Stereo Tool

I use Protools to add horns and strings or synths, what have you to augment our band's sound so we can do soul with real soul. I use Winamp5 and feed it left and right channels into an old-ish Peavey Mixer and then pan it to one output channel into a 700-watt Crest Audio power amp. Now, if I play a CD through this amp it smashes my face off as you would expect.

The problem is that for the band I only use it for horns or strings or a synth, some drum loops and vocals; no bass, no guitars, so it's not exactly a full sound that is hitting this mixer but the output LED ladder is flicking the red but the amp is barely giving me anything although the input ladder on the Crest is up around half way. I think what is happening at least in part is that the singer is so powerful that she's responsible for most of what is hitting that peavey output and I could probably bring her down in the channel and that would probably give me more headroom at the master. What this is leading up to though is if I use this software to do more than leveling across the entire setlist and kick in something like Dance Louder won't that just mean it will hit the channel input harder meaning that I have to bring it back down at the mixer and essentially gain (pardon the pun) no more volume at the amp?

I suppose I could take the output from the Peavey and run it into a little tube preamp and preamp the preamp as it were. That might drive the Crest harder, but it's a bit unorthodox. I suppose. I don't really know. I mean, I'm starting to think strange things like: because I sum it all into the left channel on the peavey master output, maybe I could feed that into a channel strip and send that to the right master output. But it doesn't really matter what I do; once I hit the red LEDs, that's about it.
What say you all?
Thanks
Phil

Welcome Soccerman58,

To start with your last question: Using any of the presets makes the sound louder, but the maximum output level remains the same. So you should not need to lower the mixer settings.

Now the big question is: Do you want to use this for live performances, or for post-processing afterwards?

If you want to use it during live performances, you'll need extremely low latency. Stereo Tool always introduces some delay, which may or may not be a problem.

Assuming (please answer if this is the case) that you want:
1. A minimal delay
2. A minimal change in the sound - only the loudness should increase
then you should try the new Stereo Tool version that is currently under development (will be released soon as 3.50):

Winamp DSP plugin: http://www.stereotool.com/download/dsp_ ... r_BETA.exe
Stand alone version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... r_BETA.exe
Command line: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... r_BETA.exe
VST version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/vst_ ... l_BETA.dll

Use the stand alone version, and enable ASIO support (on the Sound Cards page). Move the Buffer size of the output channel to the minimum value (20 ms I think).

Then, press the RESET button to turn all the processing off. You only need to enable one thing: The "Final Limiter". This will introduce an extra delay of about 30 ms. So in total the delay will be 50 ms (1/20th of a second), which I hope will still be acceptable.

"Final limiter" removes spikes from the signal, _without_ (at least that's the goal) changing the sound.

Make sure that the input level on the sound card stays within limits, otherwise you'll get distortion. For safety, you can for example keep it around 50% of the maximum, and increase the Pre Amp slider to increase the volume before any processing occurs. This will not cause distortion.

For optimal results, set the settings such that the maximum expected input volume * the Pre Amp slider * the Final Limiter volume slider stays below about 3 times the maximum volume. (In other words: If you set the sound card input such that the signal stays below 50%, set Pre Amp to 6.0 and Final Limiter volume to 1.0). Note that louder peaks won't immediately cause huge distortion levels, so you don't need to be very strict here.

By the way: You should lower the output volume (Post Amp) a bit because the output signal might still contain some smaller spikes. You could also enable "Hard Limit" to remove these, but that will cause a bit of extra latency.

Note: play a bit with the Pre Amp slider to see which settings still provide a good sound. This can differ greatly depending on the type of input sound...

Hi
Thanks for your reply.

Although I am using it for live sound instead of post-production or mastering I don't think the delay will be a problem as long as it is consistent because the drummer will be playing to a click track embedded in the recorded stuff being played through Stereo Tool (I am removing the drum tracks; all I will be using prerecorded will be keyboards/horns/strings and a click track.

I would like to keep some processing along with the extra loudness, because I just would like to. I don't use the EQ on Winamp of course, nor do I activate the one in Stereo Tool, but I am using the Multiple Plugins plugin so I am feeding the output of Stereo tool into the Yohng 10-band eq for some final shaping and MP3 restoration (although ideally I would like to use the band's Wave files created by the mixdown process rather than MP3 or even change them to this lossless format I read about. File storage isn't an issue so if a wav file is 10 times bigger than an MP3 I don't care.)

Of course having the Eq after the Stereo Tool plugin still means that I should try your suggestion of turning off the processing and following your limiting instructions. Do you mean that I should also disable to 10-band Compressor and the clip check box? That Post Amp LED ladder bothers me some because it is almost constantly jammed in the red, but it doesn't seem to cause any distortion (unless that is expected behavior because although it is loud it is smooth loud?) I also have some noise issues (supplied courtesy of the keyboard I think) although "tape hiss" frequencies calling for a Dolby-like hiss-buster is higher than the noise I get.

