Stereo Tool

Ok, i complained about this. but...
If clipper is better so highs should now have place where to go - into clip - so why that still need to happen.

Another thing called "Hard Limit" - There CLIP should occure! in that last few dBs. (depend on Adjustable clip threshold)
Now Loudness depends on that hard limit.
Finaly "Composite Limit" (if FM on) - It's still Limit.. so no difference at 110% - same amount of harmonics around pilot.

But one thing is sure, compared beta 79 and 80 .. i have up to 0.4dB lower PEEK level in beta80 - and that is good!

Found Bug in VST betas 79,80
Bass AGC don`t function ( sliders don`t change their settings ) everywhere is 0.000

And Please optimize the code without FM option (only simple sound processing) because if enable this option things are not the same .
With FM sound needs to have separate filters, clippers, limiters etc. and these limit/clipping levels must go up above 0db (if our reference is 0 db) with this curve level/frequency shown below.
All You have to remember is that basic sound must not affect with FM option ( this option is separate processing ) and affect only in receiver because of filters in it which causes the de-emphasis.
Or All i want to say is if we adjust the basic sound to 0 db like all settings shared here ..... enabling the FM option must work with 0db+ limit/clipping levels depending on graph curve of pre-emphasis. or hard limit for the FM is at +13 db . In this case drop down bass when high peak of high frequencies is presented will be gone forever . Hope understand me right !!!
If not like this You will not able to send sound to the air and stream at the same time with StereoTool. Levels will be different !
In these days i`ll make a video to show you what I mean.

.....

BETA081:
New clipper should be ok now (the sound that is - I still need to optimize the code and add some configuration options to the interface).

Winamp DSP plugin: http://www.stereotool.com/download/dsp_ ... 20-081.exe
Stand alone version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... 20-081.exe
VST version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/vst_ ... 20-081.dll
VST version (No SSE2): http://www.stereotool.com/download/vst_ ... 20-081.dll
Command line version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... 20-081.exe
Linux command line version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... ETA620-081 NOT AVAILABLE
Linux GUI version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... ETA620-081 NOT AVAILABLE

