Stereo Tool

Hm... "Protect Tones" appears to be sufficient to get a similar output as older versions. Which leaves the phase shift issue.

Edit: Found and fixed bug that caused phase rotation at Highs Brilliance 0.00 setting.

Behavior now seems ok except for one situation: Highs Brilliance 0.00, Tones vs Punch 0.00 still gives noisy highs when Protect Tones is turned off. To fix this, I will make a new checkbox to turn this new behavior on or off. Also, I realized that while this is good for FM, it's bad for streaming (codecs won't like it) so I think it should only be enabled in the composite clipper. MAYBE also in the normal FM clipper (but if you stream that it will be bad), definitely not in streaming output.

Phase issue is definitely in the Composite clipper.

Stereo Tool 7.71 BETA011

Note: CPU load is slightly higher because I have enabled some extra checks to find bugs (NAN checks).

Windows 32 bit:
Windows stand alone: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... 71-011.exe
Winamp DSP: http://www.stereotool.com/download/dsp_ ... 71-011.exe
Windows 32 bit VST: http://www.stereotool.com/download/vst_ ... 71-011.dll

CHANGES:
- Fixed distortion introduced in 009/010. Extra highs are still there though! See new 'Sparkling highs' section under Advanced Clipper -> Sound

OLD CHANGES:
- Fix optimizations
- Fix code #warnings
- Improved highs filtering in Clipper (both Composite and Normal); sound has more brilliance and suffers much less from ducking on loud sounds.
- Fix bug: NAN's can occur at certain input sample rates (40960 Hz among others)
- Fixed downsampling/resampling issues.
- Made several changes to the Clipper that affect the sound! Sound should now be more open en brighter (but it might have more distortion in some cases, I hope not though).
- CPU: Added 'Ignore high frequencies above'.
- Big Composite Clipper CPU load improvement: Added a new slider ('Oversampling Quality' or something like that); CPU load reduction is HUGE and effect on peak control (for values above 4) seems very small.
- Solved a number of warnings that I added in the last few days
- Some small optimizations
- New Highs Gap Protection improved, now similar in behavior to the old one. I had to add 1 extra step (slightly higher CPU load).
- Fixed problems in 771-004. Some optimizations are disabled - I need to fix that.
- Fix CPU measurement for high loads (jumps to 95% for unknown reason). -> Showing real average instead of median now. Median in dark red.
- Difference in measured CPU load is bigger than expected after CPU load measurement update - check why - DONE, is indeed big! Separate slider added to show both processing and total CPU usage.
- CPU: Clipper: Reduced default number of Bass Clipper steps from 4 to 1
- CPU: Clipper: Implemented Leif's mirrorring method for Stokkemask and optimized steps using Omnia interface, much fewer steps for same result.
- Added option to add a text in the title bar to easily recognize multiple instances.
- EXCEPTION OCCURRED IN HttpServer: Got unknown widget ID.
- CPU: Clipper: Highs gap protection: Use 1 step for non-FM.
- Check if COMMON_STATIC still improves performance, if not remove it -> Does not, removed.
- Redesigned parameter classes and moved everything around for integration with other products.
- Remove Stokkemask mode for non-composite FM clipper (it's probably not working correctly and more heavy than the composite clipper)
- Fixed small bug in Composite clipper FM overhead level compensation calculation. Might make the same setting very marginally louder (less than 0.05 dB)
- Fix crash reported in previous post
- Improved CPU load measurement (small part of code wasn't included, it is now).
- CPU: Composite clipper: Optimize Stokkemask: Skipping outer parts of window
- CPU: Composite clipper: Optimize Stokkemask: Fixed 'Skip smoothing' mode to be compliant, all other modes removed.
- CPU: Composite clipper: Optimize Highs Gap Protection (trick from Leif Claesson that he uses in the Omnia.9 - nearly no CPU load needed anymore!)
- CPU: Added some #pragma's to make compiler generate more efficient code
- RDS: Added some character conversions (Euro -> E, ` -> '). (not yet tested)
- GUI: Allow drawing scopes in half-height to have more headroom above and below.

TODO 7.71:
- Fix downsampling and Quality slider problems.
- Turning "Bandpass" Highpass filter OFF doesn't really turn it off (!)
- Remove "Take some shortcuts" under CPU, probably broken! And has not much effect anyway. -> Hm, no, must have been in use for the tests. Ugh... TEST to check what is better: ON (which will probably allow more sounds through) or OFF.
- Ignore frequencies above a specific frequency -> Should lower TOTAL CPU load by another 10-20% -> Started working on this
- Synchronization is broken in 008 (was ok in 007)
- Another bug in latest beta - ST doesn't remember FM settings - presets from the fm list start up with stereo and rds encoding off
- Fix MPX display sample rate issue
- Fix Stokkemask in Leif's mode with Quality < 3
- VST multiple instances fails
- Make VST window bigger
- Fix Mac VST version (not recognized apparently)
- Fix Linux version (someone mentioned that it crashes after a few minutes, on Ubuntu 14.04)
- Clipper highs improvement
- GUI integration for Multiband?
- Instability in compressor behavior [WesKeene, Bojcha]

TODO:
- Noise learning Micha
- Change default preset (it still uses Classic compressor etc!)
- EQ with 'standard' sliders.
- Make BS412-like graph for levels
- Add 'warm' noise before clipper (requested by Andrew Palmquist, might help with PPM as well)
- CPU: Clipper: Optimize Advanced Bass Distortion Protection

TO DO WITH LEIF:
- Clipper issues Leif / Wolf Stahl (probably the same thing)

A small unwanted signal ONLY when enable the "Sparkling highs" checkbox.


For the old bugs - Yes, distortion is fixed , NAN bug is fixed too . Confirmed!

Edit : CPU load is now OK . Even better!

Also one small report for the "Ingore highs above"
When enabled and slider is moving below the default 19000 to 16000 , this signal is moving with it. It`s exactly the frequency you set with the slider . If you set it to 16000 , then this signal is at 16000.

This may be useful : When slider is moving above 16000 , this signal is getting weak . Weak of this signal is is proportional to the moving of frequency. At 24000 i cannot see it.

Hans , confirm you saw all this report because i edited it many times.

Yup, read both. For the 1st unwanted signal, "Protect Tones" should help, and you might need to set Punch/Distortion to 0. When playing music that might sound less good though (loud tones are kept pure, which might make them cause holes in the other freqs).

The 2nd one I still need to fix.

Ok , i found a way that this first issue with Sparkling is gone .

1. Reset ST to the default (factory reset).
2. Close it !
3. Open and load your settings. (if any unsuccess i will attach my settings to reproduce it)
4. Go to Sparkling and enable - issue is there. (it`s already enabled by default if not saved in personal settings as inactive)
5. Disable the Sparkling!
6. Go to "Ignore frequencies above" and enable it, than disabled it !
7. Go back to the Sparkling and enable - this time issue is NOT there !

All the time input signal is active! In my case 14500 Hz.

Hope it was useful.
It`s definitely a bug somewhere.



Also take a look at : When i enable the "Ignore freqs" it affects on the refresh rate of screen ?!

Doesn't happen here - please send me your settings! There's less processing going on, and because of that there's less data available to be displayed. But, if you have your 'Display refresh speed' slider set far below 1 it should be the same.

here are the setiings

Is there any change in steepnes of highpass filter ?

Or it`s from the changes in Advanced clipper (i think it is).
Check the difference. Old version has perfect steep.
New one allows some distortion , right ?
Compare the red lines .