Stereo Tool

Hi everyone.

Let me start by saying I use presets, I don't really mess with the individual settings on my own (except that stereo imaging, I always turn that off). Ok now I use Stereo Tool 5.01 and I use the preset "Soft Web radio Soft compression (Stereo)" under the "WEB RADIO - REDUCED CPU USAGE" sub-category. I love every single thing about that sound BUT the bass...This is where the problem arises.

So let's say I start Song X playing. It starts of with 10 seconds of hi-hats and chimes, then at 0:11 the drums+sub-bass start. The producer meant for the song to have the same consistent kick drum + 50hz tones all through the song. But what happens is when the first drum hits it sounds like BOOOM but from then on it calms down to what it "should" sound like with that preset's settings.

I hope I explained this well. Just think if you have a simple beat with the same kick drum playing 10 times over, why does the first one come out so strong and "un-processed" by ST?

Is there a setting that can fix this? I'm guessing what it needs to do is process more of the song faster. Maybe process the next 10 seconds before they happen so then when it plays back, 10 seconds later, it's all smooth.

Any help? Thanks a lot. I'll be happy to clarify if this makes no sense to everyone.

You could try increasing the 'down speed' of the AGC to respond faster to loud bass peaks. Reducing 'Remove remaining peaks' might also help a lot.

Also, if you're using Loudness the latest BETA versions have improved bass processing (still in development) - but you might want to try it here: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=2661&start=546

Hi Baires

Can you please tell me what is that track ?

Ok I'll try that.

Well it's not just one song, it's multiple. Another way to describe this is ST's "reaction time". It's interesting, if I use the "Watching A Movie" preset (for example and not knowing which effects it uses when compared to the Soft Web Radio Soft Compression (Stereo) preset) it has NO problems with any song. It all comes out smooth and perfect. When I say reaction time I mean it's like Stereo Tool is waiting for something to occur once (a loud, strong bass note) before it kicks in and starts doing it's job.

I used the example of a song at the beginning when bass and drums first kick in right? Well another example is a slow hip-hop song (or R&B). So the song might play a melody for 5 seconds, then a drum hits 3 times. The first drum comes out too strong like I explained before. But then it repeats; 5 second melody and that drum hits 3 times again the same way but ST messes up again because of the long pause. It's like it gets lazy in those 5 seconds and has to figure out how to compress those drums again.

I hope this helps explain. I will try the recommendations now.

Well those suggestions worked! What I did was reduce the "Remove remaining peaks" to the lowest (100%) and increased down speed to max and reduced up speed to 0 and that makes the sound perfect and smooth.

Eh... I wouldn't do that! You basically disabled the AGC doing this.

(That is, the volume is reduced when a peak occurs that is louder than any peak before that, and the volume is never increased again).

This only works if all your tracks have roughtly the same volume. (But then there's no real need for the AGC anyway).

Think of it like this: If I play 2 songs, 1 very soft track and than a very loud track, then somehow the volume will need to be lowered for the 2nd track. This is done whenever a loud peak occurs. The higher you set 'down speed', the faster the volume is dropped. Assuming you're NOT setting it to the maximum, the first (few) loud peaks may still be louder than they should be, for that you can use 'Remove remaining peaks'.

Similarly, if the volume stays too low for a while, 'up speed' determines how fast the volume is increased.

This is my motto !
Since I have learned step by step to play hardcore games with the multiband, I trust more in very aggressive EQ (before MB) up, down and compression/clipping settings.
For my purpose (music mix at home - not broadcasting to fit modern loudness !) it leads to more consistency than any AGC setting (from other users/presets) I have tried.
So except for some special latenight presets most of the time any AGC (and Pre Amp) are off !

Of course you can ruin the whole sound the more you do in multiband.
The trick is to find the different sweet spots for every frequency band (EQ/soft limit/up speed/down speed/clipping).
The standard settings (including the small variations from different presets) are only a starting point, but this 10-band (!!!) multiband has much more potential to be discovered.
I think there must be a reason, that Hans has implemented e.g. an EQ range of +/- 19.93 dB in multiband.
(Of course not for all frequencies, but for some I use +19.93 dB ! Yes, I am perverted.)
The same thing is true for noise gate (= multiband expander !).

I could (finally) upload one of my presets in the share section.
But maybe it is more fun for everybody to start from scratch in multiband ( imagine that it is something like a very intelligent automatic EQ system) instead of use my sick, perverted presets.


The problem to upload my presets is

A) My presets are too good to be published here.

or

B) I am telling stories (that are not true).

All depends on the needs!

AGC is important. Other things are needed there, like sidechain parametricEQ or EQ for AGC and/or another 2nd agc (compressor) with SideChain parametricEQ or EQ too.

All of that is more know by name - Wideband AGC + Wideband Compressor.

I've found the sound for me. It works with winamp DSP and VST and stand alone. I can't find a song yet that is ruined by the ST settings I'm using.
Good info everyone thanks.