Stereo Tool

New Singleband Compressor is great

Hello Hans,
WOW!
The New compressor is awesome. It responds to the Audio and to the controls exactly like I expected. It acts very well to the percieved loudness - great.
The comparision to the pressure vessel is very good. I am optimizing similar Regulation processes - the Speed of internal combustion engines like in Lawn Mowers or generators. The Speed is controlled via a flyball governor, the movement of the governor is connected to the throttle valve. When over- compensated, it happens like you described, the governor resonates, the engine Speed goes steady up and down...

Qustion: Could you add the compressor - like it is now - before the Multiband, as an alternative to the post-AGC compressor. I would be happy to test this, in combination with very slow AGC Settings as well.
I think it shouldn`t be so much of a Problem...

Further I - like we all i think - can`t expect to see this algorithm in the multiband processor.
It should be possible to create a much more consistent Sound. This should be the reason why an actual Optimod is able to create a so VERY consistent Sound.

Kind Regards,
Robert

To the problem with the "Speed" slider i`m adding another one . The display of the new single band is only on the one channel.

Yes, there are several minor issues, as well as the Threshold slider is not settable via the arrow keys. Also I think the dB/s values doesn`t match to the real Speed...
But it is enough to test like it works, I am ignoring all the values and all these minor issues for now, adjusting all this only by ear and via the gain reducion meter, not more...

I've been busy with lot of things - including a different filter the last few days (if anyone is interested: A filter that increases the bit depth of recordings - yes that can be done! And more: I think it can be used to encode a composite signal with a bitrate of under 500 kbit/s, instead of the more commonly used 2 Mbit/s, which might be very interesting for a lot of stations).

Anyway, I will first fix all the issues that are there now and add things like feedback mode, ratio and a side chain. Also I need to try to make it simpler to control the behavior (the 'Speed' slider can be confusing combined with the attack and release speed thresholds, and I think it should behave differently so you can properly control the attack and release behavior without using those thresholds).

The goal of this first version was indeed to gather feedback, and responses so far are a bit mixed (some people in this thread say that they love it, but I've seen others who told me privately that they don't, and can't get it to behave properly, mainly because attack start too slowly - which makes sense because it behaves as a physical thing, so it needs to gain speed; lookahead might help here, and limiting as well).

Once this thing works fine in singleband mode, I will also make it available in multiband mode. Also, I'm planning to add a 2nd multiband compressor stage after the one that's there now to make the audio more consistent (I've already tested it and it works, but I don't want to create all those extra settings now and remove them again when this new compressor is finished).

Additionally Gating would be good.
Maybe a Kind of "jump protection" or "burst protection" like it is now in all your cpompressors would make sese. (Only) a Limiter stage after this probably may be too hard... Tweaking the attack leakage slider does even help a lot.

And for more Feedback it would be great to have this compressor - like it is now in all Details and values - before multiband. Cause before MB it is not so important to catch jumps, in opposite, it is good to work with not too fast attack Speeds there for a more dynamic feeling.

Could you do this?
Thanks a lot in advance!!!
Regards,
Robert

...and a possible reason for the different feedback maybe the Intention of using.
My Intention was to use it more like an AGC/Leveler, not as fast as a "compressor" in order to create more density.
So I tested with the slower speeds...
Regards,
Robert

I think I've just solved (or at least improved) the attack issue. I now have 2 different Speed sliders, one for attack and one for release. I had expected that this would have a very bad effect on the level control, but - while it does slightly deteriorate it, it's still much better than with both old compressor tastes.

It might be even better to respond more quickly (by switching into attack mode faster) if the peak that comes in is a lot higher, instead of having only an attack and a release speed. So instead it could also be a slope (which would then also cause release to stop automatically, because it would form a gate).

New build is running; things are a lot easier to control now. Will post the new version in a few hours.

BETA 761-002!

Windows 32 bit:
Windows stand alone: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... 61-002.exe
Winamp DSP: http://www.stereotool.com/download/dsp_ ... 61-002.exe

CHANGES:
- New Singleband: Split Speed into Attack and Release Speed
- New Singleband: Made Attack and Release Speed Threshold relative to Speed - so you don't need to adjust it to change the shape.
- Added new Dequantizer filter to increase the bit depth of recordings.

This should make the new compressor a lot more powerful and much easier to adjust. (If you want to have a constant attack and release speed in dB/s you only need to change the 2 Speed settings). Also, with faster Attack Speed, the delay that happened at the start of an attack is greatly reduced, and you can make a sound which drops quickly at a loud peak but doesn't come back too fast. The good news is: The improved level control from the first version is still there if you do this!

My development system is "in service" tomorrow so I might not be able to do much for a day or two. If I get some feedback I'll try to do something with it tonight. The important thing to do now - I think - is to make the settings more understandable (both names and values).

Dequantizer example:
Input (4 bit not dithered): http://www4.zippyshare.com/v/6kSlkuc7/file.html
Output: http://www20.zippyshare.com/v/MHHvpjsJ/file.html
I still need to make it detect the bit depth automatically. And it probably doesn't work properly in the stand alone version, because you have all kinds of connections before it.