Stereo Tool

I'm no where near home right now but I have to try this out.
My current preset isn't loud, it keeps the volume at a decent level, but I'm curious as to what turning the Final limiter will do.

Please don't remove the final limiter though, thats one of the easiest way I know to keep the levels below 100% with only ONE SLIDER xD.

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<-- I like this guy!

SSE2 is still supported (that is, I'm using an older version of that library that still supported SSE2). And the SSE3/4/CoreDuo/... implementations that are also included are NOT faster (!). So I'm currently only including the SSE2 version.

Without Loudness, the CPU load is identical (give or take one percent) to that of version 5.02. Only if you enable Loudness it increases a lot.

Yes, when you use loudness with one of latest betas.
But not when we do not use loudness.

Besides this it is not that simple as you might think.
100% (0 dB) is too much (that's why it is not a good idea to normalize to 100% !).
Have you ever heard of intersample peaks ?
Now for most presets you have to set Post Amp to x 0.93 to avoid intersample peak distortion.
But when you disable the Final Limiter (and without loudness filters) you have to set Post Amp even much lower to avoid intersample peak distortion.

So if you really want to know what you do, it helps to use a meter (plugin) post Stereo Tool that indicates intersample peaks better than Stereo Tool's built-in meter. http://www.solid-state-logic.com/music/x-ism/
or the TT Dynamic Range Meter.

Basically it increases the volume, then clips it. It does some other neat things to make sure that the clipping doesn't cause (too much) distortion or pumping. (Due to that the clipping isn't perfect and you need Hard Limit as a final step.)

Michi, I never knew that inter-sample peaks were an issue for non-FM signals??? For FM I filter them out (just turn FM on, keep everything in it (including pre-limiting etc.) disabled, and you should not have any inter-sample peaks left!

The disadvantages of filtering them out is:
1. More Loudness artifacts (not much though without pre-emphasis because there isn't that much high frequency content)
2. Higher CPU load


EDIT: THIS FILTER IS ONLY PRESENT IN LOUDNESS, NOT IN FINAL LIMITER!

In the next BETA, Final Limiter will automatically be bypassed (display will still be there to allow volume calibration!) if Loudness is used.

I would not touch anything...
Final limiter should be there. It's on user to decide to use it or not.
Final Limiter is not "$", so this balance of Final Limiter OR Loudness is good.

@bojcha, thanks for your reply.
@camclone i'm very interested in your preset could you post it?
@hans, i noticed DIFF isn't working for Final limiter in latest beta.

New setup would still contain Final Limiter, but bypass it if Loudness is used. They both do the same thing, only Loudness also boosts the volume (well, Final Limiter can also handle a small volume boost), and Loudness can handle all kinds of loud sounds while Final Limiter is aimed only at short spikes of too loud sounds. But there's not really a need to have Final Limiter if Loudness is used (before there was, because people complained that Loudness sounded worse without it).

I was hoping you'd say that SSE2 was not in use and you could implement it... Oh well...

What kind of improvements do you think could be made to the Final Limiter?