Stereo Tool

I see beta37 is up.
Anyway, here's the update for Preset Crucial (FM) [version3] - Final, i hope.
- Bass bit lowered but better controled
- Less Bass pumping
- Better Highs (i hope)
...

Bojcha: I'll post a BETA038 tomorrow morning, if nothing is wrong with that version and you don't post any updates in between, I'll release it tomorrow evening.

One question (and maybe hint) though: Why did you set the 'Strict clip bass below' and 'After Punch clip it below' levels above 100%? I would have expected something like 90% or so... Lower = less distortion.

Heh.. Good question..
In 512 mode there is no punch filter, so I needed to bring back punch somehow. I pushed that two up and Punch was there, well, sort of punch but good one. But then i constanly have punch at 100% and killing Hard limit and loudness and make distortion.
So, 350-600Hz slider is at 84% and Composite limiter is at 105%, which makes that bass will never cross 94-96% of total modulation, You can take a look mpx.

What has changed for VST version with latest Beta builds ?
Last one I had tried was Beta 013.
Tonight I have tried latest Betas.
Betas 032 - 036 (and so I guess 037, etc.) have an empty window hosted with the Acon chainer (but not in Wavelab's internal FX rack !) .
I have not downloaded every Beta, so last Beta that works here (correct window in Acon chainer) is 024 !

BETA601-038:
- Updated Bojcha's Crucial preset.

Michi95: Might be the ASIO threading. Maybe that causes issues with the VST version. I'll turn it off for VST and see what happens.


Winamp DSP plugin: http://www.stereotool.com/download/dsp_ ... 01-038.exe
Stand alone version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... 01-038.exe
VST version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/vst_ ... 01-038.dll
VST version (No SSE2): http://www.stereotool.com/download/vst_ ... 01-038.dll
Command line version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... 01-038.exe
Linux command line version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... ETA601-038
Linux GUI version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... ETA601-038


