Stereo Tool

BETA 24A did not work for me (non-FM, non-ASIO, 192KHX sample), spoken word came out as a serious case of "Alvin and the Chipmunks" = high pitched squeaks. Never heard this in BETA20.

BETA 23 is what I reverted back to, sounds fine.

Bob Hawkins' Loud and Clear is my go to but affected all presets.

I can confirm this. 48khz works. Anything higher is broken.

Strange, beta24 works fine for me. i'll test more..

edit: Seems there IS problem. Big drops when i use full FM preset and normal output.

_________________
control point
control point2

Appreciate your thoughts DJ-DOGGY. I'm using 192kHz for MPX (FM) generation purposes. While I understand what you are saying, I'm still not convinced that this is 100% a buffer issue. I might be wrong though! The buffer doesn't really change much in size from what can remember. FM output buffer is 0.250s and NO is 0.550s If you check the clip I sent you, right near the end, things clear up - this is when I turned off 'ignore frequencies above', when I reactivated it the really bad glitching returned.
I'll send you my .ini file - I hope that things are somewhat the same as when I tested - I know I mucked about thereafter. Don't know if this is related - I am also monitoring a deemphasized version of the FM using NO.

Hans - have you any idea why the buffer seems to fill / un-fill at different fluctuation frequencies with 'ignore high frequencies' enabled or disabled?
Also - when you enable auto-restart for restart on buffer issues - is this designed to generate an exception for the restart?

Ok, first the good news: I think I found the cause! In fact it seems to be a bug that has been there for years, for some reason (I don't understand why) it was apparently triggered by the 'Ignore frequencies above' setting.

Different fluctuation: That could be because the CPU usage is less stable (it collects a bigger block of data before it starts to do something). What did you set the sound card ASIO block size to? If it's small the effect should be less.

Auto-restart: I think so, because the whole issue shouldn't happen so I do want to show a notification; if you come back after a few days you at least know that something happened.

Stereo Tool 7.71 BETA024B

Glitches (2sense, cornyman) and >48 kHz sample rate issues in stand alone version should be solved now.

Windows 32 bit:
Windows stand alone: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... 1-024B.exe
Winamp DSP: http://www.stereotool.com/download/dsp_ ... 71-024.exe same as before
Windows 32 bit VST: http://www.stereotool.com/download/vst_ ... 71-024.dll same as before

CHANGES:
- Reduce memory usage further (check all MAX_SAMPLES_44K arrays including SS and multi_samples) - Effect is small (about 0.5 MB) - not worth the effort.
- Check all #pragma messages.
- Fix >48 kHz Normal Output issue in stand alone version.
- Fix reported glitches/hiccups?

