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PostPosted: Sat May 08, 2010 2:33 am 
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Location: Heber City, Utah
Just wanted to get some opinions on sound for my shoutcast stream. I've been running it for a long while, and have been using Stereo Tool for a couple years. I am now running the 5.0 release. I just use the preset Web radio soft compression (Stereo). I do not have an ear as good as some of my friends here on these forums, and I really am an amateur when it comes to this stuff. I've learned so much by just reading these forums. Anyways... Please let me know what you think of the sound. Any recommendations on setting changes are welcome. I play all kinds of music from all Genre's so I know it makes it more difficult to get a perfect sound. Thank you for any help.

64Kb AAC+ http://avrack.servemp3.com:8010
128Kb AAC+ http://avrack.servemp3.com:8000

Thank you my friends and thank you Hans for this amazing piece of software you have created. Without it I'd have given up running my hobby station a long time ago.

-n4-


Last edited by Nuke420 on Tue Oct 05, 2010 8:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Sat May 08, 2010 11:52 pm 
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Hi Nuke,

When i always wants to create preset i always start from Hans's Web radio soft compression (with bit lower loudness). It's good preset, like default/default.

One thing i notice on your stream is peek level at about -4 dB. Is that intentionall?
Anyway is much better to lower loudness and up level to -1dB


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PostPosted: Sun May 09, 2010 12:08 am 
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Location: Heber City, Utah
Quote:
Hi Nuke,

When i always wants to create preset i always start from Hans's Web radio soft compression (with bit lower loudness). It's good preset, like default/default.

One thing i notice on your stream is peek level at about -4 dB. Is that intentionall?
Anyway is much better to lower loudness and up level to -1dB

Hi Bojcha. the -4db is not intentional other than when I asked before what the red blinking was in the input and it was clipping. You told me it was winamp and to set gain to -1. So I did that in the winamp EQ. I went back into the EQ and made sure I only went one notch down on the gain. Is there a better way to do this? Also you think loudness is too much? I have it set to the default of preset. x2.60 is loudness setting. Also tell me how to tell I am -4db or not. I'm sorry I am such a noob at this. Thank you again for all your help.

-n4-


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PostPosted: Sun May 09, 2010 1:45 am 
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Well... Winamp Gain has nothing with Stereo Tool's.
Seem you are using Stereo Tool Winamp dsp plugin, so 'volume' from winamp is important and should be at 100%

So. Winamp's preamp is actually safest at -3 or -4dB.. for that amount you can rise Pre-Amp in StereoTool.

Quiestions are,
- what is the position of Post-Amp slider ?
- you really using StereoTool dsp plugin ?
- What are you using for Streaming? (shoutcast for winamp, Edcast ... )


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PostPosted: Sun May 09, 2010 2:02 am 
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Just a quick note about Winamp's equalizer (which I assume is what you and Bojcha mean when talking about reducing Winamp's preamp).

I've noticed that if you turn this equalizer on, for some reason the sound is clipped (with distortion!) at about -1 dB. Also, given the Winamp interface, the input plugin (that decodes, for example, MP3s) cannot return higher values than (for 16 bits) -32768 and +32767, which means that reducing the volume in Winamp to avoid clipping distortion is actually useless - the clipping occurs inside the input plugin already.

Now if it were possible to reduce the output level of the input plugin itself, THAT would help.


About the output level: I agree with Bojcha, it's better to increase Post Amp than to increase Loudness as long as it doesn't cause output clipping (keep in mind that MP3 encoding changes the waveform, and might introduce clipping if the amplitude gets too close to the maximum value). Around -2dB to -1dB should normally be fine, depending on the MP3 (or other format) encoder and quality settings.


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PostPosted: Sun May 09, 2010 2:28 am 
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Joined: Wed Jun 03, 2009 5:58 pm
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Location: Heber City, Utah
Quote:
Well... Winamp Gain has nothing with Stereo Tool's.
Seem you are using Stereo Tool Winamp dsp plugin, so 'volume' from winamp is important and should be at 100%

So. Winamp's preamp is actually safest at -3 or -4dB.. for that amount you can rise Pre-Amp in StereoTool.

Quiestions are,
- what is the position of Post-Amp slider ?
- you really using StereoTool dsp plugin ?
- What are you using for Streaming? (shoutcast for winamp, Edcast ... )
Yes I'm using winamp and stereo tool DSP and edcast. Question about edcast should I have it selected to do live recording and then choose wave? Or just have the live recording off and do direct. The reason I ask is the edcast shows the output to always be maxed and in the red unless I have it selected on live recording and then wave. Then I can adjust the wave volume to give me whatever max output volume I want. So I turned that off live recording and I also turned off the EQ in winamp per Hans suggestion. I also lowered the loudness to x2.00 in stereo tool. I can't hear a difference really, but I'm sure you guys can tell me if its better or worse. Oh and my pre amp is x10.00 and post amp is x0.95 in stereo tool. Thats just what the preset of web cast soft compress puts it at. Thanks again for helping this noob. :mrgreen:

-n4-


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PostPosted: Sun May 09, 2010 2:52 am 
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@ Hans
he's using AAC+ which makes more clipping then mp3.
i found for mp3 -1 and for AAC -2dB output volume. But again depends on output rms.

but Nuke has -4dB and his Post-Amp is at -0.44dB!?

I am using EdCast Standalone with VACs. I never try EdCast plugin, but i'll do that right now, and make some test stream to see

My Measure:
I am using Breakaway RTA./ Must admit that it's really good tool and best is it's free.
Must be calibrated before listening stream and tracks, by playin some sine tone from player. (wave 500Hz or 1000Hz)

ST input:
well if it's from winamp, nothing bad is if you turn on preamp by 2 or 3dBs (?) to remove ST's red bars on iput. I keep my at 5.5dB.

And more important. My winamp's limiter is OFF! You will be surprised how some songs overshots with this limiter OFF.

edit: Nuke your stream is now 0db :) ?


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PostPosted: Sun May 09, 2010 6:12 am 
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Quote:
And more important. My winamp's limiter is OFF! You will be surprised how some songs overshots with this limiter OFF.
True. But there's really no way (that I know of) to prevent that, since it happens inside the input plugin.


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PostPosted: Sun May 09, 2010 5:33 pm 
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Location: Heber City, Utah
Quote:
edit: Nuke your stream is now 0db :) ?

Yeah I turned off winamp EQ from doing -1db gain, and I also just turned off the live recording in edcast plugin. I figured out why I had -4db, and it was because I was using the live recording option in edcast plugin and had it selected on WAVE. I then had the WAVE volume turned down a little too much. So now that it is at 0db and x2.00 loudness. Should I still try and shoot for a -2 or so DB to avoid any clipping? If so should I do this with the winamp gain, or stereo tool preamp. This has been so helpful. Thank you again.

-n4-


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PostPosted: Sun May 09, 2010 6:46 pm 
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Joined: Tue Mar 17, 2009 2:56 pm
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For 128k AAC+, enough is -1dB


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