I apologize to anyone if the questions I am about to ask sound stupid.


I work for a small college radio station in Missoula, MT USA. I ended
up being the assistant engineer - our contract engineer is very busy,
because he works for Fisher Communications.

Recently we lost our Optimod 8200 to some major power spike, so we had
it sent in and repaired. During the repair we had it upgraded from the
1.2 software to 3.0 and 5 bands rather than 2. Public radio bailed us
out with one of their backups while our processor was being repaired.

We got it back and installed it using the quick setup. I started to
notice really bad distortion on program peaks in the low range - below
200 hz kicks.
The first kick on say some hiphop track would "suprise" the optimod
and distort. When it adjusts for this kick, anything after the kick is
not distorted.
I check the output on the board and found it was running at 1.23v - I
brought it down to .775v and I still have the same problems.


I use the default presets built into it - first rock open, then
urban/rap-dense.
I turned up the bass coupling a bit, and turn the bass boost
completely off, and the distortion became very minimal.
Would this be because the source is being distorted, and the optimod
is emphasizing the distortion?

Also I checked the input vs the output with the i/o meters - showing
the input float around -7 on most material, and the output of course
at 0, and composite at 100%.


We use analog inputs
going from the board, it passes through a delay (I verified this is
not causing the distortion at all), then through a Sage EAS Endac,
then on to the optimod.


I've gone through quick setup tons of times with no luck (I am
obviously doing something wrong).



The board is calibrated so at exactly 0db on the VU meters with a +4db
tone input it outputs .775 volts or 0db. In the I/O Calib screen given
this information what should I set the A-I Clip LNL dBu, and the A-I
Ref LVL dBu?


Should the urban/rap-dense cause distortion by default?

Also an off-subject question:
Does the default classical setting utilize the 5 bands, or will it
switch to 2 bands?


I appreciate any help anybody can offer - I'm sure I probably sound
like a complete fool above this, but I'm trying as hard as I can to
get this station sounding good.
I've read the manual to the optimod like 3 times hehe


If you want to contact me on aim, or icq or email...


Aim: toph899
ICQ: 12869425

Thanks