Stereo Tool

Hans,

VST issue not solved here (host: Mixmeister). Program just hangs up. It may have to do with the change of code you made around beta 8, cause I can still use beta 7 without any trouble.

Hi Hans
Wonderful result !!!!!!!!!!!!! But the version sounds horrible 510-32 ........ 31 version sounds just fine. My test showed a wonderful result. I became confused between the RTL 102.5, and the sound of its transmitter in favor of the latter! \
Igor

Hello Hans,
DJC is right. The VST plugin glitch has not yet been solved. I am using Adobe Audition 3 as host. However it works fine in Soundforge 9. Post beta30, the soundfield is amazingly stable and pumping is now less audible in settings using more aggressive dynamics. I've a very fundamental question though: The fact that I don't have a FM transmitter makes it impossible to test the FM presets for me. Now the sound of in-built presets carry much less bass than the de-emphasized FM recordings from a FM tuner when heard on my system's soundcard. So is it that the sound we hear from a broadcast processor on the computer's soundcard is vastly different from the on-air sound of the same processor on a FM tuner?
I intend to use StereoTool largely for transcoding mp3s with the same sound signature as commercial on air FM broadcast. But cannot achieve that with any in-built presets.
Another thing: I wanted to share presets and some FM recording clips. But cannot upload the files in the forum. Am I missing something here? I get the error:"The extension sts is not allowed"
And yes thanks for software and working on it to update so often.

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Ok, still looking into this one. I can easily solve it by going back to the situation of before BETA8 or so, but then it won't work in some other VST hosts...
This MIGHT depend on your receiver or even your sound card. Settings also tend to be different in different countries.

For very loud presets, I am having some difficulties to get both loud lows and no distortion. You could try playing with the 'allow louder lows' setting in the Loudness window - that should increase the lows at the cost of adding some distortion for certain sounds.

I'll post BETA33 ASAP (building now), here I have adapted the 'FM Europe' (ie. the one without 'soft' or 'loud' in the name) to sound very close to some samples of an Orban that someone posted in this thread a while ago. And based on the existing presets, that means boosting both the lows and the highs.

I have some ideas that might enable using more lows in Loudness (that's the filter that has the most trouble with loud lows), but I won't look into that before I have (finally...) released version 5.10.
I still need to look into that - it has something to do with forum settings that I haven't been able to find

For now, please just paste the STS file as text, or upload it as a .zip file.

FM Europe preset (Stereo / Mono / Bass boost) updated (frequency content is now close to that of the Orban files):

Winamp DSP plugin: http://www.stereotool.com/download/dsp_ ... 510-33.exe
Stand alone version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... 510-33.exe
VST version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/vst_ ... 510-33.dll
VST version (No SSE2): http://www.stereotool.com/download/vst_ ... 510-33.dll
Command line version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... 510-33.exe
Linux command line version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... BETA510-33
Linux GUI version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... BETA510-33

What about distortions, harmonics, lack of punch, voice vibrations, lack of good bass ... wich are all not so present in Orban processor ?

Hans, I was listening to a few tracks and found some subtle differences between beta 31 and beta 33. Not sure if it's good or bad from transmission point of view for my findings were based on my Creative X-Fi soundcard's output. Beta 31 sounds more clean and balanced in terms of audio frequency spectrum. Beta 33 has perceptibly less pumping and offers less distortion caused by extreme bass when loud highs are present than b31 but b33 sounds slightly grungy and more importantly the emphasis on deep bass (~80Hz or so) has shifted to something towards 160~250Hz region. As mentioned earlier I'm using a custom preset for transcoding to compressed audio files which I've attached here. I am not upsampling(using 44KHz) and using 64 bit-depth in Soundforge (just for your reference). The custom preset does induce level variations because of the bass content, but have to compromise that for no in built preset has the kind of bass content heard on hardware based audio processors. I could have used the max reflection control but then sounds gets trashy. So far b31 has been the best version from my perspective. Not sure if others would agree though.

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Do you have examples of that? I only have the Orban files that someone (you?) posted some time ago, and there:
- Stereo Tool has considerably less distortion - at least for the 'difficult' sounds
- Bass level is the same as in the current 'FM Transmitter (Europe)' preset (compared both by listening and by measuring the frequency content).
- As far as I have checked, I don't really notice any difference in punch - in which track(s) do you hear this? And the volume drop for loud 'S' sounds is now less in Stereo Tool than in the Orban samples (a few BETA's ago that was the other way round).
- What's the difference between distortion and harmonics? Or do you mean 'bass distortion' by distortion?
- Vibrating voices are not present in the examples that I checked. Do you still get those? Because I thought they were nearly completely gone since I added the phase rotation filter.

I have now read more complaints about lack of bass especially at higher Loudness values. (Still, the FM Transmitter Europe preset should be good).

As I wrote a few days ago, I have some ideas for improving the Loudness filter, which should solve this. IF it works, it might combine a higher bass level with less highs distortion and less 'loud S' effects on the lower freqs. For now, if you want more bass, try setting 'clean/punch' closer to clean, and then increase 'allow louder bass'.

Also, I noticed that enabling 'Bass boost' and increasing the minimum frequency to 100 Hz gives a huge boost to the bass.


Someone else wrote that it could be that the bass problem is caused by too many bass bands in the Multiband section.

It's hard to explane .. but..
ST works totally different then Orban or Omnia and i'll put Breakaway on this list.
Major differences:
- ST have more bands (almost half more) - That can be problem
- In my oppinion ST BASS Clipper is in wrong place. - Should be right before final limiting. In relation of that, others have their Distortion cancelled/controlled clippers, wich again in ST case.. Main FM clipper is again too soft.
Clipper shuld be zero-attack/release with time limiter with a ratio of infinity-to-one. (OMNIA)
In Clipper like that Intermodulation distortions occures. But, again this is not case in ST because ST clipper is not like that. It's more like simple limiter! So it indicate that this voice vibrations (caused by low-bas sounds) are not in clipper .. but more it's in limiters or multiband.
My oppinion is, when you can play any track thru ST (in FM mode) with only Hard Limit and Composite Clipper ON.. Than it will be good.
- Again look at Breakaway core:

There are big difference if we compare it with ST.
- There is AGC with sidechain EQ (something i requested erlier)
- There are compressors feed back/forward
- There are LA limiters in multiband bands
- Ratio settings for MB bands .. etc...

So Orban will never sound Like ST or Breakaway or otherwise... But afaik, orban, omnia and breakaway have much closer routines for processing.. much closer then ST.

track example:
Clear voice vibrate caused by rate of bass sound - much more in bass presets.
http://www.mediafire.com/?c4qhyz07ps8zc4t
Interesting is in ST that in some cases when you puch Loudness MORE... there is less distortions like this vibration. Bu then other distorions are present. So like Loudness don't know when and how much is needed to limit/clip that bass..

I'll upload another track with very nasty bass wich is sometimes causes voice distortion even in breakaway, but in ST is very obviously.
.....