Stereo Tool

I find it's like a mountain. As you add sound processing, it will sound better and better. However, you eventually hit a peak and trying to add more just makes the audio far worse to the point where no processing at all sounds better (which makes having it completely pointless). In addition, sometimes changes are only specific to a situation. You can say "wow this sounds good" for one song but then others are terrible with the same settings. Trying to make a general listening preset is quite delicate as I am finding.


EDIT: Another update lol. Just shifted a few things around.

Hello again everyone. I decided to mess around with Maximizer's preset and added tweaks from my preset much like I did with kicker3. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Well, if you've been through that thread, you know my opinion of the original "monster-compressor". That individual is totally unreceptive to criticism. I hope this will be different...

The first track I tried with this "wet" blend was Michael Jackon's "Thriller". You've got a very strong AGC down speed, clamping on a lot of the bass. The end result is that it has a "tinny" sound. This is made somewhat worse by the fake stereo.

I moved on to my bass "torture" track, which is Wacka Flocka Flame "No Hands". Again, very tinny. The deep bass is greatly subdued. There's also a lot of RED going on in the Limiting & Loudness area. Disabling the fake stereo helps the bass, but makes the RED show up even more.

Fundamentally, the underlying preset you used as a basis has numerous flaws. I gave up even attempting to discuss this with Maximizer, as the feeling was that I was "jealous" of how "good" the presets were...

Don't worry, I don't have much of an ego so I will not take criticism so harshly. I admit my preset is very experimental at this stage since I'm just learning how to fully take advantage of this DSP. Up until now, I haven't really had much feedback at all. The end goal is that already loud and bassy songs remain more or less untouched except for maybe some added fidelity and then REALLY quiet songs get a nice healthy boost so that you don't have to crank your amplifier up a ton just to hear them. Not sure if this is possible to accomplish with just one preset but I'm trying.

Anyway I listened to the torture song for the time being and with my regular (non-maximizer) preset, it does seem that the bass gets more or less killed so I should try and fix that. With the Maximizer preset, I could still hear a strong bass but yes, the stereo delay can and will diffuse it (I guess I should have uploaded a non-stereo delay version of that as well). I mostly keep the stereo delay for very mono sounding songs anyway (e.g. a lot of REALLY old songs are like that due to limitations in the recording hardware at the time). Anyhow I'll see what I can do about the "tinny" sound. I'm guessing something is getting phased out that shouldn't be.


EDIT: Oh yeah, I forgot to ask. What are your suggestions? You said decrease attack speed. Anything else?

EDIT 2: I ended up shutting off "Stereo Processing". I believe that is one of the main causes for the "Tinny Sound". It was left over from the Maximizer preset and seemed to cause weird distortion. Plus the stereo delay does a better job at wide stereo in my opinion. You seem to have a keener ear than I do though so I doubt the solution will be this simple lol.

Try also this album... ( Brian you too )

After the primary disagreement, Maximizer did move away from the really squashed sound and closer towards the sound of many other presets, which left the bass more intact than was originally the case. The irony was that the other presets were supposedly very bad sounding (to him) initially, but when his sound moved towards that sound profile, suddenly that previously "bad" sound was da shizzle.

Anyway, continuing on...
Right now, I have a fundamental disappointment with the entire StereoTool processing chain, beginning to end. I think that to get a good sound, where mids do not drop out too much, but the bass is still good and strong, one has to end up making the final RMS output level to be fairly loud (higher than -6). Bojcha, being involved with FM broadcasting, is still an entrenched participant in what is known as "The Loudness War", meaning that those high RMS output levels are "normal" when viewed from the perspective of someone trying to compete for listeners in the FM broadcasting space.

I'm going to listen to what he has posted here, but I think that fundamentally what I just said will remain true. To get a good sound, it has to be at a relatively high final RMS output to give enough room for everything to fit, else something gets reduced or clipped out.

After tinkering around a bit, but not yet listening to what Bojcha posted, part of my issue, which may end up being an issue for a lot of people, is that the "Final Clipper", formerly known as the "Final Limiter" seems to be involved in a lot of the sound coloration, particularly mids-squashing.

djnforce9, if I may, I'll give some tips to accommodate the last preset and see if there is any right of what you want:

- PreAmp lower it to between 7 to 10, not more.
- PostAmp it down to a value of 0.95, helps prevent any clip of a peak uncontrolled.
- Single band compressor down to 1 and max amplification Limit change to Compress.
- In MB, lower level of EQ band10 about 3 dB and the Soft Limit also about 3 dB. Link Strength band 1 +2, use some high value, helps the bass no distortion.

If you want to make a preset that does not compete for the Loudness, you must use much slower times, but you achieve the opposite effect.
Less compression, less limit and free more MB bands. I know the MB is pretty key and turn the adjustment is hard to find balance, but you have to go from less to more.

I hope this will serve to continue and help ...

regards

_________________
by GAP
"Less is More" (Bob Katz)

Thanks for the advice. I'll have to play around with the preset to see if I can eliminate the muffled sound it currently has and at the same time still accomplish what I want it to. I am very tempted to drop the Normalizer and continue tweaking the "Fidelity Maximizer" instead since it has a much closer sound to what I am trying to achieve. If I can't get it, then that's the direction I will take.

[shameful plug]

You might could check into the latest version of Purity Control that I just posted. It may be a bit too loud, but it would give you ideas about the direction that I take anyway.

[/shameful plug]