What remains for 6.01:
- Multiband: Adjust band 3 (and others?) 'soft limit' behavior at very low latencies. Maybe: Also check clipping (also for band 3, might be re-enabled!). DONE! - 1 hour
- Multiband: Adjust extreme EQ settings before processing to avoid issues caused by steepness. - 1 hour
- Multiband: Add 'Enable' button for steepness. 1 hour
- Performance: Multiband steepness: Moving UP can be done inside current loop, no separate loop needed. Maybe down too. Currently Multiband is FAR more expensive than before. - DONE, solved in a different way. - 1 day
- MAYBE: Make Steepness smarter. That would much better preserve the audio, especially at very low latencies! How: Instead of setting all the levels at AT MOST the level of neighboring bands + a bit, combine adjacent bands, determine total output level, and then fix it such that this combined output level is approached more. (So one very low, one very high --> one a bit less low, one a bit less high instead of both low).
- Fix NOISE GATE behavior in VST plugin
- Fix 'red output bar' issue. DONE - 1 day?
- Fix Highpass filter for higher input frequencies.
- Dynamic audio processing window: I've tested this at latency 512, and there it helps. But I don't have a clue what the effect is on higher latencies. They might also sound better, but they could just as well sound worse. - 2 hours. Result: 512 and 1024 got better, 2048 and 4096 got worse. So only turned on for the first two.
- Dynamic audio processing window: CPU load is probably a lot higher (haven't measured it yet) due to the dynamic adjustment of the behavior. The dynamic code was originally intended to be executed only once when a latency was selected, and it's not optimized at all. Fixed, CPU load reduced, and for latency 2048 and 4096 there's no difference. - Optimize, 1 day
- Reduce downsampling frequency because currently very high frequencies (21-22 kHz @ 176.4 kHz input sampling rate) in the input can cause spikes even if Hard Limit is used. DONE - 1 hour
- Vibrations caused by Very deep bass distortion protection at latency 1024. Also (but far less noticeable) in higher latency modes. No issue at latency 512 because there it's turned off. - Fixed, turned it on for latency 512, and turned other bass filter OFF for 512 because it caused distortion.
- Check difference in behavior between 44.1 and 48 kHz input for multiband! This could potentially result in really big differences. - No
- Performance: Multiband: Remove sqrt(sqrt(cos())), pow(x, .75) etc. - too expensive, replace by lookup table. - NOT FOR NOW, would increase memory usage and hence risk more page faults, so it's not sure that this would improve the performance. - 2 hours
- Performance: Move chain variables to a single Struct DONE - 1 hour
- Latency: Attempt to reduce Composite Limiter sampling latency - there is no audio anywhere near the filter frequency, so a much shorter delay might still work very well - DONE, composite limiter latency is now 0.9 ms at latencies 512 and 1024 (~1.7-2 ms at higher latencies)! It can be reduced a step further (to 0.5 ms) if I allow a bit more distortion - don't know if that's useful.
- Chris: "I still hear diff on Bass and kick between Beta 16 vs Beta 08 on 2048 latency. I hear more bass and kick on Beta 08. Pls check!" - No longer true, apparently fixed in BETA020... (Which does not make sense at all, but anyway)
- And I need to check how much the performance is impacted by the latency improvements, in the case where no upsampling and downsampling is needed. This seems to be impacted way more than I expected (could also be Multiband steepness --> Not anymore, fixed). Ah, got part of it: 1% is steepness. Which leaves about 3% to be explained. Het is NIET de FM Hard Limit - ook al bereken ik daar nu meer van. Wellicht chain2 calls? - No, wrong again. Decreased Steepness grain match from every 4 to every 16 samples, extra CPU load is now only 2% - acceptable.
- Fix BYPASS mode in stand alone version DONE
- Fix 4096 in stand alone version
- ASIO latency: Add configurable ASIO granularity
- ASIO latency: Add active output push instead of reactive. - No longer needed - I think. Data is now sent to output BEFORE processing. And there's always some processing delay. Might become more interesting when CPU load goes down.
- ASIO latency: Make option to increase ST priority. DONE
- Check ASIO on single core behavior... DONE, option available
- Change ASIO latency interface (lower values, more fine-grained; display actual latency after rounding)
- Attempt to set GAUSS back to 0 - gives MUCH better processing of most filters (no high frequency noise). BUT: Loudness effect in Bjork - It's Oh So Quiet - can that be resolved in another way? - WAIT FOR FEEDBACK
- Frequencies between 60 and 75 Hz are not handled properly yet, and can still cause vibration effects at soft high frequencies in latency 512 mode. (But FAR less than in version 6.00). Fixing this will probably increase artifacts for bass in this frequency range. - WAIT FOR FEEDBACK - Make this level depend on the input level (gives less artifacts when not needed) DONE
- Set Steepness a bit higher than before because there are far less artifacts. DONE
- Bojcha: "There is strange "tone" at LEFT channel (tested ST dsp), caused by Bass Boost, but not always!" - Seems gone now - DONE
- Something is wrong with ASIO if there's only one channel instead of 2.
- Bypass is not good again
- phoenix: Direct sound at any buffer doesnot work unless MultiCore is ENABLED! FIXED
- phoenix: "Change of Thread Priority: Now this really needs working. I'll try to make you understand the pattern that I'm observing. Normal and High donot work. Only REALTIME works depending upon whether ST is run using elevated privileges or not. So if I run ST as Admin, it changes to REALTIME in Win 7/Win Vista, else it sets it to HIGH. Now clicking on Normal or High puts it back to the priority at which ST was running just before setting it to REALTIME. So if it was set to Above Normal(using task manager), it reverts to that when clicked on Normal or High from ST Sound Confg Window." - BEHAVIOR UPDATED
- bojcha: When i change Soundcards samples it should ask me to restart program or somehow to deal with it. Currently it hangs. Moving buffer size or bypass ON/OFF, resolves it. - REPORTED TO BE OK NOW
- phoenix: ASIO sound disappears on enabling multicore. - SOLVED
- Allow setting Realtime priority on Vista (if possible, Admin rights?) - NOT POSSIBLE
- Change buffer size configuration to match whole ASIO grains (probably only displaying them) - DONE
- bojcha: I notice when Opening and starting program is a bit slower, minimizing to tray slower too. but it's ok. - Reported OK now.
- Hangups during closing of stand alone version. (hThread) Solved??? - NOT SEEN BY OTHERS
- Real-time priority +6/+5 possible instead of ABOVE_NORMAL and HIGH?
- Fix different priority settings - BUSY, waiting for feedback...
- Check/fix Bass Boost ringing reported by Bojcha for higher 'upto' frequencies. REDUCED it a bit, hope that suffices... Less steep filtering (ie. bigger difference between first 2 frequencies) helps. Another step is possible to reduce them further (probably 50% more) - DONE, FAR less artifacts now.
- Update Bojcha's Addiction preset
- Change version number --> 6.10 (there are also interface changes)
- Check forum for good new presets - DONE, some are good, but difference with existing presets is not big enough to add them.
- Add low latency generic preset based on Crucial
- Wait for Bojcha's final changes!
- Release

Questions:
* Multiband: Question: Is Steepness behavior ok? - AS GOOD AS POSSIBLE NOW, AND CAN BE TURNED OFF.
* Loudness: QUESTION: The changed Punch behavior, is that good or bad? Should I attempt to let Punch behave as it did in the past as much as possible, or not?


