Stereo Tool

Hello,

I`m trying to use Stereo Tool(10.20) (basic license) with mAirList(7.x). I`ve tried two ways to make this happen, setting Stereo Tool plugin on the Encoder - Master like this:

1.Using generic_stereo_tool.dll. When I try to open the configuration for the ST plugin in mAirList is throws me an exception:



After this error, I can select paste my license, can select a preset and it sounds amazing.The problem happens after I restart mAirList, Stereo Tool can`t remember my license and my preset settings.

2. Using dsp_stereo_tool.dll. Installed it, set my license, selected preset. All good, but the sound is awful.It sounds like I have too much volume on input.

For both plugins, Rodecaster Pro 2 master channel has 100% volume in Windows. With generic plugin sounds perfect, with dsp it does not. I can lower the volume in Windows, from 100% to 80% and DSP plugin sounds good, but not as good as the generic one out of the box.

Audio sample with DSP ST: https://jumpshare.com/s/es5YIBAnl9dyJULBIMtb
Audio sample with generic ST: https://soundcloud.com/ethicalhack/aircheck_genericst

I don`t understand why genric ST works out of the box and the DSP one does not. I`m getting same awful sound if I`m using DSP version 9.92.

Please guide me through this

EDIT2: I downloaded the trial. Make sure you aren't using multiple levels of processing. I see one can process the playback, the encoding, an the stream itself.

The Winamp DSP plugin is working perfectly on the Playback, however.

edit3: I grabbed the StereoToolLib and found the 32 bit windows dll and renamed it to generic_stereo_tool.dll and tried to place it in the plugins folder and got the same error. The error reporter seems pretty good though, so definitely make use of it. I have an error log to send to Hans if necessary.

The plugin is set to the encoder on master. It is fed by rodecaster output(has 100% volume on windows).I can lower the input volume for that channel from Windows, it sounds ok but it comes not even close from generic plugin(same preset used in both to compare).And the fact is that generic plugin works and sounds amazing without lowering any volume with any preset out of the box. The problem is that it forgets my license and settings after mAirList restart.
I’m using DSP plugin only once, in the encoder, on the master. You can set there(in Encoder) “Record to file” to test the quality.
Maybe generic plugin has some general setting that I missed out and that differs from the general settings of DSP …

Conclusion: even if I lower the volume on the input channel that feds the ST DSP, the quality ia not the same with the generic plugin

Tried also the VST plugin version, sound a little better than DSP but still not quite as well as generic version. Still having no solution

Quote Hans on discord My hunch about the audio quality being worse with the DSP/VST plugins is that there must be some extra gain or processing elsewhere in the chain that somehow (?) isn't affecting the generic plugin. There are so many places to insert processing that I wouldn't know where to troubleshoot first. It's being looked at though.

The reason I say this is because the DSP sounds like it's supposed to (same as the generic plugin) when I use it on just the playback. I'll play with it on the encoder and see if I can't reproduce this issue.

I have tested it on my end; I see no issue at all with the DSP plugin, it works exactly the same as the generic. So my guess is that there's indeed something that adds gain somewhere.

If I recall correctly, due to how the interface is specified by Nullsoft who created Winamp (so there's nothing any of us can do about it), the DSP plugin cannot handle sample values above a certain threshold. Both the Generic and VST can, even though those values are outside of the allowed range (so for VST it depends on the plugin how it handles it). So it could very well be that the input level is too high in all cases, but the horrible distortion only occurs in (the input to) the DSP plugin.

This is easy to verify: Look in the Stereo Tool GUI what the input meter and waveform look like. If the input meter turns red, the input is too loud - it will turn red and the input will *look* clipped in the input waveform even in the Generic plugin, because it cannot display such high values, but nothing distorts because it handles it gracefully. So as a first step, please check what the input levels look like in the Generic plugin.

I have mailed Torben about the error popup; I've looked in the debugger and it doesn't appear to be something on our end.

Torben found the cause, it was on our end after all. We had removed support for the old preset mechanism (the old pulldown menu in the GUI), and we also removed all those presets and all code for it. But we forgot to remove it from the description of the plugin, so it didn't cause any errors during compiling, only when you actually used it. Most other people who are using this specific plugin weren't using it so they also didn't notice.

Edit: Next build from us won't show this popup anymore, but just return an empty preset list. Hopefully that will fix other issues (not reported here, but in the mAirList forum) as well.

Thank for supporting me, guys. Indeed, the volume to feed the plugins(dsp, vst, generic) is too high. VST and Generic handle it in a very good way, without adjustments.
Regarding the quality issue, when I use my voice over the music, I can hear a certain difference on the voice. Using Generic plugin creates some wideness(I don`t know how to explain it) in the voice that I can`t hear in DSP or VST plugin.
I`m always using the same preset on my recordings/broadcasts(UK One - DS Radio) but I can hear the quality difference also without using presets.
Examples:
*using generic plugin 10.20: https://voca.ro/1dRySaEY5yGy
*using dsp plugin 10.20: https://voca.ro/1jr2Oz3gJEkh
Check out the voice over the music.

Thanks for all the support and answers

We have solved the issues on our end, and Torben has fixed them on their end. Please wait for tonight's beta build (will be BETA006). For mAirList, you can get the latest build here: https://download.mairlist.com/current/m ... /snapshot/ - this fixes the crash on loading and on pressing "Apply" multiple times. But there might still be other issues, so please wait for our beta as well - we had issues on our end, and Torben put in workarounds for some of those (which is why it doesn't crash anymore in the 2 sitations that I mentioned).

How do you add the voice? If the processing itself doesn't behave differently I can't explain why voices would be different, unless something is done somewhere to protect the DSP against overshoots for example. The level going into the DSP must always be below 0 dB.

Hello,

Thanks for all the information. The voice and music are coming both from the same Rodecaster Pro 2 channel(whole package). Indeed, the output level of that Rodecaster channel exceeds 0db. Following your info in this topic, I understand now that generic and vst dlls cand handle it while dsp does not.Gonna try to lower that input to 0db to feed the dsp plugin and compare the quality again on the same preset.

Thanks for being so nice to a novice user like me