Stereo Tool

About the band frequencies : i Think that they must stay . Not everyone want to write to some setings file , so then restart the program and so on and so on . Don`t think that if the program is "ON AIR" someone will restart it just because he want to change the bands or for some other reason . Bands must stay at the MB panel and be adjustable for everyone like he wants !

+1

Fixed today:
- AGC 3rd band white not cleaned up
- AGC 2nd color not visible (swapped?)
- Bass Boost display incorrect
- Multiband: The up/down scale needs to change (that should help a lot), I'll also add more digits. Also gave them 25% more space.
- Bypass: Agreed, I've been playing with the interface yesterday and I really missed having quick access to it. I've placed it in the presets bar, it looks really ugly... Might be fixed when there's a new layout (I think the current buttons with a LED at the bottom aren't such a good idea anyway).
- Noise removal ENABLED / DIFF / strength moved to 1st window
- Output scope: Volume fixed, headroom with lines showing allowed minimum and maximum levels in display for better view.
- MPX display partially changed as Bojcha requested - but I don't think I really like it.
- Fixed bug that caused crashes in Vista/Windows 7 and stuttering in XP. (Some logging was written to a file).
- Placed most important (?) settings in main window to have a simple overview (comparable to BBP).
- Made sliders higher if they are very 'thin' vertically - now they include the title text as well in this case. It might be a good idea to ALWAYS do this.

To be done:
- Fixed waveform sync/sample rate issue
- Validate problem (Multiband freqs, Bass Boost freqs)
- Redesign RDS display (Bojcha's idea: http://i.imgur.com/6lUjV.png )
- Optimize MPX drawing (first check if it's really the problem by disabling it in software).
- Switching between screens: Button at wrong position.
- About, register, help (context sensitive, help button should be next to the preset buttons) What would be a logical place to put the registration stuff? I would think at the top of the Configuration menu...
- Make new minimized icon
- Input/output levels always visible (but where???)
- Natural Dynamics in overview
- Noise Gate / FM in overview
- FM display still needs to be converted to the new interface.
- Up/down lock in MB does not work
- Bypass button layout
- It would be nice to be able to return to the place where you were in the left menu in an easier way. But how???

Less urgent for usability:
- Different font
- Design (several people are working on something)
- Meter colors (1 instead of gradient)? Not sure - maybe also part of skin?
- I probably need to change the display at the bottom to use less room (for example by showing the MB with L/R combined instead of having 2 bars per band), it will also help to reduce the border from 2 to 1 pixel (or at least adjust it such that they can be placed closer together).

Bojcha, what was your idea for the sound card settings?

Changed (filled it up), but not sure if it's better. I'll wait for feedback.

- It would be nice to be able to return to the place where you were in the left menu in an easier way. But how???


I`m not sure that i understand completely for what we are talking about but.....
I`m going to propose the following : when you choose a main menu for an option ( let`s say we choose MB ) . When program switch to MB the main option of the MB to change ur color ( say RED ) and all other sub menus for MB to be the default color or different , so when we are in the option , main title to be RED and the sub menus for that option to be ....say WHITE . When we want to leave the option we click on the RED title or MENU above all options( may be this MENU to be some different color from the mentioned above )
Kindly more good orientation in the menu

http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... 33-014.exe
http://www.stereotool.com/download/dsp_ ... 33-014.exe

Changes in this version:
- AGC 3rd band white not cleaned up
- AGC 2nd color not visible (swapped?)
- Bass Boost display incorrect
- Multiband: The up/down scale needs to change (that should help a lot), I'll also add more digits. Also gave them 25% more space.
- Bypass: Agreed, I've been playing with the interface yesterday and I really missed having quick access to it. I've placed it in the presets bar, it looks really ugly... Might be fixed when there's a new layout (I think the current buttons with a LED at the bottom aren't such a good idea anyway).
- Noise removal ENABLED / DIFF / strength moved to 1st window
- Output scope: Volume fixed, headroom with lines showing allowed minimum and maximum levels in display for better view.
- MPX display partially changed as Bojcha requested - but I don't think I really like it.
- Fixed bug that caused crashes in Vista/Windows 7 and stuttering in XP. (Some logging was written to a file).
- Placed most important (?) settings in main window to have a simple overview (comparable to BBP).
- Made sliders higher if they are very 'thin' vertically - now they include the title text as well in this case. It might be a good idea to ALWAYS do this.

Hi Hans. Interesting following the ST evolution. While these may come down to personal taste, some feedback to throw in the mix;

- The bottom window AGC, multiband, BB & SB meters would look less cluttered and free up more space if they showed a single L+R bar instead of a stereo pair. Other meters should remain stereo. This is like Orban/BBP etc behaviour. If users really need to see stereo meters for multiband etc, they can still see them in the Menu>Multiband>Bands section.

- A db legend for the bottom window meters would be good, which may be possible if AGC, multiband etc meters move to a single bar.

- Suggest default start display for bottom window is metering rather than scope.

- Prefer tick boxes or smaller indicator on right side of function on/off buttons rather than the large rectangular LED style indicators below the text, which look a bit displaced and take up real estate, or alternatively, very clearly greying out a disabled function.

- Find color scheme not complimentary. eg - brown and yellow metering contrasting with blue/green setting sliders. I know this is the purpose of skins, but thought a default installation with less colors, and more complimentary colors, would look neater for new users. Eg BBP, Orban etc style

- If possible in the menu, it would help the consistency look if all the various function buttons had the same size, or at least just two sizes. At present going through the menu functions there are some really huge buttons, some other not as high, some others not as wide etc. I know it may not be practical, but minimising the number of differences in the visual look of buttons may help visual consistency, particularly for new users.

