Stereo Tool

Does this mean that there's probably no problem? I've been doing measurements in an FM lab all day so I haven't looked into this yet - if there's no problem then I won't

Btw you might not like the Sloppy slider. It allows more distortion and I've noticed now that it causes issues among others when there's intermodulation distortion from the bass on the mids. I still want to try to keep it somehow because it does have some good effects too (sound is more open). But the problems with it (crackling in the highs if there's a soft noise present and no other highs; voice vibrations that affect the higher freqs more) need to be fixed.

The other slider (Smooth Slope) might increase the amount of bass, which could also affect other sounds. It does really sound better though, but you might need to change the bass clipping levels or the filter frequencies.

Hmm is that correct? Why it says "+1:30"? I think it should indicate something like +1:00 (and I think usually it did). 32 bit version of ST 7.51 and new betas, Win7 x64



EDIT: OK, I reload RDS encoding and now it says 1:00 again. I don't know what caused this. Strangely enough it showed same in betas, now is OK.

I think we're likely fine. Smooth Slope (and possibly Sloppy Slider) can't just be enabled without some other counteracting adjustments. Without them enabled, I can't tell any difference with a previously developed preset between 7.52 and earlier versions.

I'm pretty sure it's "Smooth slope" after a little more playing around. Engaging it, I almost immediately hear the advertised boost in the midrange. Maybe it's the way I design presets, but it doesn't seem to compliment what I'm doing. I tend to make my preset less bright than some of the others in the catalog (although it's gotten slightly brighter in the past couple revisions). I feel like perhaps I have unintentionally already compensated for whatever deficiencies there may have been in the 2500-4000 Hz range. Perhaps I could fix it by adjusting some MB compressor or limiter thresholds, I'm not sure.

Maybe an explanation of what the setting's benefits are would be of some use. Other than just more 2500-4000 energy making it through the clipper, what should we be hearing with Smooth slope engaged?

Smooth Slope actually works around 200-400 Hz... I can best explain it with pink noise.

If you play pink noise, with ABDP bass frequencies set to - for example - 80-300 Hz, then the bass reduction will respond more to freqs at 80 Hz than at freqs at 300 Hz but... IF the bass level is reduced the whole area upto 300 Hz is reduced by the same amount.

So, bass upto 300 Hz would be reduced, going up to 0 dB above 400 Hz (there's a 100 Hz slope). This is a sudden jump in the spectrum which causes the sound to be a bit 'squeezed' and thin.

With Smooth Slope, the slope goes from 80 to 300 Hz instead from 300 to 400. This gives a much warmer sound. But... Since there's more bass now you might need to move the two frequencies that determine the slope up a bit, for example from 80-300 to 120-350 or something like that. (This is just some number, you'll have to try what sounds good).

Thank you for the thorough explanation. I clearly didn't remember the frequencies affected by Smooth slope properly. In this case, it would primarily be band 3 I would need to adjust. Distortion in this region tends to be very well hidden. To avoid creating any new compression in that band, I may experiment with simply decreasing the limiter threshold by a couple DB.

You should probably just adjust the filter freqs in ABDP...

Windows 32 bit:
Windows stand alone: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... 52-013.exe
Winamp DSP: http://www.stereotool.com/download/dsp_ ... 52-013.exe

CHANGES:
- ABDP: Calvin Harris ft. John Newman - Blame has distortion in lower highs; Highs distortion protection doesn't seem to handle it properly. Except for that I'm now getting a good sound for almost all tracks with bass clipping set to 100% (!) and Highs Priority to 20%, Sloppy at maximum. Cause: Highs in this track are at around 4 kHz and I'm not filtering highs for harmonics there. Very unusual track, ignore for now.
- ABDP: Mid tone intermodulation distortion: Make new filter at start of ABDP to control mids clipping level. Clip lows and mids separately, then together, measure volume loss for each and then use that as new clipping levels. Only in case where there are loud tones present (voices) with loud bass. Bojcha: Phase Tornado fixes it. 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. Ok. Fix almost there now. Todo: Improve detection (bigger frequency range? Add highs!!!). Todo: Measure at 75% clipping as well. TODO: Harmonics turnoff should not affect bass!
- Sloppy causes crackling sound in piano's. Should probably be switched off is there are very little highs.
- ABDP: Check mid tone intermodulation distortion protection code. viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5734&p=26879#p26879 MADE A VERY SMALL CHANGE, WAITING FOR FEEDBACK. MIGHT BE BETTER OR MIGHT BE WORSE.

