to remember obviously then a dot system. If you have a variety of presets for certain situations, good luck. (Note pad solves this of course :wink: ).

I had bim in the past and there it’s indeed a bit too annoying imho. Great sounding delay of course and I’m actually considering adding it :grimacing::sweat_smile:

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#768

It really is great sounding and to play isn’t it.

In its defence, most parameters are fine with the dots. So only one or two (time/division) would need some active remembering or a small note/tape to the side. (Added: It might also become easier when I start understanding the logic between tap tempo and these modes - does tap tempo just reset the timing division or does it subdivide it? Starting to think it’s nót the second)

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#769

Tap tempo resets the timing division

#770

I just bought a used Boum and testing it out.

Getting a lot of noise and I don’t know if it’s normal behavior.

The Boum is inserted between my mixer and my daw. The input gain is at the lowest level. The noise is louder with harsher distortion and pumps with compression. The noise is very audible with the output at 100%, better at 75, but still there.

When I unmute some hats I instantly hear continuous noise behind the hats. The noise continues even if I stop the sequencer.

If I mute the hats and unmute a synth, I don’t hear the white noise.

I don’t hear any noise in the dry setting. I also reproduced the noise with a drum machine direct into the daw without the mixer.

The Boum seems to be very highly regarded and I don’t see a lot of similar complaints online. Hope the problem is me!

Any Boum owner experience? Is this normal and I just need to use heavy noise gating with distortion? Doesn’t seem like it should be necessary

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#771

I should say, when I RTFM, there is a paragraph in the manual about noise, and that the Boum can amplify other noisy gear. Maybe my Machinedrum is noisy or my power supply is noisy

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#772

I had a similar experience, and posted on this thread…

I have been using it a lot since on my master and have had no issues, but I never resolved the original problem.

#773

It’s hard to judge from a distance but any heavy distortion unit will “add” some noise. You’re basically smashing a loud signal into a wall. So any noise floor will be amplified. That’s why there’s a gate :).

But maybe the noise you’re getting is way more extensive than I’m experiencing so it’s difficult to really make a sensible comment about that. Can you record a sound sample maybe ?

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#774

This is interesting. I use Totalmix and basically i have the Boum plugged into a patchbay so the sound from ableton is routed into the Boum via TotalMix. I guess I could also send the master out of ableton into the patch bay and then into the Boum. Either way I don’t use it as an insert in abelton anymore.

The only noise I get is a low volume hiss, which is basically the same level as a consoles hiss. So it doesn’t bother me. I just finished a track where it was the master compressor. So i had the mix and level at full, compressor set to replicate an SSL buss with slower attack and fairly fast release with the knob around 9:30. Input during peak parts of the track was kissing the last light, ( if I increased it up a notch, it was a bit much). Drive was saturation mode and a little under 9pm.

I will revisit with fresh ears but I was really happy with it. The compressor tightend up the track and glued it together, the saturation gave me nice volume but still -6db of headroom for mastering. The hiss was very low so it did not impact the track anymore than mixing on a console would.

The other thing I did was work the filter, which is so nice. I kept it 75% closed to start the tune and rode it up to full when the first main part hit. Did some light movements during breakdowns and then rode it back down on the fade out. It is such a nice filter, it adds that extra movement and glue to the tune.

Anyway this technique seemed to work for me. I kept a light touch with everything and I think that was the key for keeping the noise under control.

3 Likes
#775

It seems to be happening only with certain machines.

I have a TR-8 that has an external input. The TR-8 sounds fine, no noticable noise on its own, but as soon as I turn up the input on the TR-8 to pass through another signal, even with no sounds triggered it sounds like I am loudly pulling up a noise floor.

I hear NONE of this noise with the Boum mix knob set to dry. I had been passing signals through the TR-8 just fine before the Boum. And it still sounds fine with the Boum disabled.

I am not pushing the the distortion. It’s on setting 2 and the knob is below 25%. Input gain in lowest setting.

But I think you guys are right, it’s the distortion on the Boum just doing its job. I noticed that even though I don’t hear the noise on the TR-8 input with the Boum dry, I do see the mixer registering the noise pre-Boum. So the Boum must be saturating that noise and bringing it into a more audible spectrum.

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#776

I had a similar issue no matter how well I gain staged, solved ground hum issues, removed things from the chain, if I pushed it into wet enough to have any desirable effect, it dramatically increased the noise floor. I don’t know if that’s really avoidable.