- Loading a Preset currently does not show which one has been loaded. I suggest always showing the loaded preset name on the main window (or at least on the Menu home page overview), and then if it has been modified in any way by the GUI, showing some kind of visual MOD indicator or colored dot next to the displayed name so the user can see at a glance what preset it is, and whether its been modified in any way. If it's been modified, this reminds a user it has been changed and they should save it if they want to keep the changes. It's also a clear indication of whether something has been changed or not since the preset was loaded. This is similar to the user profiles behavior on Axia consoles, and is a simple and effective way to see what the profile status is.

- Suggest going to Menu>Configuration should jump you to Menu>configuration>Bypass, and going to Menu>Limit and Clip should jump you to Menu>Limit and Clip>Final Limiter (eg first sub menu), rather than taking you to a blank page.

Cheers AJ

I would also add to that: Please also show the preset that was loaded when stereo tool was closed and started again.

True. Should be a simple change and it might make enough room for the input/output levels (even horizontally...)

--> Ow, this might be an idea: Use the extra free space to display - very small - the other view, with the in/out meters above it. So if you're in the meters section you see very small scopes and vice versa. Will check if that's possible...
Agree, simplest solution would be to add a '-6' '-12' etc. at the darker bars, this only needs to be a few pixels in size.
Not sure about that one. It should remember the last setting though.
Agree, and it would immediately fix the 'BYPASS' button problem.
The current look won't be the default - I'm just not spending much time on it now because things have - at least until now - been constantly changing. And other people are much better in making good designs.
I'm considering making also the meters skinnable (not completely, but at least the colors).
Indeed I think it's not practical - right now on less cluttered windows I can make the buttons bigger (which makes them easier to use) and I can put more text in them... If I make all the same size it would have to be the smallest possible size both horizontally and vertically - that's the size in the MB bands panel... It might be an idea to limit the maximum size further though, since there are only a few places where that will have an impact. Also, I could make the maximum size depend on the total panel size, so it's bigger if you use a full-screen display.
Still need to add that 'PRESET' is replaced by the preset name. The other things would be useful and I want to add those too. But maybe not now immediately. (I've been working on this gui for 2 months now, and I really want to do some audio stuff again!).
I was thinking about moving some of the sub-menu's that only have a single setting to this empty panel and remove the corresponding sub-menus.

By the way, I actually want to get rid of Final Limiter completely, it's useless except for free users (because they don't have Loudness). For now I'm leaving it there because I'm trying to change as little as possible (next version should be equal to 6.32 except for the interface).

Thanks for the feedback!

With which the total list of things to do becomes:

Done since last posted version:
- Fixed waveform sync/sample rate issue
- Validate problem (Multiband freqs, Bass Boost freqs)
- Menu>Configuration should immediately show bypass etc.
- Noise Gate in overview (and also in noise gate bands panel) Not sure if this is the best possible display though... Better would probably be input and output level of noise gate in dB's in different colors, but that would take up far too much space (I think).
- Change displays at bottom to 1-channel. Put them closer together when possible. Question: Should it switch back to 2-channels if the window is bigger? (I think so)
- Remember last open top and botom panel on restart
- AGC meters problem (bars go to bottom all the time)
- Multiband and AGC in mono meters don't show darker bit.
- Black bars (now white) must also be in dB's
- Tiny scopes in meters display
- Input/output levels always visible (but where???)
- Clipping oversampling seems to be turned off if Hard Limit isn't used?
- Make meter colors skinnable (using a 256-pixel PNG image with gradient)

- Meter background with image (skinnable)
- Different skin for bottom
- Make volume red for overshoots
- Synchronized input/output level meters and added pre-emphasis display
- Redesign RDS display (Bojcha's idea: http://i.imgur.com/6lUjV.png ) (Not completely done, might add other things later)
- FM hiss display in overview
- FM hiss display still needs to be converted to the new interface.
- Check if it's possible to make the button sizes less different (change max zoom depending on window size, so the buttons don't get huge on a small window but still fill the screen on a big one). Not really great, but there are some more limitations than before now. Unfortunately the only effect is that the buttons don't fill the screen horizontally.
- Add limitation to horizontal aspect ratio.

To be done:
- Change checkbox design http://i.imgur.com/TBr3S.png http://i.imgur.com/YseoV.png http://i.imgur.com/zi49d.png
- Add '-6' '-12' etc. beside output bars where possible.
- Clipping display (red)
- Optimize MPX drawing (first check if it's really the problem by disabling it in software).
- Oversample wave displays (4x)
- Switching between screens: Button at wrong position.
- About, register, help (context sensitive, help button should be next to the preset buttons) What would be a logical place to put the registration stuff? I would think at the top of the Configuration menu...
- Make new minimized icon
- Up/down lock in MB does not work
- Bypass button layout
- It would be nice to be able to return to the place where you were in the left menu in an easier way. But how???
- Try to make alternative view also visible, very small, together with in/output levels
- Display last loaded preset name, if possible also with whether it has been changed and keeping it on restart (although I've spoken to people who use hardware devices which have exactly the same behavior as the old ST had, dropping the name on a restart).

Less urgent for usability:
- Different font
- Design (several people are working on something)

Bojcha, what was your idea for the sound card settings?