OLD CHANGES:
- Optimized Stokkemask exciter code
- Optimized output to lower sample rate sound cards (includes plugin hosts). Overhead (CPU load even when all processing is disabled) is greatly reduced. Risky change.
- Tested a large number of other small things (there were a bunch of remarks that I placed throughout the code, and most of them are removed now).
- Fixed FM tilt correction GUI issue.
- Exception reported by DJ_DOGGY fixed.
- Make OldSamples buffers (and potentially others) dynamic to save memory - Currently allocating 85 MB just to display waveforms!!!
- Optimize memory usage: Don't allocate more than MAX_SAMPLES_ST for blocks which only get downsampled audio. So only allocate a few things bigger.
- Change tone generation FM enable/disable and order.
- VST multiple instances fails - Tested and works fine. Ignoring unless I'm receiving a better report. Note: 32 bit too many instances can crash due to the 2 GB limit. Max number is now 3, used to be 6 so some optimization could be useful.
- Make VST window bigger
- Fixed Quality slider bug introduced in previous beta
- Fixed jumping pilot and RDS effect on some 'Ignore frequencies above' frequencies.
- Sometimes the top and bottom waveforms run at different speeds when Ignore Frequencies Above is enabled.
- Make Chain block (small size) based - Partially done
- Declipper display is broken. Even without Ignore Frequencies Above. Ok upto 100 ms. Also broken in 7.70!!! Only if samplerate > 48 kHz, and when switching between sizes, upto 100 ms everything is fine (even if no audio is playing so no refresh of the data occurs), so the bug is in the displaying code. -> Was a shift error, fixed.
- Turning "Bandpass" Highpass filter OFF doesn't really turn it off (!)
- Again, fixed noise level jumps and spike at Ignore Frequencies Above frequency.
- Clipper issues Leif / Wolf Stahl (probably the same thing) - Should be fixed now. - Waiting for reply Wolf- Check new clipper highs
- Remove "Take some shortcuts" under CPU, probably broken! And has not much effect anyway. -> Hm, no, must have been in use for the tests. Ugh... TEST to check what is better: ON (which will probably allow more sounds through) or OFF. -> Actually it does seem to work AND allow more highs through, but I don't know if that's a good thing - more tests needed!
- Added lowpass filter after clipper in non-composite mode.
- Another bug in latest beta - ST doesn't remember FM settings - presets from the fm list start up with stereo and rds encoding off
- Fix MPX display sample rate issue
- Fix Stokkemask in Leif's mode with Quality < 3
- Fixed problem with click sounds (reported by DJ_DOGGY). Reduced output level by 1% - you can safely increase modulation by 1% if you're using an output that's affected by this (should only be FM signal inside a plugin). If you're using the stand alone version, make sure to set the output level to the sound card no higher than 99% (-0.1 dB).
- Fix downsampling and Quality slider problems: Lower Quality setting
- Attempt to reduce effect on volume of using Leif's clipping method.
- Fix DJ Doggy's reported errors (19 kHz, junk around tones).
- Ignore frequencies above a specific frequency -> Should lower TOTAL CPU load by another 10-20% (now fully implemented except at lower Quality settings)
- Fixed the lowpass bug that was introduced in 009. Although it has probably always been there! As a side effect, the output is also slightly louder (about 0.02 dB) with no negative effects.
- Fixed distortion introduced in 009/010. Extra highs are still there though! See new 'Sparkling highs' section under Advanced Clipper -> Sound
- Fix optimizations
- Fix code #warnings
- Improved highs filtering in Clipper (both Composite and Normal); sound has more brilliance and suffers much less from ducking on loud sounds.
- Fix bug: NAN's can occur at certain input sample rates (40960 Hz among others)
- Fixed downsampling/resampling issues.
- Made several changes to the Clipper that affect the sound! Sound should now be more open en brighter (but it might have more distortion in some cases, I hope not though).
- CPU: Added 'Ignore high frequencies above'.
- Big Composite Clipper CPU load improvement: Added a new slider ('Oversampling Quality' or something like that); CPU load reduction is HUGE and effect on peak control (for values above 4) seems very small.
- Solved a number of warnings that I added in the last few days
- Some small optimizations
- New Highs Gap Protection improved, now similar in behavior to the old one. I had to add 1 extra step (slightly higher CPU load).
- Fixed problems in 771-004. Some optimizations are disabled - I need to fix that.
- Fix CPU measurement for high loads (jumps to 95% for unknown reason). -> Showing real average instead of median now. Median in dark red.
- Difference in measured CPU load is bigger than expected after CPU load measurement update - check why - DONE, is indeed big! Separate slider added to show both processing and total CPU usage.
- CPU: Clipper: Reduced default number of Bass Clipper steps from 4 to 1
- CPU: Clipper: Implemented Leif's mirrorring method for Stokkemask and optimized steps using Omnia interface, much fewer steps for same result.
- Added option to add a text in the title bar to easily recognize multiple instances.
- EXCEPTION OCCURRED IN HttpServer: Got unknown widget ID.
- CPU: Clipper: Highs gap protection: Use 1 step for non-FM.
- Check if COMMON_STATIC still improves performance, if not remove it -> Does not, removed.
- Redesigned parameter classes and moved everything around for integration with other products.
- Remove Stokkemask mode for non-composite FM clipper (it's probably not working correctly and more heavy than the composite clipper)
- Fixed small bug in Composite clipper FM overhead level compensation calculation. Might make the same setting very marginally louder (less than 0.05 dB)
- Fix crash reported in previous post
- Improved CPU load measurement (small part of code wasn't included, it is now).
- CPU: Composite clipper: Optimize Stokkemask: Skipping outer parts of window
- CPU: Composite clipper: Optimize Stokkemask: Fixed 'Skip smoothing' mode to be compliant, all other modes removed.
- CPU: Composite clipper: Optimize Highs Gap Protection (trick from Leif Claesson that he uses in the Omnia.9 - nearly no CPU load needed anymore!)
- CPU: Added some #pragma's to make compiler generate more efficient code
- RDS: Added some character conversions (Euro -> E, ` -> '). (not yet tested)
- GUI: Allow drawing scopes in half-height to have more headroom above and below.

TO DO 7.71:
- Synchronization is broken in 008 (was ok in 007) - Don't see it! Is anyone still seeing this?
- Fix Linux version (someone mentioned that it crashes after a few minutes, on Ubuntu 14.04 - re-check with Valgrind) -> Done, found a few issues, Valgrind shows 0 errors now. I will run a Linux build so people who complained can check it again.
- Remove About
- Fix Mac VST version (not recognized apparently)
- Add delay (in samples) for one of the two MPX channels to send audio to allow synchronization of 2 transmitters which use the same frequency. (John Markis)

TO DO 7.72:
- Add impulse response import function!!!
- GUI integration for Multiband?
- Instability in compressor behavior [WesKeene, Bojcha]

TODO:
- Noise learning Micha
- Change default preset (it still uses Classic compressor etc!)
- EQ with 'standard' sliders.
- Make BS412-like graph for levels
- Add 'warm' noise before clipper (requested by Andrew Palmquist, might help with PPM as well)
- CPU: Clipper: Optimize Advanced Bass Distortion Protection

Strangely two messages were removed.. I understand that the rant isn't what is wanted here but could you please tell when one has crossed the border (if they were removed by moderator)?

I haven't seen anything?

Omg.. So embarrassed here, this is what happened: I thought that I clicked the last page from the thread listing, but I seems that I pressed the topic itself,
which takes you to first page.. So I thought that the messages that unnamed and Slawomir B. wrote on the first page (which I thought was the last page, since they weren't showing here!) were removed from this page, which of course isn't the truth.

Carry on

Thanks for the feedback - I think my ASIO buffer is set at 800 samples.
As a follow-up test, I ran Beta 024B (bug fixed?) overnight again to see if I would still get the bad glitching in the morning. Seems fine now - no glitching noticed!!
Hope that others will give feedback also.