OTO Machines FX - BIM BAM BOUM

I had the analog heat for a couple of days and now the boum. Doesnt spent that much time, but the Boum sounds quite different. I really like the Filter. But i’m not sure about the distortion circuits. Especially on drums. Cant find a satisfying setting. I really like the clean boost on the AH. I miss the “wow” effect which you get when you put the AH in the masterbus. But maybe its the missing EQ …
I guess i have to spend much more time with the boum to discover his strengh (besides the lovely filter - much bettern than the AH one).

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Guys, will Boum do what RNLA does? Don’t know if you saw my recent thread about wanting a limiter for live use but I have now narrowed it down to either Boum or RNLA. I’d love to get Boum for it’s creative features but I also want a good compressor/limiter after Octatrack that will allow me to just get a nice boost (maximizing) without too much gain fluctuation. Will I be fine with Boum? Btw I did not hear any ugly distortion in the demo videos of these that I usually get from software compressors/limiters when set to extreme settings so that’s great.

The boum really shines with subtle settings but does colour quite a bit to my ears at least. I don’t have the comparison to any other hardware compressor though so it’s hard to answer your question. I can recommend the boum and the more time and careful listening spent, the better it becomes . Probably bit of an overkill if all you want is some limiting. Definitely financially…

Edit: wouldn’t recommend if you want a clean gain boost

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But without added distortion and just using the compressor at maybe 3-6 dB gain reduction, will it really color things? Is it not a cool color then? :grin:

My style is electronica/IDM so that’s where those creative features would come in handy, I think.

:slight_smile: sounds like you’d like to own one. It’s a marvellous piece of gear and I wouldn’t mind owning 2 . Not going to talk you out of it here… after snooping up on your SC, I reckon you could def make use of it . Nice tunes btw

Go get one if you can afford it. The colour it adds is right up my alley- but that’s obviously a matter of taste. I did struggle liking the distortion tbh at first. There will be numerous sweet spots to explore and i found the presets underwhelming. It has a neat gui and storing presets etc is well thought through

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Thanks man. I haven’t put any of my more recent tracks up since I’m still working on them and I’d say that my new stuff is way more interesting. Hopefully soon… :grinning:

Wish I could try these cool compressors first but they don’t have them in my local music store. I think I’ll wait for NAMM to see if anything else shows up and then probably order when it’s over.

I am in the market for a compressor too, and i have BIM, i can tell you it is great sounding delay, algorithms are beautiful , classy and sounding so much different from anything i had, reminds me on old school digidelays, it has preamp and limiter built in, and the quality of build is great, so i imagine boum would be the same. I was hesitateing a lot before buying it, it is costly , but the moment you play somthing trough it all worries are so gone…

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What is great about bim is preset memory, storing compressor settings for each song i think is good, you can than add somthing different and spacial and to every song, that can be more then it looks on a paper, much more!

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Wait there’s a compressor in BIM too? I thought it was just 12 bit convertir and delay right ?

Right, i was talking about boum , bim has limiter and preamp built in, no compressor ! Boum has preset memory like the bim

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I should receive the OTO Boum in a few days. Can’t wait to try it!

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I received the Boum yesterday. I am not yet sure if I want to keep it though but I’ll do some more testing first. There are some issues with it that I find very problematic like:

The complete volume dip when switching presets which makes switching presets in a live situation totally impractical. There should have been some fading applied.

When using distortion modes 2, 3 and 4 they are always on and affecting the signal even when the Drive knob is all the way down and they are pretty wild.

The drive knob adds an insane amount of volume which means that you will always have to turn down the volume knob when turning up Drive. There should have been some gain compensation here!

Let me know if I’m doing something wrong.

I’d like to ask you guys (and particularly @Prints) if you’d recommend the FMR Audio RNC instead?
I will always be using the compressor entirely on the Master (OT Output).
Will I get a better compressor with the RNC? It should be more transparent as I’ve understood.
I do like quite extreme compression at times which does not distort. Can I get this with RNC?

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When an effects box adds too much gain to your signal it’s good to turn down the signal generation box and then use gain on the boum. Were you looking for a compressor or a distortion box originally ?

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Your complaints were very similar to mine; I felt that the scaling of the drive parameter could be much more useful if it was limited to a more subtle range.

I highly suggest experimenting more with your gain-staging. I recall appreciating the drive much more after decreasing the output level of the machine the Boum was processing. Also, make sure to play with the mix knob; I found this key for getting the best out of it.

I’m usually more into compressors with more character so the RNC wouldn’t be my first choice, but I hear they’re great. I’ve really been into plugins lately for compression. I really enjoyed using a Roland SP-404 (OG version) for the vinyl sim compression in the past. A neat thing about the SP-404 is that you can also use it to record your track in stereo, and it can convert it to a WAV file for you.

There was something I always really liked about how the OG SP-404 sounded when it converted audio to WAVs this way… in a lo-fi-ish kinda manner. It had a way of making things sound extra punchy & present.

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I was initially looking for a compressor/limiter but thought the vaious features of the Boum could be used creatively along with a good compressor/limiter. I actually did turn up OT’s main output since I felt it was too low for engaging Boums compressor but I also found that when raising Boum’s input gain that the compressor knob/level would be quite uneven.
Alright, I’ll try these things.

These questions and purposes are currently exactly my conundrum. I’m looking to add a compressor to my life set on the master. Looking at RNC but have had my head turned by the Boum.

Setting the OT Main Level back to +0 where it use to be does not make much difference - still a huge amount of gain is added with just turning the Drive knob up a little. I do have Boum’s Level at full since I want to keep an equal level to the dry signal when using clean compression. If I lower OT output it does not activate the compressor.

I don’t think I even need the distortion at all since my Elektron machines have plenty of that when wanted so I’ll probably return it. No problem, I was initially looking for a compressor/limiter and it’s now clear to me that I want clean and transparent compression/limiting.

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One solution that has my interest piqued is using a pair of Bogner Harlow pedals as @AdamJay has been experimenting with. Can get the pair for about the same or even less than a BOUM. It’s definitely an “outside-the-box” solution, and maybe something to consider.

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We should probably go back to that thread and discuss it there :grinning:

I’m selling my Boum, if you’re looking for one.

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