Stereo Tool

Hi Doggy
i'm confused that's exactly what StereoTool is doing. AGC by RMS. and multiband. Oposite to v4.22 where PreLimiter (now AGC) works more with peeks.

If we read that omnia part where is WB AGC. .. there is two things: Gate as i said, and makeup.
Yes there is sometimes when loud bass stops (like modern r'n'b songs) then PreLimiter goes up, but that's again less noticeable with new AGC in v5.0b because second band in agc (freqs. from 200Hz and up)

Here is station where you can hear all day exaclty that what you describe. Processor is Orban 8500 *i think*
http://scfire-dtc-aa07.stream.aol.com:80/stream/1071 (put in winamp)

I haven't tried it yet, but based on what I read on the Vlevel site, it is basically the same thing as my Hard Limit filter, except that it looks head multiple seconds (my Hard Limit filter only looks ahead a few ms). Except for that even the technique that's used seems to be roughly similar. If a loud passage is coming up, the level is slowly dropped before the loud passage is reached, then afterwards the volume is slowly increased back to the original level.

I'll look into this at a later point - I won't make any changes before I release version 5.00 anymore. IF I add it (which is relatively simple, I already have most of the code but I would have to convert it to use the RMS level instead of the peak level as Hard Limit does), it would be something that you can choose to enable, and if you do the latency will be HUGE.

DJ-DOGGY, can you check how far it's looking ahead/how big the latency is in your setup (I suppose that must be a configuration setting)?


Note: Just based on the theory (without having checked anything), I would expect this to work better than the current AGC filter. So it would almost definitely be an improvement. Although gating would also improve things a bit as Bojcha pointed out. The disadvantage is a huge latency, which might make it useless for some (many?) users.

Update:
Winamp DSP plugin: http://www.stereotool.com/download/dsp_ ... _BETA2.exe
Stand alone version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... _BETA2.exe
VST version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/vst_ ... _BETA2.dll
VST version (No SSE2): http://www.stereotool.com/download/vst_ ... NoSSE2.dll
Command line version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... _BETA2.exe

Changes:
- Command line version is working
- Added dB value to RMS peak level (AGC window)
- "Reset" and loading a preset now resets the latency to 4096 samples

Remaining TODO's:
- Check that SSE version works on Pentium 3 ■ OK (thanks to Bojcha)
- Display warning about quality when lower latency is selected ■ DONE, also added a warning when FM processing is turned on.

Wow! Looks like really close to a release? Gotta say I'm loving!

i checked SSE version on AMD without SSE2 . and it works

Great! Thanks!

Yes Hans , i want to help , thats all But how to ...or where to see this latency , I`m not very deep in the programing , but the settings are very simple ....
There is strength from 0 to 1 .. ( I think that this is like On Off the plugin and some middle state ?!?!?!
Max amplification : to 40 Db ...this is clear
And buffer length: from 0.1 to 5 seconds
You are right this program looks ahead from 0.1 to 5 seconds and regulate the whole gain ( gating like you said) for each song . this program watch the gain to be at max "some level".. say 0 . Bass stops and gain goes up ,but whole gain this is because it is Automatic gain ......
.This is the difference between : Level amplified or reduced as needed , not like the schem -> strong amplification at the input and reduce as needed
The only thing is that this level is not set to be constant for all song depend on scan for highest peak like some CD players do to be able to regulate the gain for recording on Tape for example . this must be the same , but this constant gain maybe isn`t able to be set and thats why is automatic. So tell me how to measure the latency ... please forgive me that i`m not deep in programing and don`t know that much i`m good in other sphere . Is there any tool or sometning .

Hello Bojcha
You don`t make sence between attacking the voume with time constant and regulate volume gain isn`t it ?
I know that Stereotool is doing what needed ( thatswhy i like it ) but the method is not right I think that I`m clear now . I explain this to Hans and I think that He`s realize it The gain must be SET for each song , depend on highest part ...to avoid the feeling of changing the gain where no bass for example You understand?

Hi DJ-DOGGY,

The gain must be set not to the highest part (that would mean a single loud click in a song would cause the volume of the entire song to be low), but to something like the overall RMS level of the song. Still, for some songs that build up in volume that wouldn't work very well for broadcasting, so it's probably better to look at a 'region' of sound - if I play a sample I look both forward and backward a few seconds to see what I should do. That's what Hard Limit does, and that's what - based on what I read - Vlevel does.
That's the latency! Just let me know at which setting you've configured this. At 0.1 I think the sound will resemble that of Stereo Tool's AGC more (Stereo Tool looks upto 0.09 seconds ahead).

There are some older Stereo Tool versions (before 3.40 I think) where I had a final limiter with a configurable buffer size that could be increased upto 1.5 seconds. That should give a sound close to that of Vlevel. (Which I still haven't tested, so I might be wrong).

I am understand you now completely.

So tell me. what Broadcast processor is doin' that ? afaik the most popular processors (box) are Omnia, Orban, vorsis.. etc...
I can tell you. Neither does. Even Omnia 11 and Optimod 8600. It's simply why, because latency.
Those things are otherwise solved in this boxes and not in this way.