Stereo Tool

I am not sure that i undarstand this at No1, but, let's see...

i just turned off Hard limit on stream and again have more peeks.
I can't imagine how more peek will be if other filtering stages will be off ?

.. let's see.

I forgot to upload it

But basically I made the size of the peaks configurable. 0-5%. Hard Limit should be turned on now! (Say 5% is selected, then Hard Limit will allow 5% more peaks, and the final stage of Loudness will allow half of that, 2.5%, more peaks). Default value is (currently) 2.5%, have to do some tests to see if other values are better (basically by looking at MP3 output and checking when it deteriorates).

- Version uploaded. I'm not too sure if the extra peak headroom is really an improvement though. Default vaue set to 1%.
- AGC gating based on the actual input volume instead of Pre Amp'ed input volume switch added. (This behaves identically regardless of the Pre Amp setting. Advantage: This makes it possible to create presets where changing the Pre Amp setting doesn't change the gating behavior). For now, this is enabled by default, with a gating value of 0.5 (-44 dB).

Winamp DSP plugin: http://www.stereotool.com/download/dsp_ ... A510-4.exe
Stand alone version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... A510-4.exe
VST version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/vst_ ... A510-4.dll ERROR
VST version (No SSE2): http://www.stereotool.com/download/vst_ ... A510-4.dll ERROR
Command line version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... A510-4.exe

Update:
- Added AGC-type (RMS based) singleband limiter just before Final Limiter. To use it, turn on "AGC type filtering" in the singleband filter, and configure the 'target out(put) level' and 'remove (remaining) peaks above' sliders. These settings are not yet saved to disk. (*)

Winamp DSP plugin: http://www.stereotool.com/download/dsp_ ... A510-5.exe
Stand alone version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... A510-5.exe
VST version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/vst_ ... A510-5.dll
VST version (No SSE2): http://www.stereotool.com/download/vst_ ... A510-5.dll
Command line version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... A510-5.exe


(*) I'm not really sure yet if this is working the way it should. Feedback is welcome. The idea is to lower sounds with a lot of RMS power, to make things easier for Loudness (thus improving the sound quality at the cost of introducing a bit of pumping). This has to be done with a fast response (high up/down speeds), because otherwise the volume would drop, making this action useless (= similar to lowering Loudness)...

Hans,
Do you have some recommended setting for AGC Syle ? ..I am geting worst results with this AGC on!
Testing with Web Soft compression preset...

ahh ,,,
I know what you forgot!
ITU!
Remove lows!

I didn't "forget" that - the point is that this filter intends to filter based on RMS level only! You should configure it such that it does almost nothing (removes at most 10% = 1 dB for example). So yes, if you get loud bass peaks, the rest of the sound will drop - you have to choose between 2 evils here: bad sound due to too loud input into Loudness, or bad sound due to pumping.

I hear many FM stations do something like this, which allows them to sound slightly louder.

I should add though (again) that I'm not convinced that this is an improvement either.

Please tell me witch (web station)?

They do that because they want, at all costs, to keep Good BASS !
That always lead to gain rush but seems listeners loves that !

if you still have 2 songs i send you (one is ABBA) check difference.

Check sound on any of these videos http://www.be-at.tv

.... hoping to win the loudness war !!!
Me too.

Sorry Hans, I understand that you want to improve things to the max (everything what technical is possible).
And I understand too, that the focus is on web or FM broadcasters, because this is the target market (to get some money back for all your work).

But for me (I do not broadcast, I am musician) there is a lack of real high fidelity presets in Stereo Tool.
Many of the presets sound more or less good as long as you use low or medium listening volume.
But when you turn the volume up (really loud) and then do comparisons to high quality audio productions, most presets have a high frequency overshoot.
Hurting my ears.
Maybe it is my problem, because I use high quality amplifier and boxes or headphones !?
So, the only way to listen to (using one of the presets that comes with Stereo Tool) is to do it on a low or low medium volume.
Perfect as background music, but not for a real world (loud) listening experience.
And here the circle is closing, because this is the same problem as with most radio stations (FM, web, DVB, whatever) today.
So from this perspective (challenging FM and web broadcasting market and the loudness expected today) you are on the right way with Stereo Tool.

When I will have more time I will create (with a little bit of documentation of the what and why) some high fidelity presets for Stereo Tool.
I already have some "beta" presets.
But, yes it is possible to tweak Stereo Tool in a way to match high audio quality.
Maybe these presets will be strange on first glance, because the usage of the Stereo Tool modules differs from standard usage.
My target is (and it seems as if I am already there or or at least very close) that the processing should only enhances (and noticeable compress) the music that really needs enhancement and compression.
But high quality tracks (already perfect mastered audio from CD) should pass the whole processing without any noticeable change (without this extra compression and high frequency boost).
I know in theory it is imore or less impossible (processing will happen).
But the target is that you cannot hear the processing for this HQ tracks, because the whole processing chain is tweaked in a way, that the audible impact will be very little (a zero sum game for the ears ).

Conclusion:
Stereo Tool is already a very mighty processing tool (to do things to audio, you otherwise have to pay thousands of dollars for a bunch of pro audio plugins) when you finally learned how all these modules interact.
So with a better up to date documentation (including block diagrams) it would be perfect.

michi95: The problem is then probably that I love loud highs On every audio device that I have, I have set the treble to the maximum value...
At some point in the past I tried to make the sound identical to that of modern CD's, but that's a long time ago already - I'll do that again to see if my settings have 'moved' away from what I suppose is the 'sweet spot' (because almost every modern CD is recorded with more or less the same settings).

Anyway, you made me really curious about your presets!