TODO:
- Check pilot generation code (57 kHz harmonic) -> Pilot is ok (generated output does NOT contain this tone), this is only a GUI (frequency analysis for displaying) issue. Ignore.
- GUI: Weird jumps at 100 ms buffer size reported by DJ_DOGGY -> Must have occurred at both 100 and 200 ms. Should be fixed now, there were 2 different values used to switch between quick updates with fading and scrolling without fading. Now both use the same value.
- Hide panels in password protected mode or something Temporarily done, now waiting for feedback.
- Voice vibrations: Choose one of 3 methods (010, 011, 011A). See viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5734&start=47 Waiting for feedback to finish this.
- Check Multiband settings Bojcha in Skype
- Question: Is anyone using Band Coupling in the multiband compressor now? If not I could just as well remove it again..
- Re-record 'This sound is processed by' thingy. It sounds annoying and I hear it on too many stations now... (even big ones with millions of listeners lol... they should really get a license!)
- Highs distortion is slightly worse than before in Gap protection mode. Might be worth the improved consistency.. but I'm not sure. I could also clip highs stricter in this situation!!

PREVIOUS:
- Highs Gap Protection: Turn 3rd step off for non-FM mode.
- Highs Gap Protection: Forgot to make changes in Composite Clipper mode.
- Fix declipper + PNR. Does it cause problems if it's used as intended? MUST BE TESTED TO MAKE SURE IT DOESN'T DAMAGE THE SOUND
- Fix crash when clicking on volume bars.
- Highs Gap Protection: 2nd step does almost nothing - why? - Correct, but seems ok this way...
- Highs Gap Protection: power_X must not be used (sounds better without), but it must be used for something else because if power_X is 0, the current filter is insufficient. --> Now not using power_X anymore, but 3 steps instead of 2 in HQ gap mode. This seems to be very close to the optimal result. Need feedback on this.... it appears to be ok but I'm not 100% sure that the problem is completely gone. And I still need to test if it doesn't increase highs intermodulation distortion (probably not though).
- Don't use Sloppy value when ABDP is disabled.
- Highs Gap Protection caused a jump in the spectrum between 3.5-3.8 kHz for loud highs. This is now smoothed over a bigger area (2400-4800 Hz).
- Bad gap in ABDP - causes highs to sound less full. Fix ASAP! Only in Composite mode! Was introduced in one of the previous beta's
- Make Configuration, Repair and Processing settings saveable separately.
- Split filters in Restoration / Processing.
- At Band Coupling '0' the values in the GUI weren't recalculated properly.
- Default value for Sloppy was 0% (-99 dB), should be 100%.
- ABDP: Added new "Sloppy" slider. Effect: Slightly louder, 0.5 dB more highs! And probably less pumping due to highs. (*)
- Band coupling settings don't work if Band Coupling slider in main Multiband window is set to 0%.
- Declipper result is very bad if PNR is used before it. NOT SURE YET IF IT'S REALLY FIXED.
- PNR can also be done AFTER declipping.
- Display FM lowpass frequency at bottom when FM output is used.
- Show warning when PNR is disabled due to changed settings.
- Added Multiband compressor Band Coupling matrix. You can use this to overrule the standard band coupling settings. Only available in Extreme Tweaker mode, awaiting responses to see how useful it it (if it is useful I'll move it to Expert mode).
- Advanced Clipper: Advanced Bass Distortion Protection (ABDP): Drop in output when strongly clipping around 2600-4000 Hz is reduced.
- Advanced Clipper: ABDP: "Smooth Slide" slider added to make transition between deep bass (clipped) and less deep bass smoother. There used to be a drop upto the 2nd configured bass frequency, with this switch enabled the drop is smoothed (maximum at 1st configured bass freq, gone at 2nd). Result: Warmer, more open, less 'restrained' sound. But probably also a bit more intermodulation distortion. (which might be fixable by changing the frequencies a bit). (*)
- Added PNR Noise & Hum
- PNR analysis data is saved now

Note: CPU load for Highs Gap Protection in HQ mode might be slightly higher (haven't tested it yet; I'm doing more but I have also optimized the existing code).

I've made a small change to the code that protects against voice vibrations. At first glance the result appears to be slightly better now but I'm not really sure, so feedback from others (some people seem to hear this much better than others including me) would be helpful. Normally if things are difficult to hear I can measure them but for this specific issue I don't know how to.

Still need to choose one of these 3 based on feedback which I have not yet received...

If that helps for the fixing the pilot harmonic , i found that if there is input signal - the "harmonic is gone/or hide" . When i stop the input signal(music) - it is rising again there , just pop at the RDS place
Very strange..

I mention this because it may help for finding the bug faster.

Edit : Some options are "greyed out" in the PNR filter when it`s ON. All after "Enable" option are greyed

Very strange. I've also seen other weird things. Will take a quick look at it, but if I don't see what's causing it I'll postpone it for later. Since it's not a big problem.
They are disabled until you've created a mask. See the 'Collect data' button on the right.