For 6.02:
- It's possible to send data to an audio buffer AFTER I've returned control to the driver if I call ASIOOutputReady() when I'm ready
- Add non-phase linear Multiband stage between AGC and incoming_copy_needed.
- Use double overlap (allow quality levels > 100%) to strongly reduce artifacts
- Introduce extra latency between 512 and 1024 by upsampling or downsampling

@ Michi: Fortunately this time I could reproduce the issue (...). BETA28 is still OK, BETA29 GUI doesn't show up.
That's what I expected to be the cause.

I think I should remove the separate GUI thread again - at the very least for the VST version. This thing does have some advantages though (less flashing) - I'll see if I can somehow keep those.

Edit: I cannot remove this thread for the stand alone version, because I need to be able to lower its priority. Will keep it only for the stand alone version, remove it for all others.

Edit #2: Seems to be fixed now. Testing some more, will start a build afterwards.
Edit #3: Yup, everything seems to be ok. Building BETA039 (hopefully FINALLY the last version for 6.10) now.

@ All

You can download Beta 039 now !!!


Hans, big brother is watching you.

BETA601-039:
- Fixed VST issue in Acon Effect Chainer (and potentially in other programs as well): Removed the separate - and according to the Windows API, illegal - GUI thread in all versions EXCEPT the stand alone version (I need it there to make sure the GUI updates have a lower priority than processing).

Winamp DSP plugin: http://www.stereotool.com/download/dsp_ ... 01-039.exe
Stand alone version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... 01-039.exe
VST version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/vst_ ... 01-039.dll
VST version (No SSE2): http://www.stereotool.com/download/vst_ ... 01-039.dll
Command line version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... 01-039.exe
Linux command line version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... ETA601-039
Linux GUI version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... ETA601-039