I really loved the compression but only used the saturation at an extremely low setting and I’m ultimately happier with the art pro vla II on my master signal

Not saying it’s better, just better in my case. More control over the input, compressor response, and output level and much easier to see what’s happening

I can see how the saturation introducing some white noise would be a nice kind of subtle “dither” effect to smooth the overall signal. I just think that with a lot of potentially noisy gear in the mix, maybe you don’t want it boosted to that extent. I didn’t find that the gate really solved the issue. I already have a pretty heavy noise gate on the Thru inputs of my octatrack and that’s just on the verge of cutting some reverb tails off if I’m not careful with gain staging pretty precisely

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#777

Most synths and drum machines are really noisy. Especially some manufacturers like soma, erica synths, etc. And a distortion or saturation circuit will amplify this noise, even if it adds absolutely no noise of its own. Just the nature or compressing/saturating/distorting noisy analog gear I think.

Though it would be nice if synth manufacturers gave a crap about the noise floor and tried to minimize it (I mean they don’t even do the bare minimum and use balanced outputs most of the time) so we could actually do some outboard processing without it sounding like we are in the middle of a roaring ocean of noise.

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#778

My Mk1 rytm was one of the hardest to balance the noise floor on until I got a better understanding of the drive settings combined with the delay/reverb sends and the master comp

I fed my rytm into the Boum as well, so maybe that was dumb. Not sure

But yeah I bet it would be ideal on a small setup of just a synth, drum machine, sampler. Live setup sort of scenario without many variables

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#779

I think light is the key, and the filter does sound great, especially when making those subtle changes… I’m well into it.

I’ve just bought a patch bay and was going to set everything up tomorrow, and see if my original issue replicates itself. It was really weird, but the fact that the Boum now seems perfectly fine (and sounds great!) when using it at the end of a chain makes me think that something could have been wrong with my settings on the Ferrofish at the time. If I can replicate, I’ll report back.

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#780

Thanks! I think I’m reaching the conclusion that the behavior of my unit is normal and I just need to be more conscious of the quality of the signal going into it.

So far I like what it does…Always annoying when you spend the morning troubleshooting instead of making music, but alas that is the curse of getting new gear. I did manage to get a groove going between the fiddling :slight_smile: appreciate the help

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#781

Yeah I agree. It’s a subtle art i guess

Yes, constant troubleshooting is such a black hole of wasted time. When I get my gear to a decent point, I “set and forget” and try to never touch it again because of how traumatized i am by the relentless pinpointing and adjusting when i should be jamming out

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#782

Did it happen just with the distortion on 25%, or did you also have compression engaged for a good amount? The compressor also raises noise a lot.

Apart from that: a lot of people love using the Boum not full wet but dry with only a dash of wet mixed in. I most of the time have the mix knob around one third, just to mix some of the wet signal in. In that case any slight to moderate noise won’t be audible either.

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#783

The compression knob was around 20% I think

#784

Yeah that #2 distortion is serious and will add a lot of noise very quickly. Here are the ways I like to use the Boum

1- hardware compressor on master bus. As described in my prior post. I put the mix at 100% and just use the saturator at maybe 9 o clock at most. In this mode it really is quite powerful as a end of chain compressor and saturator that tames any peaks in your mix.

2 - drum bus parallel effect. Run your drum bus through this and maybe boost the mix to 50% or so. This lets you use multiple distortions depending on how hard you want to drive your drums. Also in this mode, I engage the high pass filter a little bit so only the top end of the kick is getting affected by the Boum.

3 - drum sampling effect - I love to run drum machines into the boum and record one shots. This is where there are no rules and you can sculpt the drums however you see fit. It is an extremely powerful way to make unique samples out of tried and true drum machines. An 808 kick through distortion mode 2 or 3 is a beautiful thing.

4 - bass effect. Sometimes I just run a bass guitar or mono synth straight into the boum and squash the shit out of it. It’s such an awesome sound and an awesome way to record a bass and get it more synthesized sounding for an electronic track. For bonus points run the bass through an OC-2 octave pedal first and then squeeze it to death in the Boum.

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#785

Yeah it should really be noted that boum is a Heavy distortion unit. Modes 2, 3 and 4 are madness even at very low distortion settings. Definitely when you run broad frequency content through them. And At 9 o’clock the compressor is already at a 5:1 ratio.

So any noisy source will quickly get super noisy. If I run perkons through it it becomes pretty noisy even at distortion mode 1 (boost). But in that case I actually came to enjoy that :slight_smile:

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#786

When you run it on the master bus do you mind if it’s getting triggered by your kickdrum? Or does it not matter because you can run it in parallel with the dry wet knob so it doesn’t mess up the bass too much?

I’m not that experienced with outboard compressors, but I know that even with the Ableton stock compressor you can trigger it off an eq’d sidechain so that it doesn’t just trigger off the bass peaks…