Stereo Tool

Hello,

We're currently runing a low-budget radiostation on internet.
We've been testing Stereotool and we think it's awesome.
We've been thinking of buying a TC Electornic Finalizer Xpress for on-line audio processing , but I think that Stereotool might be a better solution, wouldn't it?

Whe might be on FM next year. The problem is that TX and Studio will be not be on the same site. Thus, we've thought of buying two ST licenses, one NOW for the studio and audio processing, and the other one for FM transmission.

As we will process the audio with the first ST license , we wouldn't need audio processing again on the TX site, so we'll just need the TX-FM-part of ST .
Thus, I would like to know if it would be possible to buy a second ST license without the audio processing part (as the audio feed in there would be already processed), just only with the FM transmitter features + composite clipper + SSB.

To sum up, I'd like to have the features of the "FM Professional+ DECLIPPER" version but divided in TWO licenses for use in two different computers: the first license as the "Basic + DECLIPPER" version (which would process the audio and compress it) and the other one "spcecial" version that whould make the proper MPX signal for transmitting, using the already processed audio.

Thanks in advance!

Hello Tipexfm,

I have never heard of that box before - I just looked it up but it seems to be geared at mastering, which isn't really the same as processing for a stream (it could be though - I know lots of people who use Stereo Tool as a mastering tool).

About the split: Many stations do this, and because of that the license allows for splitting up Stereo Tool over 2 sites. In other words: You can do what you ask with just 1 full FM license.

One small warning: Try to avoid (a lot of) clipping before entering the stream. It's better to do (almost) all the clipping at the transmitter site. This *might* mean that you need a separate stream to feed the FM transmitter, if you want your stream to be very loud. Otherwise it doesn't matter.

Thank you for your quick response, hvz.

So I can use the same license on two different PCs?
What happens if I need to format a PC or one PC dies and I need to buy another one? I loose the license?
How many times will I be able to upgrade a license to new versions of ST?

OK, so you mean that I should send an unprocessed audio stream to the TX site. It would be the ideal case, but would it be possible then to process the audio on the TX licence?
So, process the audio twice -independently- with two different ST under one unique license? Is that what you mean?

Thanks again!

You can move the license to another pc, as long as you don't keep running all of them simultaneously. So if one pc is broken or formatted, you can just reuse the same license after fixing or formatting it, or if you get a new pc, use it on that one. But don't keep using it on both.

What do you mean with your upgrade question? If you install a new Stereo Tool version, the features that you licensed will keep working. New features might require an upgrade. So for example, if you bought an FM license in 2008 for Stereo Tool 3.xx, you can use it in the latest version, but you won't have the declipper or the composite clipper (they were added later). You can upgrade to add those though.

About the processed file to the transmitter site: This depends. If it's a lossy stream (MP3 etc.), I would advice you to process it before streaming, because processing may increase MP3 artifacts. Just don't clip. Because clipping twice won't sound too good due to the way the clipper determines when distortion is noticeable, and composite clipping does very different things to normal clipping so you might be clipping more than needed if you clip twice.

Hello hvz,
Sorry for the late answer.

When you say:

"About the split: Many stations do this, and because of that the license allows for splitting up Stereo Tool over 2 sites. In other words: You can do what you ask with just 1 full FM license."

So if we buy the Full FM license, we can run ST on two different sites (studio and tx) with only one license? (paying 350€ only once)?

Thank you!!

If you process in one of the two and do the FM stuff in the other: Yes.

Thanks again, hvz!

Yes, that's the thing that we want to do.

Anyway, as at this time we don't need FM, could we buy the Basci+declipper and later upgrade to the Full FM by paying the diff??

Yes.