Stereo Tool

It is.. for maximum processing and minimum compression (pumping)
Also if you measure real attack or release with some test tone.. measured numbers will be different.

The current defaults (flatness=1, inertia=0) give equal behavior as older versions. The settings from Bojcha sound much better though! I need to fix something so that loading older presets gives you the values 1 and 0, but creating a new preset from scratch starts with other values.

About attack and release times: Changing Flatness GREATLY influences the attack and release behavior, and actually makes it nearly impossible to talk about attack and release times. If the difference in level is 6 dB, Flatness has no effect. Inertia also influences release behavior and times.

The built in presets are broken in the beta versions. The Flat Frequency Response values are set to default even when the original presets have it set to something else. Also loading Bob Hawkins - 7 Band Delite crashes ST and Winamp.

That's because it's anyway better with that settings. I am actually using 68%
Yes, true, also standalone.

O, you're right. The new FFR behavior is different and I added a conversion function to make sure that preset that you load from file behave the same as before - but I forgot to do anything for built-in presets.

I've seen that crash as well, also happens in the Mac version.

For those struggling with getting a marginal system to run Natural Dynamics, try this : Natural Dynamics>Bands. Set the number of bands to 1. The CPU usage is much (let me go far as to say much, much) lower (2-3% total from my estimate) and listening to the "difference" button on just 1 band makes it notably easier to learn the effect that the various settings make

NATURAL DYNAMICS CRASHES IN THIS VERSION. DON'T USE IT. WORKING ON A FIX NOW.

Windows:
Winamp version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/dsp_ ... 25-020.exe
Windows stand alone: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... 25-020.exe
Windows VST: http://www.stereotool.com/download/vst_ ... 25-020.dll


Changes:
- Limiter: Fix (check) limiter
- Limiting works MUCH better with no lookahead - seems to use the smoothed signal when using lookahead. Remove that and perform some smoothing in backward direction (probably based on drop speed) to remove crackle.

Under Detection there's now a "Limiter distortion" slider; setting it higher allows more distortion (which can be good for certain frequencies, for example bass).


(Copied from previous post) Description of Inertia:
So what is Inertia? There was a problem with the old compressors: After a very big volume spike, the speed at which the audio returned was always the same - but determined by how much it had to move up. So, if the volume dropped by 6 dB and after 100 ms the volume went up 3 dB, then for a volume drop of 12 dB that would be 6 dB. Sounds perfect.

But it's not. Say you have a huge drop, for example after a very loud 'S' in the high frequency band, where normal volume differences are at most a few dB and this S suddenly sticks out 20 dB.
For a difference of 4 dB, after 100 ms the difference in level is 1 dB - 75% of the difference is reduced. Now, this last 1 dB is really nearly unnoticeable, so for your ears the release kinda stops after 100 ms.
But, for a difference of 20 dB, after 100 ms the difference is still 5 dB! And you need more than another 100 ms before you reach this 1 dB point.

So, after a loud sound you hear a gap at settings that sound good for small volume differences.

The first thing that I did to improve this was to add Gamma (now called 'Flatness'). Which really helps at the final part of release: Small differences get compensated faster. But at the same time, bigger differences take longer to recover, which causes the same effect for really big differences as before.

Inertia fixes this. With inertia combined with Gamma you can make the release happen in a nearly constant time, without the slowdown at the end that you would have without Gamma, but also without the slower recovery for very big volume differences. Basically, the release happens in a nearly straight line, but the slope of the release depends on how much level must be compensated. With high Inertia values, release can even be faster for very big differences than for smaller ones, which can be good to quickly fill up the gap after a loud sound.

Final note: For bigger Gamma values you need bigger Inertia values. It might be possible to combine them into a single slider. But for now, there are 2.


Fixed previously:
- Added Release Inertia
- Improved limiter: Flatter frequency response, better behavior at low frequencies, more accurate level measurements, tighter (Bojcha, do you still hear the distortion from the previous beta? If so I can smooth things a bit more)
- Added Traditional Peak detection mode to compressor; this mode should not be used unless you have a lack of CPU power -> Brian, I think with this setting the new multiband compressor will perform about the same as the old one.
- Hangup when pressing Natural Dynamics in bottom display
- ND license incorrect
- AZIMUTH default settings: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=4875
- Phase rotator: Change name "As early as possible" (unclear!) and hide in most modes?
- Organize ND settings better
- Fix loading existing presets (Gamma values, "As early as possible" etc.)
- Split ND settings in to GUI modes
- Remove old ND implementation (saves memory and makes STS files smaller) -> 8 MB less memory usage
- Multiband: Improved Flat Frequency Response. Good values seem to be between 0.50 and 0.60 (depending on other settings!)
- Multiband: Added Attack and Release Gamma. See below.
- Phase rotator: Added checkbox to place it at the start of the processing chain (just before Natural Dynamics)
- Multiband/Natural Dynamics: Cleanup small spikes in Flat Frequency Response graph.
- Multiband/Natural Dynamics: Improve flat frequency response further.
- Mac: Default priority value to 46.
- Mac: Menu bar with Close APPLE+Q -> wxEntry exits but rest of software doesn't -> crashes.
- Mac: Cleanup named semaphores on exit
- Mac: RDS binary values
- Multiband/ND: Flat frequency response: value automatic conversion. ((v / .58) ^ .5) * .58
- Decide to which license to link ND -> Now linked to Declipper
- MB Knee does not work -> Yes it does...
- Linux: Test if everything still works. -> Yes, some small fixes were needed. Also removed printing to screen in Jack loop (bad!)
- Compressor: Place Gamma somewhere logical without making the interface too crowded.
- Display ND in bottom section
- ND handle changing number of bands
- Mac: Add auto-generating of .zip file with proper plist.
- Mac: Add icon
- Changed ND default settings (experimental!)

Remaining:
- Default settings for ND
- ND boosts highs in Dragana S track - should not do that
- ND artifacts band 1 (JesseG) - is this still an issue with larger drop times?
- Flat Frequency Response: Built-in presets use default value, should use conversion function.
- Band coupling separate settings per crossover
- Bob Hawkins built-in preset crashes
- Add presets

Later:
- Try to reduce MB/ND volume measurement CPU load. Maybe ignore some bands if there's nearly no signal there etc.
- Multiband/ND: Flat frequency response: Add separate settings for each crossover?)
- MB bands limiting display - Really difficult to fix (without increasing CPU load); it works fine without band coupling, and shows the actual reduction level if band coupling is used. So keeping it like this for now...
- Mac: VST: Child window support. Difficult... Maybe later!
- Mac: GUI performance.
- Mac: Cursors not supported. (Keep like that for now).

Beta 020 crashes when I turn on ND. I'm using the DSP version with Winamp 5.7 beta 3444. I had to roll back to beta 013.
[EDIT] I had skipped 019, just tried it and it works fine, so some change between 019 and 020 is causing this.

Confirmed. Checking what's wrong now...

Found it. To avoid having to allocate memory during processing, I'm using a memory pool that's allocated upon start up. For the limiter improvements I needed some more memory, and I'm taking it from this pool - which works fine unless you use 9 bands.

For ND this memory isn't even used, but it's taken out anyway.