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PostPosted: Wed Aug 08, 2018 11:36 am 
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It's not extremely important for most people, but here (Netherlands) it's mandatory to stay within the mask.
Sorry for the off-topic but I have never seen an option to enable or disable the stokkemask on any other processor. Does it mean that all the Omnia / Orban / Wheatstone boxes always keep the signal within the mask? Or do they require further adjusting to be used in the Netherlands? Are you aware of other countries where you must use stokkemask?
Breakaway has it, as far as I know, nothing else does. Which is why you will see that most of the big stations in the Netherlands aren't modulating at 75 kHz, but often around 68 kHz or so. (The AT started to enforce it more recently). Just to stay inside the mask. Also, with composite clipping it happens more often that you go outside the mask (since the signal is louder).

By the way, without composite clipping it's completely impossible to know whether you're inside the mask, unless you stay very far below it, because the pilot, pilot phase and RDS all affect the signal. (Which also means that it's a bad idea to add RDS after the processor).

I think they use it in Belgium as well. Beside that, it's an ITU recommendation - and it supposedly improves reception. Receivers typically bandpass-filter the signal, and the more narrow their filter is, the more of the sides it cuts off. So anything you're broadcasting there will interfere with other stations on nearby frequencies - you're basically putting part of your signal strength at a place where a receiver that's tuned to your frequency isn't listening. And, the cutting off of the sides in turn affects the audio quality, and also measurements that receivers do to determine noise levels etc, which will lead to mono blending and all kinds of stuff like that. It also greatly reduces multipath issues - enabling Stokkemask in Stereo Tool has a twice as big effect on the RF bandwidth used as techniques such as SSB stereo.

So basically, turning Stokkemask on is *always* a good idea, but until now my filter was affecting the stereo separation too much at very high loudness levels (mainly on 8 dBm+). That issue is mostly gone now. (There is still SOME effect if you feed very wide stereo - that's unavoidable).

I often get feedback from stations that switch from another processor to Stereo Tool that their reception area - and especially their stereo reception area - gets a lot bigger, in some cases (100 kW stations in the US with no nearby stations at the same frequency) the stereo reception area increases by 20 miles in all directions. This is part of the "secret sauce" that's causing that :) Actually, we just had a Dutch regional broadcaster that reported that their reception area increased, so apparently even in the crowded Dutch FM band it helps.


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PostPosted: Wed Aug 08, 2018 12:55 pm 

Joined: Sat Nov 10, 2012 2:16 am
Posts: 106
Location: Australia
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I often get feedback from stations that switch from another processor to Stereo Tool that their reception area - and especially their stereo reception area - gets a lot bigger, in some cases (100 kW stations in the US with no nearby stations at the same frequency) the stereo reception area increases by 20 miles in all directions. This is part of the "secret sauce" that's causing that :) Actually, we just had a Dutch regional broadcaster that reported that their reception area increased, so apparently even in the crowded Dutch FM band it helps.
Sincerely agree with that. I recently moved studios at the station I help out at and at the same time had the opportunity to trial ST, after running BBPro (ASIO version) for ages. From day one, the station had listeners calling in from fringe areas saying that not only could they hear the station better, it was being received in fairly stable stereo. We went further and enabled Composite clipping and SSB and further improvements were noticeable. One listener on a rural property indicated he had around a 20-25km improvement - he could hear the station across all of his property and his next door neighbor can now hear us, be it in mono. We opted to stay put and retire BBPro box.

Yes, BB-One is out, have played with it but am the type of person who likes to tinker to get the sound I am looking for. BBPro was a great starting point, BB-One has made several giant steps forward but I find myself coming back to tinker and play with ST.

With the local spectrum agency here in AU looking at closing of RF based STL links in the next 3-5 years, excited to be playing with (and learning at lot about) microMPX.
On my wish list is a possible add-on (like microMPX) to allow ST to process and encode audio into a DAB+ IP stream to route to a site running the multiplexer (most accept IP stream as the input).

Rossco


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PostPosted: Wed Aug 08, 2018 1:13 pm 

Joined: Sat Nov 10, 2012 2:16 am
Posts: 106
Location: Australia
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It's not extremely important for most people, but here (Netherlands) it's mandatory to stay within the mask. With my latest code I can squeeze about 0.1 dB extra audio and 0.3 dB extra L-R audio (on average, L-R peaks are more than 1.5 dB louder) through, and it's so much tighter that that also leads to probably around 0.2-0.3 dB extra loudness. And it sounds better too.

