Quote:
I discovered that the 1st band of the noise gate was causing lots of bass artifacts - it created more artifacts than it removed noise. So the only thing I could do was to turn it off completely.
Is this based on modern tracks with heavy bass (drum) ?
For me it is the other way round.
I have many (older) tracks with low frequency noise.
Not disturbing while played without processing.
But even with gentle Stereo Tool processing this noise is amplified and very annoying.
Try the intro of U2's 'One" from the original 'Achtung Baby' album (1991).
(I guess that you have this one ?)
With many other (older) tracks I have the same problem.
Maybe without this first band in noise gate it is better for the usage of Stereo Tool as broadcasting processor for modern (heavy bass) music.
But in the definition of Stereo Tool as a general advanced processing tool for remastering for a wide range of sources (tape,vinyl, older music) this first band in noise gate is missing.
Okay I can use as a workaround an additional Stero Tool 5.00 instance.
But it would be better to have this first band back in a newer Stereo Tool version.
Isn't there an intelligent way to re-integrate this first band ?
So that loading older presets in all versions created before the re-integration will result in a turned off low band.
But if enabled and saved in newer versions it should be part of the presets.
Though I think to avoid the bass artifacts you have noticed and the low noise floor I hear, it could help to expand the noise gate in future versions.
We have 10 bands for comp/limit in MB.
Why not 10 bands in noise gate too (better match 10 on 10) ?
Or would that eat too much CPU ?
And now I am going completely nuts:
10 bands in MB are already very good.
But I think to make it perfect we need two additional bands (to avoid the high frequency problems we have to fight).
From my experience the problem is that bands at
5.5k, 10k, 16k is too broadly defined.
Adding two bands at 8k and 13k would help.
8k is a very special and important frequency.
Many de-essing tools use this as standard (default) working frequency.
Until now we have the problem that 10k has to do all the work in high frequency range

uneasy compromise !
Ok, I have too much fantasy !?
PS:
Do you have a download link for version 5.00 ?
I have some beta DLLs but no 5.00 setup anymore.