TODO:
- Fix loading changed multiband frequencies
- Add buffer and filter for SCA output (SCA1 ok, SCA2 ok)
- Finish AGC improvement - make mono value configurable (replace checkbox by slider) 1 hour --> NO, not needed - anything else needed? -> NO
- Fix Punch
- Check what to do with new filters (such as bass AGC) - keep them, remove them, change them? --> KEEP
- Save new BASS_AGC setting in VST mode
- Loudness: Annoying cracking sound in bass. Slightly present in 5.00, worse in 6.00, maybe even worse in 6.10. Only when bass is too loud. Much worse than in Final Limiter (at same input level!) - so this clearly indicates a bug. Most likely cause: The filter that was added to remove bass artifacts....... - No, it's the louder bass. But it can be fixed by changing some settings. Default settings updated, and behavior for 'not Very strict' improved. Also Deep bass boost and Very deep bass protection are enabled for latency 512 now.
- Fix crash at program close
- Fix VST plugin version (does not run)
- Dynamically drop 'Allow louder highs, even if it causes vibrations' to 0 when bass filter suspects noticeable voice vibrations.
- Reduce Loudness CPU load
- Check and remove static variables
- Finish new de-essing filter (check what to do with the settings, remove at least some!)
- Convert Multiband input to MONO, then use arrays [2][4096] --> should give speedup. - FAILED
- Natural Dynamics: Fix or remove transient boost
- Natural Dynamics: Add expected + strength slider per band
- Finish declipping filter (clipping level detection + level reduction in dB). 1. Figure out why removal of unwanted frequencies causes flat lines at high quality setting with small overlap. This causes distortion, with this fixed repairs are MUCH better. 2. Fix MP3 correction, automatically scale down when this deteriorates the sound. --> TOP part fails!
- Declipping filter: Fix low latency behavior
- Always oversample clipping (configurable)
- Declipping filter: Change detection at lower input levels.
- "Test Right Channel" in "FM Transmitter Calibration" does not work since v6.10 (standalone) (bojcha)
- Declipper window close function - check! - Seems ok
- Scopes black background?
- Add AGC start level
- Declipping filter: Add comparting of sample history to make sure loud bursts are still detected properly (now, with 16 blocks of history, 65 samples are removed even when ignoring just 0.1%). I should also check the current block (probably with a margin of a factor 2).
- Declipping filter: Use reliability of tilt detection to determine movement speed; slowly move to default tilt (configurable!)
- Declipping filter: Far too many samples are marked as 'maybe/probably' clipped. Histogram not used or not cleared?
- Declipping filter: Optimize tilt detection for performance. SSE2 for maximum. And keep separate smaller histograms to determine the maximum (should perform much better).
- Declipping filter: Cleaned histogram must be mirrorred. After cleanup, mirror center is place where SIGMA above == SIGMA below! Only use on the lower end. Then run cleanup again! The result should contain approximately the same amount of data above and below. If not, that indicates incorrect detection.
- Declipping filter: Add a long term histogram, and use maximum of short term and long term start clipping level detection.
- Declipping filter: Check if 'No declipping when tilt cannot be determined' can safely be turned on.
- Declipping filter: Add setting and saving of new sliders (history size, percentage of highest samples to drop, tilt detection range start, end and precision)
- Declipping filter: Check why higher Quality settings causes cracking sounds. Answer: Rounding error, and too low filtering values to remove it.
- Move pre-emphasis to end of processing
- AGC: Separate 'Remove remaining peaks' settings for band 1 and 2
- Channels L/R swap in stand alone version when changing filtering/quality (eldoradofm)
- Declipping filter: Optimize peak matching for performance: Move determination to extra preprocessing step DONE; try to change if statements to min/max or something IMPOSSIBLE.
- Fix changing value of 'final limit' in Multiband when changing Loudness settings.
- Save bandpass filter order
- Save all new settings, also through VST interface
- Declipping filter: Change default values for Maximum distortion and Step size (see Bojcha's post)
- Try to improve reconstruction match (should remove artifacts for low bass + soft highs) ■ FAILED
- Declipper: Fix loud bass with soft higher frequencies issue. Do something with loudest frequency vs. peak level - if it cannot fit (Madonna, Metallica) there must be clipping, otherwise there might not be. On top of this I should somehow try to preserve deformed bass sounds (if they are not hard clipped). Maybe this will work: Find loudest frequency, if it's very low. Than assume that it's clipped at the maximum restoration level (?); generate a new tone (using lowpass filter) of the same frequency and clip that at some margin below the maximum peak level. Then filter the input signal based on the FFT of the clipped signal. Finally analyze this new signal; if it is indeed clipped the filtered output will resemble a clipped waveform (visible in sample histogram; no tilt issues!) instead of a sine wave. Use the output of this as input to determine how strict the clipping detection for the input waveform should be (eg. based on normal or sinusoid signals). This is all way too difficult and it just won't work. Here's the real solution: Detect if a loud bass sound is present, if so make sure that symmetrical clipping detection is used, possibly with automatic 'maybe clipped' level adjustment. This should only slightly affect Metallica (which still sounds very reasonable with symmetrical enabled), but has a big effect on DBN - Jack is Back (which is far less affected with symmetrical enabled; auto likely/maybe adjustment based on symmetrical should help even more). Using veil solution now