But there are some negative side-effects that I need to fix before I can post something here.
With v903 Beta005 and having Stokkenmask on, FM output to TX and monitored via Pira/FM Scope, I could not stop the service deviating >75k (80k+ peaks seen)
If I turn looseness 1 / 2 off and no side level boosts, minimal area off, it seems to be better but still see peaks up to 78k.
Am currently using v9.02 in production I am tight at a max 74/75k and no overshoots evident.
Encoding with RDS enabled in both cases.
Surprisingly, if I run the first test and put microMPX into the equation and run with and then without the new options in play, I see peaks around 77-78k.
Not sure if this is what you are looking into?
I'll try and capture this graphically and send if you like?

Rossco


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PostPosted: Wed Aug 08, 2018 1:50 pm 
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Hi, I can't think of any reason why you would see overshoots with either Stokkemask or MicroMPX. Could it be that you're getting hiccups due to too high CPU load? The new Stokkemask filter is a lot heavier than before. Hiccups can easily be registered as overshoots. Especially if you're using tilt correction.

Just to make sure: You're running the MicroMPX that's built into Stereo Tool? Because if not, it could be a settings issue. MicroMPX tries to keep the waveform as close as possible to the original (which also means that Stokkemask is almost not affected at all), but it only keeps the peak levels completely accurate at the level where it thinks the peak level is. So if you're feeding it with Virtual Audio Cable or something like that, and set up the levels wrong, it could easily have some overshoots if the peak level isn't setup correctly.

Also, please note that any tilt correction must be set inside the MicroMPX decoder, not in Stereo Tool.


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PostPosted: Wed Aug 08, 2018 1:53 pm 

Joined: Tue Aug 23, 2016 9:42 am
Posts: 78
Location: France
Thank you Hans for the answer!


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PostPosted: Wed Aug 08, 2018 1:56 pm 
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@livewireaus: I've been rewriting a lot of stuff, let's wait for the next build first. If that still give you overshoots, then I definitely want to know what's going on.


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PostPosted: Wed Aug 15, 2018 6:51 am 
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Joined: Mon Feb 24, 2014 7:31 pm
Posts: 77
Hi Hans!
I found a problem in the GUI. When you use the password protection mode and click on the panel (on Bass Clipper) and so you can see the panel.
Best regards.
Attachment:
Sin título.jpg
Sin título.jpg [ 45.44 KiB | Viewed 5512 times ]


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PostPosted: Sun Aug 19, 2018 10:40 am 

Joined: Sat Jan 05, 2013 11:14 pm
Posts: 164
Location: Antwerp
Strange thing, my computer is still struggling with the LQLL. Probably a memory issue in my PC.
But when I run a 2nd instance of ST everything runs smoothly. So I have now 2 HD quality outputs without any drop outs.
But running a 2nd instance works for me, but it still strange, because memory stays under 12% and with LQLL (with all buffers maxed) it goes up dramatically.
To be honest, this pc has issues from the beginning when I build it.


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PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 8:55 pm 
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Joined: Tue Mar 04, 2014 10:17 am
Posts: 65
What to do with my MicroMPX Request Code
Code:
2db3acd4586755b0e72dea0ae6a085f09bb0cd53a6cd006bb4c991cd6d4272922b26063fe0db8fbb6c8b9366cb580de1f13214dde5d6a00670b18dc015b28ab101c769de62c0a4f8674dcf55572806110c7f321f50a0dde9cd65bff5e492443ee3e9cb860bfff67ef7648bce2bdccbb134d659fbbfa5fce0231bfa4705bdd1
can I paste it somewhere in StereoTool and it will generate a license to paste into MicroMPX?


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PostPosted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 11:19 pm 
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Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:40 am
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What to do with my MicroMPX Request Code
Code:
2db3acd4586755b0e72dea0ae6a085f09bb0cd53a6cd006bb4c991cd6d4272922b26063fe0db8fbb6c8b9366cb580de1f13214dde5d6a00670b18dc015b28ab101c769de62c0a4f8674dcf55572806110c7f321f50a0dde9cd65bff5e492443ee3e9cb860bfff67ef7648bce2bdccbb134d659fbbfa5fce0231bfa4705bdd1
can I paste it somewhere in StereoTool and it will generate a license to paste into MicroMPX?
No, send it to who you're buying from, and they (could be us) will send you the license code.


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