Stereo Tool

Hello again,

In addition to this topic…
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7087
… I was asked there to share my current ST settings, what I would like to do now. According to the topic title “Developing…” I am still interested in further improvements to my rather few settings so far.

These settings include the declipper with max. CPU usage for best results and the Natural Dynamics effect with a strength of 0.50. Before I start the effect, I lower the volume to a total db of -12. E.g. if the song (or album) has a dynamic range of 5 db, I lower the volume by -7 db. That is more than enough headroom before using ST. There might remain some “clipped peaks” in the declipped waveform, which have no effect to the sound in my opinion. These peaks are obviously “calculation errors” of the declipper but I do not know how to cut them out without having a negative effect on the final output. If someone knows, please let me know. (this would make sense to get a more precise dynamic range calculation after using the ST effects)

In addition to these settings and as I am still not really convinced of the treble sound, I use a freeware shelving EG with a very subtle mid-side change change effekt of +1.5 db beginning at 3.4 KHz, which really improves treble sound itself as well as the stereo effect, which broadens slightly.

These both tools together already create some really excellent results. Surely not on every clipped/compressed song, but if the original production is good enough, I’m really delighted with the results so far.

If someone has further ideas for improvements to get a “most audiophile” sound (clear, natural, as you like to calll it), I would be very interested in. If you add changed presets here: please try to describe shortly what you have done and, if possible, do not make too many changes in one go, because in that case it becomes really difficult for me to understand (and listen), what each effect change is doing. For that reason I have not tested too many ST effects so far. Subtle effects I do not hear on my PC, each time I have to burn a CD and listen to it on my real equipment.... and very often in the past, a good impression on the first listen is gone three days later.... which shows how difficult it is to get a real natural sound.

Good, you found how to restore clipped peeks and bit boost some.
However seems you don't hear (see) how peeks are killing "hard limit"

Set pre-amp to atleast -6dB to give room for track that are already at 0dB. Red bars at output should happen more rarely.

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control point
control point2

Well, I'm obviously no expert in using the possibilities of ST, as written above.

And as also written above, I already set pre-amp to -"X" db to get enough room for the declipper. The remaining "clipped peaks" are very few a have no impact on the final result (to my ears).

As I said, with these settings I get some excellent results so far, although I'm currently testing the natural dynamics with a "strength 0.75". Somewhere in that area seems to be the border for me between an natural and an unnatural improvement of the sound.

But I have another big problem, which brings me to a limit: many current CD's from 2014/2015 sound clipped/compressed (DR ranges e.g. 5 to 7), but they do not improve in sound very much with these settings. So I suppose they are already weakly produced instead of just clipped/compressed in the mastering process. In that case, the "possibilities" of this tool are obviously limited.

You need much more filters included for that. And yes you can't "fix" 2 tracks, where one is DR 5 and another DR16, to sound ~same and to have same amount of dynamics and RMS. That almost is something like A.I. Processing wich will be not avaliable on this planet soon.
JesseG tried that in his preset with goal of ~12dB dynamics. With new "Spectral Balancing" sounds much better.

However with included AGC and MB you can reach 2 of 3 goals.

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control point
control point2

I'm in the same boat as you. I use Stereo tool more for general listening with Winamp than any FM broadcasting. It's one of the only Winamp DSP plugins still being developed. Anyway, really like this preset. Only issue with the Declipper is that it gets confused when playing electronic music that uses square waves as it treats the signal as "clipped" even though it isn't. This results in noticeable artifacts.

Hello again,

sorry for the late answer, but I'm probably too stupid (technically) to understand what Bojcha advised me to do. For me, a corrected preset would be helpful inkl. the description of what was changed against the factory settings - and why?

Meanwhile I just changed two things from the attached preset v1. I disabled "MP3 input" completely now, which brings more clearness for lossless inputs. And, as I said, I changed Natural Dynamics to a strength of 0.75, which seems a good compromise for different recordings.

With these changes (and the added subtle shelving EQ effect), I tested within the past days with really good results. Luckily I have several excellent vinyl rips of current releases. They are very good to compare the "unmaster" results with, and so far, I'm really pleased in the majority of the albums.

As I said, on some clipped/compressed recordings, these settings do nearly nothing listenable, so I suppose the problem in these cases is a rather poor production. I will also check this with a vinyl rip soon. Electronic music also does not really react on this preset, but as I mainly hear anything in the "rock context", I concentrate on these comparisions.

Oh, yes you can have that.
we can not have anything which isn't there.
We can have the same RMS (kind of).

Dietmar,

give me a list of files that you want me to test.

Or I can compose one myself based on what people have used on different youtube clips to process...
These files would be CD rips (ie: flac).

I have one for you too. Here is a song where the Declipper causes noticeable artifacts:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/up6q906xhv0k3 ... kenden.mp3

The song plays just fine with the declipper off. Any way around this without negatively affecting other songs?

Here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5b2c1sh3tztbt ... .flac?dl=0

Three version. One with and one without declipper. And one as is.

Nice levels on the mp3!