Perhaps if I am turning off the processing I might be better moving the equalizer before Stereo Tool and do some shaping beforehand?

I also looked at the input and output preferences in Winamp for playback and I seem to have only the defaults. Is there a better plugin that I can use for input/output please? If I decide to use .wav (or something better that you or someone else might suggest) can I get a plugin that will play both wav (the band files) and MP3 (the rest of my audio files folder) please?
Thank you very much for your suggestions; I will try it tonight. Please let me know what you think about my other issues.
Phil

To start with the post amp display: Don't worry about it being red. That just means "loud", nothing more (I guess I should change the color -> put it on my todo list for version 3.50...)

Ok, the click track thing is clear - I assumed (because you were talking about voices as well) that you would be using it for live processing. Winamp itself already causes a rather big delay, but it is indeed constant (otherwise you would be getting hiccups).

Important: MP3 restauration - and frequency shaping also - should be done BEFORE the Stereo Tool limiter. MP3 restauration because the MP3 artifacts are changed by Stereo Tool and will probably not be recognized correctly anymore, and frequency shaping because Stereo Tool limits the audio below a certain level which means that the mixer - when the Post Amp display is fully filled - will always reach the same volume. Changing things afterwards destroys that. Ow, and PLEASE use .wav files - artifacts in MP3 files are often increased by Stereo Tool.

About the noise: Have you tried the noise filter in Stereo Tool?

About the Winamp input plugins: AFAIK you should be able to use both MP3s and .wav files without any issues?

Hi
Thank you. I have Winamp5 open and I am looking at the input plugins and they are all Nullsoft and there is a bunch of em. Which is selected I do not know unless it does it automatically based on imput type. There is things ike Midi Player 3.17, FLAC decoder 2.07MPEG Audio Decoder 4.6, NSV, Vorbis, and WinMedia Decoder 3.9

On the OUtput side there is Disc Writer 2.14, DirectSoundOutput 2.47 and Waveout output 2.11

I would be surprised is someone had not come up with some better plugins there? Anyone??

How would I go about saving the wave files to lossless format please? Do you think there is any real point when all I am using is horns, strings, a few organs, choirs and a couple of bass synths here and there? No full band mastering.

Thanks
Phil

Winamp will automatically choose the correct input plugin. Also I don't think there's much to be improved there - the current plugins do the job.

Just be careful when installing other input plugins, for example if you install the Thompson MP3Pro input plugin, it will also decode normal MP3 files, and their decoder quality isn't too good...

WAVE files are already lossless, so there's no need to save them in any other formats. Any MP3 or other lossy compressed files that you already have are "damaged" already, so there's not much you can do about it anymore (except going back to the original source and converting it to WAVE directly).

If you want to save disk space, you could use FLAC instead of WAVE. But there's no quality difference.

OK, thanks for all the tips. I have one more issue, and that is I have a 10 band equalizer added (the Yohng 10 band) but I want to add a 31 band called Aqualizer.
But it is asking me to go through Setup, and normally I just get a DLL that I copy to the right plugins folder. This is probably an application in its own right and I'm not sure how to deal with that.
Thanks
Phil

Aqualizer is a VST.

The executable is just an install program to put it into a folder.

Just pick the plugins folder to install it in.

Depending on how you have your audio chain set up .. it can get
kinda hairy trying to run both DSP's and VST's at the same time.

It can be done using a Multiple DSP plugin and a DSP-to-VST Host.

There are other ways .. but, this is the simplest (and best IMO).

Hi
I will try the Aqualizer setup as you describe. I have the Spatial Audio DSP Stacker plug in, and I assume that is the Multiple DSP plugin you mention. I will go look on the web for a DSP-VST host.
Thanks
Phil

OK, I downloaded a vst-dsp host and I see it in the plug in list in Preferences, and I installed Aqualizer but I do not see that in the list. The DLL is installed in the same folder as the other DLLs that I can see, so maybe I missed a step; Can you help with that please?

I am going to use Audacity to record the songs with the vocals removed. It's removing a bit more than I wanted including a lot of the drums so I was hoping I could get some of the drums back with some EQ and/or using Stereo Tool.

At the moment in the stacker window I have the vocal remover first then the Yohng 10-band eq then stereo tool. Would that be the best order to do the best recordings I can with no vocals please?

Assuming anyone can help me get Aqualizer to show up, I would have the following plugins:
Stacker
Stereo Tool
VST Host
An equalizer (either the Yohng or the Aqualizer)

If we get the Aqualizer into the list, what order would I need to put the plugins for best playback WITH the vocals back in please (ie, for playing normal .wav files)
If the eq goes before Stereo Tools I would guess that the order would be
VST host
Aqualizer
Stereo Tools

Thank you very much
Phil