Stereo Tool

I have made a *very* small change in 751beta011. Would like to hear from you if it's better or worse.

I had a discussion with Bojcha tonight where I discovered that we really hear things differently. We compared an ST sample with - to my ears - some mild artifacts with some samples from another processor that Bojcha indicated hè preferred. But for me the other sample was close to unlistenable.

Anyway, apparently some people hear this effect much better than I do, so I don't want to rely on my own ears. So, please tell me if the new version is better or worse!

Atleas with some my preset.. it sounds bit worse :S

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Ok. 010 used my original method of filtering. 011 used a new one. I had made a change for which I had sent you a sample before that you said was better, but I increased the effect of that change - maybe too much.

This version is in-between 010 and 011:
http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... 2-011A.exe

Please let me know how this one sounds. If it's still worse than 010 I'll just restore the original code.

Please also check the effect of the Sloppy slider on this effect. To my ears Sloppy makes it much worse, but you might not agree...

Also, it would be really helpful to know which frequency is most audible to you. I've checked my code and I see that IMD might be most severe upto about 500/800 Hz. To my ears that sounds acceptable, but yours might differ...

If I severely reduce the mids clipping level (to 25% or so, basically so far that when you add the bass to it it won't go over 0 dB) the effect is gone. So this could be a solution for very extreme cases. But it has a big negative impact on the sound, so it should only be done when it's absolutely necessary.

I'll give them a try too but not until tomorrow - today I'm buried in other work.

Finally please some feedback on this:

Problem seems te be caused by combination of: 1. Loud bass below 100 Hz (maybe even lower); 2. Loud mids consisting of a constant tone with no or very little other sounds. But apparently only if this constant tone has a lot of harmonics - a sine wave comes out nearly ok.

Is what I'm writing about sine waves correct? (This is based on what I hear, but as I mentioned earlier, apparently some people are hearing very different things here so that's why I'm asking).

Reason for asking: If I can recognize when there are problematic sounds I can do something then - and only then.

Unfortunately it's not that straightforward - yesterday I tried to simulate this effect with pure tones (low, high) and various cmbinations of the above using single and multiple frequencies, yet without a success. Human voice is also a complex sound and is made of a fundamental frequency that is always accompanied by harmonics (and I couldn't simulate that with limited amount of time I had yesterday and have today). As I presented, the vibration itself and its frequency can be measured and can be distinguished simply by watching the waveform.

Still yes, it's more apparent when, frequency-wise, low and mid sounds (like bass line and voices) of relatively low spectral complexity are present. However it appears that voice harmonics are crucial to make this distortion audible enough. It should be possible to measure fundamental bass frequency and fundamental voice frequency in the problematic samples (their amount with regard to each other too) and then to check those - I can try to do it when I have more time.

If I may, Hans - did you actually hear the vibrating distortion in the samples I've presented earlier? It is important question, because to me it is apparent. From what I understand, it is also apparent to Bojcha... But I have at least a few colleagues (and they are not just random people, they have rather trained ears) that simply don't hear it at all, they do hear other things though.

Well, I hear it, but I'm not sure if I hear the same thing that you hear. I will post some samples that I got from Bojcha, that according to him sound better, but according to me *much* worse. I'm curious if anyone agrees with him.

That'd be great, but please do not mark them so that we don't know which one is which.