Stereo Tool

Which is better?


Bojcha, in previous BETA's (so not the last one), with the 2 deep bass protection settings switched off, does the bass sound get worse if you set Loudness higher? (Just to be sure we're talking about the same thing).

And do you still hear the 'metallic' sound in the last BETA (45)?

And you did turn those 2 deep bass protection things off in your test, right? Because using the clip you mentioned I think I hear less breathing, and a bass sound that's much closer to the original...

Yes, 2 deep bass protection settings switched off, but..

on FM to get ~95% of lows i must set "Then Rize to" to 80% (now even lower) and "clip to" MAX 70% (current i use 65%)
Bass is anyway not good (from always) and with this two filters Clipped bass even worse.

Maybe problem is that your tests are all with VERY loud Loudness, maybe you can try to use it less.. not more then 2.00x.

I've already said everything i can about this.

LOL! I found it

Basically I reduced the bass level to protect against Loudness issues. And that works fine. But...
At the same time my filter (to distinguish lows from highs) is so steep that it causes artifacts

It depends on the type of sound how noticeable those artifacts are. But they are there, and the bad thing is that I'm currently circumventing the part of the Loudness filter that cleans them up...

This one is pretty difficult to fix. I've now created an in-between version which should not suffer from the extra pre-ringing in BETA45. The dirty bass protection is also less effective...

Winamp DSP plugin: http://www.stereotool.com/download/dsp_ ... 510-46.exe
Stand alone version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... 510-46.exe
VST version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/vst_ ... 510-46.dll
VST version (No SSE2): http://www.stereotool.com/download/vst_ ... 510-46.dll
Command line version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... 510-46.exe
Linux command line version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... BETA510-46 (not built)
Linux GUI version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... BETA510-46 (not built)



Note: A negative (I would call it 'mirrored') sinusoid is NOT necessarily a problem - in fact, to make the waveform flat, you need some high frequency harmonics which might be annoying. By filtering them out you get those 'mirrored' sinusoids. (Try using a very low lowpass filter setting and you'll see the same thing happening if you play a block wave.)


Edit: "Punch" seems to add some pre-ringing. Set it completely to 'Clean' and you'll have less of it...

much Better! Actually maybe best loudness (lows) ever. There is still some "pre-sounds" before bass kick but thats very low and/or when very high loudness level is used. Not bad even if Deep Bass is used (not much).

So, punch need to be fixed, right?

And Strict clip/limit? whether there may be something to be done?

Ah... Then I just went too far in my previous version!

Fixing Punch should be relatively easy, I just need to account the volume reduction of the bass to determine whether to use Punch or not.

Still need to check what's wrong with strict clip/limit.

Some people complained that in the Loudness filter the volume goes up and down to slowly, causing pumping.

I've now added an extra more fine grained filter at the start of Loudness that reduces this effect. It also reduces pre-ringing by a few dB.

To my surprise, the output level of Loudness is also slightly more constant than before, allowing a less aggressive Loudness setting which might also give less Hard Limit artifacts.

Feedback is welcome! (Ow, the bass level is slightly higher than before, but that should not cause any extra highs distortion or voice vibrations, it's caused by the less aggressive Loudness settings).


The fine-grained filter MIGHT cause artifacts on its own, or remove artifacts that existed without it. I'm not sure about this, and I don't hear a difference.


Winamp DSP plugin: http://www.stereotool.com/download/dsp_ ... 510-47.exe
Stand alone version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... 510-47.exe
VST version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/vst_ ... 510-47.dll
VST version (No SSE2): http://www.stereotool.com/download/vst_ ... 510-47.dll
Command line version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... 510-47.exe
Linux command line version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... BETA510-47 (not built)
Linux GUI version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... BETA510-47 (not built)

Hi Hans, where is my nasty bass @ . To my ears the sound is too clean and too thin, but maybe this is caused by my presets.

Edit: the bass sounds less 'dynamic' and 'bold', compared with b41

Hm, if you want a 'dirty' bass, try setting the 'dirty bass' slider to the maximum... And then please let me know if it does what you expect!

Oh yeah, I missed that magic slider

Edit: wow, I've to push the silder even a bit down. Thanks Hans!