Audio Processing
The OPTIMOD-PCn 1600 Audio Processing Software increases the density and loudness of program material using multiband compression and sophisticated peak limiting, and improves the consistency of the station’s sound remarkably, without producing unpleasant side effects.
Orban’s exclusive MX Peak Limiter technology uses a psychoacoustic model to achieve an unprecedentedly favorable tradeoff between loudness, transient punch, and distortion artifacts.
Audio processing can be smoothly activated and defeated on-air via a delay-matched pass-through mode, allowing programs that can benefit from full dynamic range to pass through OPTIMOD-PCn 1600 without dynamic compression except for safety limiting using MX or non-MX limiter modes.
Two-Band automatic gain control (AGC) with a phase-linear crossover, adjustable band coupling, and window gating compensates for widely varying input levels. This intelligent AGC rides gain over an adjustable range of up to 25dB, compressing dynamic range and compensating for operator gain-riding errors and for gain inconsistencies in automated systems.
Five-Band compression with selectable phase-linear and all-pass crossover topologies provides a consistent, “processed” sound, free from undesirable side effects. Band-coupling controls allow the gain differences between adjacent bands of the five-band compressor to be constrained to any desired value, allowing you to preserve as much of the frequency balance of the original program material as desired unless doing so would otherwise cause objectionable spectral gain intermodulation artifacts.
Parametric soft-knee compression curves with adjustable ratio allow you to fine-tune the audio to your exact requirements and making the OPTIMOD-PCn 1600 an excellent mastering processor. The five-band compressor can be operated in both inline and parallel modes. Parallel mode drives downstream processing with the sum of the input and output of the multiband compressor. This increases the loudness of quiet material while preserving the dynamics and punch of loud material.
OPTIMOD-PCn 1600 subjective loudness control incorporates contemporary concepts of “target loudness” including those specified in EBU R128 and ATSC A/85 and the most recent ITU-R BS.1770 loudness measurement algorithm as well as the proprietary third-generation Orban-CBS Labs Loudness Meter and Loudness Controller. Orban’s exclusive loudness measurement and control are based on the seminal work of Jones & Torick and CBS Laboratories and ensures BS.1770 compliance better than a BS.1770-based loudness control; and it does so without audible gain pumping or other annoying artifacts common in BS.1770-based loudness controls. Attack time is fast enough to prevent audible loudness overshoots, so the control is smooth and unobtrusive.
BS.1770-4 and the Orban-CBS Labs Loudness Meter measure the subjective loudness of the output and are displayed in the control application meter window.
A BS.1770 Safety Limiter follows the Orban-CBS Labs Loudness Controller, When activated, it can further improve the measured performance using the BS.1770 meter. This was added for the benefit of organizations with strict objective limits of a BS.1770 meter reading, regardless of the actual subjective loudness as determined by human listeners.
The PCn 1600 includes standard factory presets, designed to accommodate almost any programming format. There are also special-purpose, no-compromise presets for mastering and pure peak limiting. It can also be used as a studio AGC (including peak limiting) to protect a studio-to-transmitter link (STL), optimally using the STL’s native dynamic range.
OPTIMOD-PCn 1600 includes a fourth-generation stereo synthesizer based on Orban’s classic analog 275A Stereo Synthesizer. Its “Wide” and “Narrow” modes can create an attractively spacious stereo from mono program material, and it can be selected manually, or activated automatically by sensing silence in the right channel input. Proprietary gating prevents over-enhancement on slightly unbalanced mono material.
When used as a studio pre-processor for OPTIMOD-FMs, the PCn 1600’s Multipath Mitigator can reduce multipath distortion by minimizing energy in the stereo sub-channel, which carries the FM broadcast L–R signal.
The shelving bass equalizer and four-band parametric equalizer let you color the audio to your exact requirements. To facilitate A/B comparisons, these equalizers can be bypassed individually and globally. And bass can be made monophonic, with crossover frequencies of 80 or 100 Hz.
The subharmonic synthesizer generates punchy bass from bass-shy material. This is particularly useful for older music recordings. A dynamic high-frequency enhancer constantly monitors the ratio of HF to broad-band energy in the incoming audio and can automatically re-equalize it to achieve a target balance between broadband and HF energy.
The DC removal filter with a 0.1 Hz −3 dB low frequency cutoff removes DC offset from source material without introducing overshoot and tilt into low-frequency waveforms.
Control Application
OPTIMOD-PCn 1600’s Windows control application provides remote control and administration, and allows factory and user presets to be recalled from and save to a host storage device such as a disk drive. The control application client can address multiple instances of OPTIMOD-PCn 1600.
Minimum System Requirements
OPTIMOD-PCn 1600 requires Intel SSE4.1 Minimum / AVX2.0 Recommended with CPU Extensions. It is a very high performance no-compromise audio processor offering features that equal or exceed those of Orban OPTIMOD hardware processors. Yet the processing is very efficient due to its vectorized code that fully exploits Intel SSE4.1 and AVX2.0 vector instruction units. To take full advantage of all features and achieve the best possible sound, a capable CPU is necessary. Intel i-Series or Xeon processors are recommended with clock speeds of 3 GHz or higher and SSE4.1/AVX2.0 extension support. For added reliability, Xeon processors with ECC RAM should be used. Intel CPU and chipset models will change depending on the current offerings from Intel. Windows 10 is required as operating system. Versions below Windows 10 are not supported.