OptiBob rebuilds the steady, dense character of FM broadcast with an AGC, five-band compression, a clipper and a limiter. Every stage was compared against a real Optimod 8200 — not tuned by ear.
One engine. Nothing you pay for sounds better — same chain, same tuning, same quality everywhere. What you buy is how much of it you can move.
Drop a file in and convert it.
In the browser. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is stored, no account.
€30 ONCE
Listen, don’t touch.
Three ready-made sounds and live meters. The strip is on screen but held.
Free while it is in testing. €30 at release.
€69 / YEAR
The strip opens.
Six knobs: the ones that decide how even the level is and how dense the sound gets.
€120 / YEAR
The five bands, one by one.
For when a station needs its own balance, not ours.
First time you open OptiLive: right-click the app → Open. macOS shows a warning for software from outside the App Store until it is notarised — that is on its way.
One app, identical in all three versions: it shows the whole chain and every meter, always. What changes is how much of it you are allowed to move. The EQ, the crossovers and the final clipper stay as they were measured, in every version — they are what makes the character, and moving them is how you lose it.
An Audio Unit and a VST3, so it loads in Logic, Ableton Live, Reaper and Studio One. Same engine, same tuning, with the Plus and Pro controls on the strip instead of in a separate window.
The processing runs inside your browser, with the same chain as the app. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is stored, no account.
The meters are live: they read the audio actually playing.
Everything happens inside this page: your files are never uploaded
anywhere and never leave your computer.
By using OptiBob you declare that you hold the rights to the tracks you process.
Plenty of plugins promise the radio sound with an aggressive preset and a lot of saturation. The result is loud, but it is not radio. A real FM processor works differently: it holds the level steady over time, balances the bands, and controls the peaks without flattening everything.
OptiBob starts from measurements. The same material through an Optimod 8200 and through OptiBob, then compared on loudness, peaks, density, dynamic range and tone curve. The differences are published below, including the ones we lose.
Automatic gain control. Brings the material to a stable working level, slowly, without pumping. It is what makes a live show even from one record to the next.
Five-band compression. Each band is driven to its own fixed destination, so every record arrives with the same tonal balance whatever it was mastered like.
Clipper. Sets the density and buys the loudness, with the distortion kept under control instead of left to chance.
True-peak limiter. The ceiling on what leaves the chain, so nothing overshoots after encoding.
Measured on the same source material, level-matched and time-aligned before measuring. The aim is not to beat the reference: it is to land as close as possible to how it behaves. Bench of 3 October 2026.
The original master is far louder. OptiBob lands on the Optimod’s output level.
The record goes over 0 dBTP. Optimod and OptiBob both leave real headroom.
Density within a tenth of a decibel of the reference: the same compact character.
The stillness FM is made of: macro-dynamics cut down, level constant. Here we are still short — 1.0 against 0.7.
The Optimod is the reference, so it is zero by definition. Level is matched first, so this measures colour and not loudness. Ours is 1.12 dB away instead of nothing — it is on this page because a sheet that lists only its wins is an advertisement, not a measurement.
File processing in the browser, free.
System audio on macOS, free.
AU and VST3 plugin, with the Plus and Pro controls on the strip. In testing.
Sitting inside streaming and playout software. Not available yet.
It levels the record, splits the sound into five bands and holds each one at a fixed destination, then puts a ceiling on what comes out. That is what makes a station sound constant: every record arrives at the same place, whatever it was mastered like.
No. OptiBob is independent software, written from scratch, and contains no Orban code. Orban and Optimod are trademarks of their owner. A real unit was used as a measurement reference — the way you would reference any instrument you are trying to match.
Because they are on the page, including the ones we lose. Every figure comes from the same sixty seconds of audio, level-matched and time-aligned before measuring — without aligning first, the envelope error reads three times worse than it is.
No, and it never will. Same engine, same tuning, same quality. What you pay for is the freedom to move the controls, not a better sound.
No. OptiFile processes the audio inside your browser. The files stay on your device.
macOS 14.4 or newer. OptiLive uses the audio taps macOS provides, so there is no driver and no system extension to install.
Yes. OptiLive processes the sound your Mac is playing, whatever is playing it. It does not need access to the service.
A radio station runs every record through a processing chain: an AGC that levels it, a multiband compressor that holds each band at a fixed balance, and a final clipper and limiter that set the density. OptiBob is that chain. Drop a file into this page, or run OptiLive and everything your Mac plays comes out with the constant, dense sound of FM radio.
OptiFile, on this page, and OptiLive are free and use the whole engine. OptiBob is not an Orban product and is not endorsed by Orban: it is independent software, measured against a real Optimod 8200 so you can judge how close it gets.
Today OptiBob works on files and on everything your Mac plays. A version that sits inside streaming and broadcast software is planned; the engine is the same.
Yes — that is OptiPlug, an Audio Unit and a VST3, so it loads in Logic, Ableton Live, Reaper and Studio One. It runs the same engine as the browser version and the Mac app, measured the same way. It is in testing; the other two work today.
Your licence is sent to you by email, by a person, usually within a few hours — it is
one line of text. Put it in ~/Library/Application Support/OptiBob/plus.txt,
reopen the app, and every control is unlocked. It is tied to your email address, not to your
machine: the same licence works on every Mac you own.
Nothing breaks and nothing is lost. The app goes back to Free: it keeps processing, with the same engine and the same quality, and your saved tunings stay on your disk. Renew and the controls come back.
Personal use only for now. For any commercial request write to diellepalmieri@optibob.com.
None of it is ours. It was designed by Bob Orban, and it took him a working lifetime. Long before any of this, his name was already on studio gear — parametric equalisers, reverbs, de-essers. The radio came after.
Whole generations of radio were shaped inside those boxes, and a good number of us learned the trade there.
Read this part. OptiBob simulates
that character — it is not an Orban, it contains no Orban technology and it
does not replace one. Orban processors remain the reference of the industry, and
if you are putting audio on the air, that is what you buy.
Personal use only. Commercial use of this work is not permitted.
For any request: diellepalmieri@optibob.com