Stereo Tool

Can you make the De-esser in the Advanced Clipper frequency configurable?
Maybe some different modes?
Soft, Medium and Hard De-essing?
I play a lot of music from MP3 and many recordings are actually good and clean, but they have the common known sssssss which stands out of the sound.

I know garbage in = garbage out so maybe it is an idea to put an extra De-esser Post-Agc but Pre-MB?

I always get StereoTool to sound perfect, but no matter what preset i pick, the ssss sound will not be satisfying me.

The thing that gets me the most is this.
We have an home studio and we have a webradio station.
Mixer is an D&R Airteq, a broadcast mixer.
All the equipment is professional. Shure, Aphex, Esi Juli@.
Quad core Pc running at 20% with ST.

All cables are professional, with Neutrik connectors.
And yet i just cant get the sssss to sound right.
Presets of Bochja and other which are praised by other users just sounds terrible, pumping and overall dull sound.
Actually, every preset is just not right.

This weekend i helped setting up another studio for the webradio station.
Nothing really special, a Behringer mixer, a cinch audiocable, (Cinch to minijack!) Into a on board sound card and installed on that pc, Breakaway Broadcast.
It just sound good. Clean, nice, and especially, the sssssss sounds are lot less or just perfect.

I do not want Breakaway. I want ST. Why cant the ssss sounds be as good in ST?

Thanks in Advance!

Before going into this, could it be that something else is wrong? Especially this: doesn't sound right. ("terrible" I guess would be a matter of taste, but Bojcha's presets definitely don't pump).

By the way, is this for FM or streaming/tv/podcast/...?




Ahhhhhhhh! After typing this I suddenly realized something. Could it be that you're feeding the audio at a low level? If so, if you load a preset you have to adjust the input gain, otherwise the noise gate will kill all your sounds (mainly highs, but not loud S sounds!), and the AGC won't work properly.

Please make sure that the input level display peaks somewhere close to 0 dB.

Terrible was not the right word indeed.
I have a hard time to explain what i mean in English.

The audio comes in ST at nearly 0 DB.
The presets maybe not my taste, and by pumping i mean when the bass kicks in, the mids and highs are supressed to much for my taste.
It needs to much time to react properly in.my opinion.

But, then again, that will be a matter of taste.

As i said, if you dont mind the ssss sound, then ST is really perfect and easy to configure.
I just think that the de esser could use some more tweaking possibilities.
Today i reset all audio settings and started over making a preset, carefully listening to the sss sound.
Its not getting any better, and finally when i turn on the de esser, the ssss sound gets louder!
I need to set its threshold to -6.00 or less to make it a little comforting.
But then the de esser has to much effect on the other highs.

I hope i make myself clear this time. Sorry for poor English

Edit: We use ST for webstreaming. But when i'm tweaking, the Normal output is send directly to the studio amplifier.
Ps: i really dont want to say anything wrong about other users or tweakers, because together you're making something beautiful here, lets say my English is not "nice".

So i guess it's not going to happen then?

Bojcha's latest preset might work, but I don't think he has posted it yet. Bojcha?

Yea i am working on new preset. I promised "Unreal Engine II". Done many different combinations and just last night i made (almost) final one.
Thing is that beside other things problem with Loud "S" sounds annoy me much. So i fixed that but i needed something to also control that loud burst. So best way is not De-Esser But limiter in last MB band. So i made it as much as possible tight. Also this preset should be much more consistent then anything and also that "popular' pumping included.

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control point2

Bojcha, i will wait until you post that preset.
I am busy tweaking myself to right now and i just found that the Pre-limiter in the Advanced Clipper is (for now) satisfying enough. At 32 bands and real low treshold (clipper reference) the sound is much more consistent. And in my case, the s sounds are much less.

But sometimes, especially when in a song singing begins with an S, it just overshoots. Same story for the "t" in the ending of a word. I will try sometime to make recordings of it. Thats why i wanted to try setting the de-esser at a frequency it should be de-essing instead of i guess de-essing all the highs.
It would be nice to be able to set a window, let's say 6000 - 10000 Hz where the de-esser (or an extension of that) scans for excessive S sounds.

But what im doing right now, thats getting rid of the loud S, in my opinion really affects the rest of my preset.

I should mention that recently i bought a new set of headphones. Beyer-Dynamic Dt 770 pro 250 ohm.
This instantly made me make another preset because of all the noise i never heard with my Sennheiser HD 202.

So the new preset is a lot better, cleaner and tighter.
The downside is that the loud S is also a lot more present where before it was not so loud on the sennheiser which is not as clear in the highs.

Maybe Hans could be so kind to implement such feature in another beta version just for testing purposes?
Something like said with the window de essing limiter or something like that?
Lowpass freq.
Highpass freq.
Somekind of limiting to decrease the loud S.
Choice pre or post AGC.
Difference, to see what is does.

Kind regards, Studio.11

Ps: Again, sorry for poor English typing.

Try this.
Tune limiter as you wish on last MB band. Also final level on that band.

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control point
control point2

I will try tonight or else tommorow.
If i finish my own preset i will post it here to, just to give an idea of what sound im looking for.

Hans,

I am a replaygain fan and have that applied to all my audio. Thus, tracks come into SPL at whatever level that is... Are you saying that most presets are built by default to have audio coming at at full scale, near 0db? If I manually pull up the audio to near 0db, wouldn't I be undoing the replaygain?

I wonder if there's some sort of auto adjustment you could offer that would adjust that preset's settings to match the incoming audio and not automatically adjust the level of the incoming audio.

Otherwise, are we pulling hairs on levels between non ReplayGained audio and ReplayGained audio?

Thanks.

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America's Country
Totally RAD Radio