What remains for 6.01:
- Multiband: Adjust band 3 (and others?) 'soft limit' behavior at very low latencies. Maybe: Also check clipping (also for band 3, might be re-enabled!). DONE! - 1 hour
- Multiband: Adjust extreme EQ settings before processing to avoid issues caused by steepness. - 1 hour
- Multiband: Add 'Enable' button for steepness. 1 hour
- Performance: Multiband steepness: Moving UP can be done inside current loop, no separate loop needed. Maybe down too. Currently Multiband is FAR more expensive than before. - DONE, solved in a different way. - 1 day
- MAYBE: Make Steepness smarter. That would much better preserve the audio, especially at very low latencies! How: Instead of setting all the levels at AT MOST the level of neighboring bands + a bit, combine adjacent bands, determine total output level, and then fix it such that this combined output level is approached more. (So one very low, one very high --> one a bit less low, one a bit less high instead of both low).
- Fix NOISE GATE behavior in VST plugin
- Fix 'red output bar' issue. DONE - 1 day?
- Fix Highpass filter for higher input frequencies.
- Dynamic audio processing window: I've tested this at latency 512, and there it helps. But I don't have a clue what the effect is on higher latencies. They might also sound better, but they could just as well sound worse. - 2 hours. Result: 512 and 1024 got better, 2048 and 4096 got worse. So only turned on for the first two.
- Dynamic audio processing window: CPU load is probably a lot higher (haven't measured it yet) due to the dynamic adjustment of the behavior. The dynamic code was originally intended to be executed only once when a latency was selected, and it's not optimized at all. Fixed, CPU load reduced, and for latency 2048 and 4096 there's no difference. - Optimize, 1 day
- Reduce downsampling frequency because currently very high frequencies (21-22 kHz @ 176.4 kHz input sampling rate) in the input can cause spikes even if Hard Limit is used. DONE - 1 hour
- Vibrations caused by Very deep bass distortion protection at latency 1024. Also (but far less noticeable) in higher latency modes. No issue at latency 512 because there it's turned off. - Fixed, turned it on for latency 512, and turned other bass filter OFF for 512 because it caused distortion.
- Check difference in behavior between 44.1 and 48 kHz input for multiband! This could potentially result in really big differences. - No
- Performance: Multiband: Remove sqrt(sqrt(cos())), pow(x, .75) etc. - too expensive, replace by lookup table. - NOT FOR NOW, would increase memory usage and hence risk more page faults, so it's not sure that this would improve the performance. - 2 hours
- Performance: Move chain variables to a single Struct DONE - 1 hour
- Latency: Attempt to reduce Composite Limiter sampling latency - there is no audio anywhere near the filter frequency, so a much shorter delay might still work very well - DONE, composite limiter latency is now 0.9 ms at latencies 512 and 1024 (~1.7-2 ms at higher latencies)! It can be reduced a step further (to 0.5 ms) if I allow a bit more distortion - don't know if that's useful.
- Chris: "I still hear diff on Bass and kick between Beta 16 vs Beta 08 on 2048 latency. I hear more bass and kick on Beta 08. Pls check!" - No longer true, apparently fixed in BETA020... (Which does not make sense at all, but anyway)
- And I need to check how much the performance is impacted by the latency improvements, in the case where no upsampling and downsampling is needed. This seems to be impacted way more than I expected (could also be Multiband steepness --> Not anymore, fixed). Ah, got part of it: 1% is steepness. Which leaves about 3% to be explained. Het is NIET de FM Hard Limit - ook al bereken ik daar nu meer van. Wellicht chain2 calls? - No, wrong again. Decreased Steepness grain match from every 4 to every 16 samples, extra CPU load is now only 2% - acceptable.
- Fix BYPASS mode in stand alone version DONE
- Fix 4096 in stand alone version
- ASIO latency: Add configurable ASIO granularity
- ASIO latency: Add active output push instead of reactive. - No longer needed - I think. Data is now sent to output BEFORE processing. And there's always some processing delay. Might become more interesting when CPU load goes down.
- ASIO latency: Make option to increase ST priority. DONE
- Check ASIO on single core behavior... DONE, option available
- Change ASIO latency interface (lower values, more fine-grained; display actual latency after rounding)
- Attempt to set GAUSS back to 0 - gives MUCH better processing of most filters (no high frequency noise). BUT: Loudness effect in Bjork - It's Oh So Quiet - can that be resolved in another way? - WAIT FOR FEEDBACK
- Frequencies between 60 and 75 Hz are not handled properly yet, and can still cause vibration effects at soft high frequencies in latency 512 mode. (But FAR less than in version 6.00). Fixing this will probably increase artifacts for bass in this frequency range. - WAIT FOR FEEDBACK - Make this level depend on the input level (gives less artifacts when not needed) DONE
- Set Steepness a bit higher than before because there are far less artifacts. DONE
- Bojcha: "There is strange "tone" at LEFT channel (tested ST dsp), caused by Bass Boost, but not always!" - Seems gone now - DONE
- Something is wrong with ASIO if there's only one channel instead of 2.
- Bypass is not good again
- phoenix: Direct sound at any buffer doesnot work unless MultiCore is ENABLED! FIXED
- phoenix: "Change of Thread Priority: Now this really needs working. I'll try to make you understand the pattern that I'm observing. Normal and High donot work. Only REALTIME works depending upon whether ST is run using elevated privileges or not. So if I run ST as Admin, it changes to REALTIME in Win 7/Win Vista, else it sets it to HIGH. Now clicking on Normal or High puts it back to the priority at which ST was running just before setting it to REALTIME. So if it was set to Above Normal(using task manager), it reverts to that when clicked on Normal or High from ST Sound Confg Window." - BEHAVIOR UPDATED
- bojcha: When i change Soundcards samples it should ask me to restart program or somehow to deal with it. Currently it hangs. Moving buffer size or bypass ON/OFF, resolves it. - REPORTED TO BE OK NOW
- phoenix: ASIO sound disappears on enabling multicore. - SOLVED
- Allow setting Realtime priority on Vista (if possible, Admin rights?) - NOT POSSIBLE
- Change buffer size configuration to match whole ASIO grains (probably only displaying them) - DONE
- bojcha: I notice when Opening and starting program is a bit slower, minimizing to tray slower too. but it's ok. - Reported OK now.
- Hangups during closing of stand alone version. (hThread) Solved??? - NOT SEEN BY OTHERS
- Real-time priority +6/+5 possible instead of ABOVE_NORMAL and HIGH?
- Fix different priority settings - BUSY, waiting for feedback...
- Check/fix Bass Boost ringing reported by Bojcha for higher 'upto' frequencies. REDUCED it a bit, hope that suffices... Less steep filtering (ie. bigger difference between first 2 frequencies) helps. Another step is possible to reduce them further (probably 50% more) - DONE, FAR less artifacts now.
- Update Bojcha's Addiction preset
- Change version number --> 6.10 (there are also interface changes)
- Check forum for good new presets - DONE, some are good, but difference with existing presets is not big enough to add them.
- Add low latency generic preset based on Crucial
- Wait for Bojcha's final changes!
- Release

Questions:
* Multiband: Question: Is Steepness behavior ok? - AS GOOD AS POSSIBLE NOW, AND CAN BE TURNED OFF.
* Loudness: QUESTION: The changed Punch behavior, is that good or bad? Should I attempt to let Punch behave as it did in the past as much as possible, or not?


For 6.02:
- It's possible to send data to an audio buffer AFTER I've returned control to the driver if I call ASIOOutputReady() when I'm ready
- Add non-phase linear Multiband stage between AGC and incoming_copy_needed.
- Use double overlap (allow quality levels > 100%) to strongly reduce artifacts
- Introduce extra latency between 512 and 1024 by upsampling or downsampling

LOL, my PC suddenly rebooted directly after I uploaded them So I had to reboot before I could post anything

And if there is still time....