Stereo Tool

Hi Hans..
This is better solution (blckoverlap 0).. better quality lower cpu usage. (but final conclusion after You finish all processes)
From momet i first time install this betas .. i have stuttering when i enter with remoteVNC to transmitter PC. But i forgot that latency is much lower now + i keep fm output asio to 0.03s. Evry other cpu usage makes ST to stutter (if ST cpu usage is near edge).
Cpu usage is actualy very near to v4.22 .. only good multicore solution is missing.

Once i mention that ST now need a "Realtime Priority" option.
I tryed to manual set it in Task Manager for ST, and now i don't have stuttering when i enter to remote desktop or other process use cpu.

CPU overlap is now indeed a bit higher because multiband, pre limiter and noise gate need to process more data in this new version... It seems to correspond to Overlap values of 10-15%.

Update: New BETA3 available.

"Overlap 0" Loudness is now closer to the normal version than before. Not really finished yet - for some reason the bass level is lower.

Note: I also found a bug in the Final Limiter filter that had a damaging effect on the sound, that's fixed now. Should improve the sound both of normal and "Overlap 0" versions, but has more effect on the "Overlap 0" version of the processing.

Also, the "Overlap 0" CPU load is _slightly_ lower.

I'm looking at the intermediate results of the Loudness filter at Overlap 0% now and they are really not good (1 dB too loud for the highs, 0.5 dB too soft for the lows).

The Loudness filter consists of about 20 separate steps, so I'm still looking which step(s) is/are causing this.

Edit: Found & solved the cause of the too soft bass. And... This also affected the Overlap > 0 version - so the next version will have slightly more bass using Overlap > 0 as well

Edit #2: Found what's wrong with the highs as well... Trying to fix it now

Edit #3: That's now fixed too... Upto that point, the 2 versions are now nearly identical (I must add to that that the Overlap > 0 version has changed as well, it's now closer to the v4.22 (I think it has more deep bass etc., I have not measured it yet though).

Unfortunately the sound is still not identical - there's another difference that I need to fix.....

Fix will be uploaded later tonight.

Uploaded as BETA3A (because I haven't tested the sound quality yet).

As I mentioned, the "Overlap > 0" sound has changed a bit as well - if anything I expect it to be better, because I fixed some small bugs in the processing (very minor impact on the sound, and also a minor impact on the CPU load which might be VERY slightly higher).

Links:
Winamp DSP plugin: http://www.stereotool.com/download/dsp_ ... BETA3A.exe
Stand alone version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... BETA3A.exe
VST version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/vst_ ... BETA3A.dll

As I mentioned before, for Loudness the "Overlap = 0" sound is still not identical to the "Overlap > 0" sound. So I'll have to find the next issue

Hi Hans,
If is question what is better BlockOverlap 0 or BlockOverlap >0, my vote is for Block Overlap = 0
i just measure lows (4096) and i get same quality with BO=0 and BO~60 .. which is very good because on BO=0 is much less cpu usage. Not to mention that with 512,1024,2048 modes, bass is far better.
I measure this two modes with v4.22 too .. and bass is better in beta3a BO-0, but in 4.22 bass level is higher just a bit

v4.22
http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/1743 ... 50hzhi.jpg

beta3a 14.01.2010 (blockoverlap 0 - 4096)
http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/2444/s ... lap050.jpg

i just hope that highpass will kill this 20hz peeks.

Later today i'll test rest of sound.

Right now I would still use high overlap values because Overlap=0 isn't finished yet... The highs are clearly softer than in Overlap>0, which means that somewhere in the process they get lost. But I hope that will be fixed soon. And then it's a matter of comparing the sound. Bass will indeed be clearly better with Overlap=0, but I'm not so sure about the highs.

The 20 Hz peaks will probably not be removed by the highpass filter - I don't know where they're coming from (I hadn't noticed them yet). But MAYBE they could be caused by the fact that the Lowpass filter isn't finished yet. As I mentioned, upto the place where I stayed yesterday the sound is now really nearly identical. But the steps afterwards are still different.

I found the filter that's causing the problems. It's causing a signal drop, especially of lower frequencies, at a rate of about 21 Hz. Which explains both the 20 Hz tone and the lower bass levels.

I really don't know how to solve it yet - will have to think about it (it's the most difficult filter I have that's causing this, and a specialized non-standard use of it on top of that).

I've uploaded a small update, the 20 Hz tone should be softer now.

now it's almost perfect! blckovrlp=0 Highpass=off. Now Bass is same quality as blckoverlap=100 + highpaas=on That is nice.

edit:
4096 - BASS is Awesome!! much better and cleaner and same level as 4.22 (maybe even higher) ! Highs are at same level as 4.22 and bit cleaner.. all with blckoverlap=0.
Highpass missing, i hope it will be good too.