Stereo Tool

Beside Stokke in new composite optimized mode also old Highs GAP is broken too.

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control point
control point2

Yes, I fixed that today, will post it as soon as I have a fully working version again (which is not the case now because I'm in the middle of another optimization).

I will check the recordings tomorrow. One thing that could really make this effect a lot worse is the 'Smoothe highs early' checkbox under 'Advanced Clipper' -> 'Highs'. It will also make the highs brighter though. Which might fit what I heard from Bojcha. Leif just got back today, so we're going to check this tomorrow. O, and a lower value for True Peak Precision might also cause something... pfff....

EDIT: Ow, just read Slawomir's PM. No issue (was a preset problem). Pfew!

(There is another thing with the highs that I need to look into tomorrow but Bojcha gave some very useful hints to analyse it).

I think you are talking about highs protection in FM only but what about streaming and digital broadcasting?

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Urban Junglist

Warning: Potentially dangerous change that needs to be tested very thoroughly!

Stereo Tool 7.71 BETA008

Windows 32 bit:
Windows stand alone: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... 71-008.exe
Winamp DSP: http://www.stereotool.com/download/dsp_ ... 71-008.exe
Windows VST 32 bit: http://www.stereotool.com/download/vst_ ... 71-008.dll

This version has a new slider, 'Ignore high frequencies above' (under CPU & Latency). You can enable this and select a frequency (19 kHz should be good for FM, since anything above 16.4 kHz needs to be removed anyway). This allows the processor to take some shortcuts... Which reduce the CPU load (more so at 48/192 kHz than at 44.1/176.4 kHz). This setting affects ALL the filters in Stereo Tool, not just the final clipper.

Warning: Known bug: Changing the value can cause a shift in input/output samples with yet unknown results; after restarting it should always be ok. So, it's advised to always restart Stereo Tool after changing or enabling/disabling this feature.

Old:
There are some big changes in the Composite Clipper in this version. The sound should be the same as before (within 0.02 dB or so). CPU load is much lower though. Please be careful with using this version for anything else than testing until proper functioning has been confirmed.

Note: If you want to use the new composite clipper CPU load optimization with Stokkemask, for now you should set the Stokkemask Quality slider to 3 (I still need to fix that).

CHANGES:
- CPU: Added 'Ignore high frequencies above'.

OLD CHANGES:
- Big Composite Clipper CPU load improvement: Added a new slider ('Oversampling Quality' or something like that); CPU load reduction is HUGE and effect on peak control (for values above 4) seems very small.
- Solved a number of warnings that I added in the last few days
- Some small optimizations
- New Highs Gap Protection improved, now similar in behavior to the old one. I had to add 1 extra step (slightly higher CPU load).
- Fixed problems in 771-004. Some optimizations are disabled - I need to fix that.
- Fix CPU measurement for high loads (jumps to 95% for unknown reason). -> Showing real average instead of median now. Median in dark red.
- Difference in measured CPU load is bigger than expected after CPU load measurement update - check why - DONE, is indeed big! Separate slider added to show both processing and total CPU usage.
- CPU: Clipper: Reduced default number of Bass Clipper steps from 4 to 1
- CPU: Clipper: Implemented Leif's mirrorring method for Stokkemask and optimized steps using Omnia interface, much fewer steps for same result.
- Added option to add a text in the title bar to easily recognize multiple instances.
- EXCEPTION OCCURRED IN HttpServer: Got unknown widget ID.
- CPU: Clipper: Highs gap protection: Use 1 step for non-FM.
- Check if COMMON_STATIC still improves performance, if not remove it -> Does not, removed.
- Redesigned parameter classes and moved everything around for integration with other products.
- Remove Stokkemask mode for non-composite FM clipper (it's probably not working correctly and more heavy than the composite clipper)
- Fixed small bug in Composite clipper FM overhead level compensation calculation. Might make the same setting very marginally louder (less than 0.05 dB)
- Fix crash reported in previous post
- Improved CPU load measurement (small part of code wasn't included, it is now).
- CPU: Composite clipper: Optimize Stokkemask: Skipping outer parts of window
- CPU: Composite clipper: Optimize Stokkemask: Fixed 'Skip smoothing' mode to be compliant, all other modes removed.
- CPU: Composite clipper: Optimize Highs Gap Protection (trick from Leif Claesson that he uses in the Omnia.9 - nearly no CPU load needed anymore!)
- CPU: Added some #pragma's to make compiler generate more efficient code
- RDS: Added some character conversions (Euro -> E, ` -> '). (not yet tested)
- GUI: Allow drawing scopes in half-height to have more headroom above and below.

TODO 7.71:
- Fix optimizations
- Fix code #warnings
- Improved highs filtering in Clipper (both Composite and Normal); sound has more brilliance and suffers much less from ducking on loud sounds.
- Remove "Take some shortcuts" under CPU, probably broken! And has not much effect anyway. -> Hm, no, must have been in use for the tests. Ugh... TEST to check what is better: ON (which will probably allow more sounds through) or OFF.
- Ignore frequencies above a specific frequency -> Should lower TOTAL CPU load by another 10-20% -> Started working on this
- Synchronization is broken in 008 (was ok in 007)
- Another bug in latest beta - ST doesn't remember FM settings - presets from the fm list start up with stereo and rds encoding off
- Fix MPX display sample rate issue
- Fix Stokkemask in Leif's mode with Quality < 3
- VST multiple instances fails
- Make VST window bigger
- Fix Mac VST version (not recognized apparently)
- Fix Linux version (someone mentioned that it crashes after a few minutes, on Ubuntu 14.04)
- Clipper highs improvement
- GUI integration for Multiband?
- Instability in compressor behavior [WesKeene, Bojcha]

TODO:
- Noise learning Micha
- Change default preset (it still uses Classic compressor etc!)
- EQ with 'standard' sliders.
- Make BS412-like graph for levels
- Add 'warm' noise before clipper (requested by Andrew Palmquist, might help with PPM as well)
- CPU: Clipper: Optimize Advanced Bass Distortion Protection

TO DO WITH LEIF:
- Clipper issues Leif / Wolf Stahl (probably the same thing)

Not remembering FM settings is not bug in latest beta . I know it from many versions ago but i was thinking it is the normal behavour, not a bug.

For me, audio is extremely choppy in Beta 008 (SA). CPU load appeared fine. Changing sample rate to 48khz or lower resolved?!
What seems to be a long run of nasty exceptions also caused lots of trouble:

Exception in: Modify_samples call internal (Exception 0xc0000005 at address 0x11854d6, read/write=0, r/w location=0xffffffff). Offset-info: 0xde7960
Restarting: NO

Ummmmm LOL

http://www17.zippyshare.com/v/grYoKvsT/file.html

And it doesn't matter - FM, non FM. So, for this reason I can't really test that version.

Choppy audio for me, too. Couldn't find a setting that made a difference. Went back to earlier version.

will this vst version load with the last settings used? Just as how the dsp version works.