I’m building a new station ID bed and my layered whoosh (3 kHz bandpass on a field-recorded subway brake plus a 120 Hz rumble) keeps getting smeared by the Optimod 8600 — transients lose edge after the chain. Are you keeping tails under about 250 ms and printing at -2 dBTP with 3 ms linear fades, or is there a smarter EQ/multiband approach that stays crisp on-air?
the 8600 loves to smear mid-heavy whooshes. > the chain. Are you keeping tails under about 250 ms and printing at -2 dBTP with 3 (“Timing’s fine; what saved mine was dodging the midband — shift the 3 kHz pass up to about 3.8–4.2 kHz, soft‑clip 1–2 dB there, and duck the 120 Hz layer 5–6 dB for about 60 ms so the detector doesn’t pump.”) If you’re on 75 µs, also hard HPF the rumble at 70–80 Hz pre-bus — are you?
But what fixed it for me was keying a dynamic low-shelf to duck 120–250 Hz by about 3 dB for the first about 70 ms of the whoosh so the 8600 doesn’t grab the transient and smear the edge… Do you have the bass clipper active on the 8600? I also preview through Stereo Tool’s FM pre-emphasis to sanity-check the bite survives: Stereo Tool - Thimeo.
I’ve kept my subway‑brake whooshes crisp by pre‑emphasizing 4–6 kHz by about 2 dB for just the first about 50 ms, then baking an inverse EQ into the tail so the 8600 sees a sharp attack but a calm sustain. Is your “3 kHz bandpass” maybe a little too tight up front?