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What is so special about the ALPS processing algorithm? I’ve heard that some other devices use multi-band techniques to reduce bass pumping. Isn’t a multi-band unit more powerful and better-sounding than a wide-band one like ALPS?
No, although it depends on what you are trying to achieve. Multi-band techniques can reduce bass pumping of the rest of the programme, but they introduce other risks; skewing the spectral balance of the programme audibly and objectionably; causing audible phasing effects; building up a ‘busy’, dense, fatiguing sound; impairing the audio by passing it through many processing subroutines; and most importantly – exacerbating the audio quality limitations of low-bit-rate systems. Typically, multi-band techniques are used in a radio airchain processor, and there is absolutely no need to do that process twice!
ALPS has been designed to keep levels under control, but without aiming for a synthetic, radio-processed sound, instead keeping the programme close to how the producers intended it to sound. A sonic signature, if required, can be added later without fear that the two processors will ‘fight each other’.
We have developed a range of techniques that address the problems of wideband. In a leveller there are other ways than multiband to get around the bass pumping problem; and we strongly encourage you to audition ALPS and make up your own mind!
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