- Move veil processing to detilted signal
- Switch to symmetrical detection if very loud very low frequencies are present NO, not needed anymore because artifacts are fixed using another mechanism
- Fix veil and detilting display (in declipper window; separate windows for separate channels; no change in DrawWave code needed!)
- Fix declipper display cleanup
- If the reconstructed samples are close to the original samples, and there are a lot of 'clipped' samples OR there are very loud low frequencies present, don't declip. Also add texture based filtering, and use a slider to set the sensitivity. Also increase the effect of bass and reduce overall level.
- Save veil settings and 'not reconstruct if like original' (STS + VST)
- Fix clipper (idea: Clip, filter, filter diff against clip diff, apply).
- Finish blind interface WAITING FOR FEEDBACK TODO: TEST: Only display this window when needed.
- RDS issue reported here: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3703&p=11524#p11524 partially solved
- Remove Natural Dynamics Partially done, does the crash come from here?
- Big window output is smaller than normal one
- Longer history for maximum level?
- In FM calibration 38 kHz is NOT working. EDIT: And more bugs: 23 kHz is not at 23 kHz 28 kHz is not at 28 kHz 33 kHz is not at 33 kHz 43 kHz is not at 43 kHz 48 kHz is not at 48 kHz 53 kHz is not at 53 kHz.
- Use DLL name in INI file name (requested by Jazler)
- Can I combine 2 FFT windows into 1? That would give half of the improvement of the smooth window, without CPU load increase.
- Old clipper seems to sound better. (New with less steps also sounds good). Use new clipper AFTER old clipper, and use already clipped and cleaned signal as 'clean_input'. Or try a bunch of short clips, than a long one to clean up, then some short (but not very short) ones to clean up pre/post ringing.
- Optimize clipper code
- Add new clipper options
- Smarter lows volume drop against highs protection: First clip using reduced highs (highs protection filter), then do it again but do NOT lower the lows below the level found in the 1st step.
- Add composite clipper
- Bass AGC RMS display does not work (always displays 0.00)
- Add registration to command line versions
- When "Enable FM transmitter calibration" is OFF and you click "Calibrate FM transmitter ..." and then close calibration screen again, then "Enable FM transmitter calibration" is turned ON automatically.
- Highpass before Multiband etc?
- Update presets? (BASS_AGC etc.) 1 day
- Change version number 1 hour
- Release 1 hour
- Add lowpass filter for stereo signal (will cause a lot of extra latency!) - it might be possible to avoid this latency using a Hilbert transform
- Add smarter clipping detection. Maybe something much simpler suffices: Current clipping detection with threshold + flat line detection
- Declipping filter: Automatically override the 3 clipping level sliders if the clipping level is detected very clearly (clear thin spike in sample value histogram). - NONSENSE, this is already done by the histogram function. But it can be made a BIT better - I think - by automatically LOWERING the 'always clipped' slider if a lot of data is present at the highest few bins (but care is needed for DBN - Jack is Back like tracks)
- Declipping filter: Create a new histogram after declipping, clean up and subtract from original.
- Change stand alone version to 32 bits.
- Optimization: Reduce CPU usage when input is silence.
- Non phase linear highpass filter: Make steeper
- Natural Dynamics: Attempt to reduce number of bands by 2 (memory + cpu DIV 2), using bands with sloppy slopes (no interaction between bands -> memory usage DIV 2, out-of-cache reads gone, hopefull final filter gone too -> CPU DIV 2 again).
- Natural Dynamics: Voices, especially in chorus, still sound weird.
- Natural Dynamics: Smooth out different bands more to reduce low-bitrate-MP3-like sounds.
- Natural Dynamics: Optimize situation with no interaction between bands for performance.
- Natural Dynamics: Save settings in VST version
- AGC: Sudden loud kicks (32:40) - much faster drop!

LF Clip -2.7
HF Clip +7.6
try it. you should be able to get a bit louder or stay a bit more clean with those numbers. i fine tuned down to those while making the new New York preset. But if you're not pushing crazy loud mids/highs, you could stay higher on both for sure, and trade a little punch for a little distortion at the peaks (which should be shorter).

"Try it? "I would certenly try that, and not only that, sir, but how? xD
Afaik i don't have that opportunity.

I thought (and obvious Jesse too ?) that Bojcha has his own Omnia 9.

I have not tried latest Beta versions, but Natural Dynamics should be still usable.
Not with the GUI, but by loading a STS file (saved in an older version).

Actually before AGC. Did you atleast tryed to put HPF before AGC?
Then all we will know is it problem HPF itself or place for it, or some internal problem.

Hans,

the link to the VST-Version for BETA081 ends in a 404-Page...