applying saturation through the sidechain

This short article gives a brief introduction on applying waveshaping algorithms not directly in the audio path but via a transformed equation through the sidechain and a VCA instead.

Typical saturation curves

Density mkII released today!

Density mkII – the smooth and versatile stereo bus dynamic processor is now available for Win32 / VST compatible systems. See Downloads section for license agreement and download link and have some fun with it!

Density version 1 is now discontinued.

Density mk II

Density mkII – reworking the audio engine

While working on the Density overall re-design I was working extensively on the audio engine as well but just for one single reason: The one thing I was missing in the original design was to have some more “responsive” gain riding possibilities but without the usual tradeoff of introducing more distortion or compromising the transparency. And (unsurprisingly) that turned out to be not that easy.

Developers friend: the oscilloscope

Density mkII – release date

Houston, we have a release date! The release of the Density mkII VST plug-in is now scheduled to end of this month. More specs and details will appear here during the next days or so – stay tuned. If you tend to react allergic concerning teasers better stay away a while from here

compressor gain control principles

A short compendium on digital audio compression techniques.

Basic compressor configurations

Compression vs. limiting

Technically speaking the same principles are used in audio signal limiting and compression processors but just the transfer curves and envelope follower settings are different. Ultra fast attack rates and high ratio amounts are used for limiting purposes which causes just very few peaks to pass on a certain threshold.

In digital implementations limiting processors can be more strict due to look-ahead and clever gain prediction functions which guarantees that no peak information passes the threshold. That is called brickwall limiting then.

new gadget on board: OLYMPUS PEN EP-1 camera

The Olympus E-P1

This morning Mr. postman brought me a nice little parcel with my very new toy:

Density mkII ahead (summer 2009)!

Density mkII

The rumors were true: After quiet a long time of ignoring any update/improvement plans on this one there is finally a completely reworked mkII version already in the making.

Committing to the original concept of Density, the mkII is also aimed at the very same goal: smooth and versatile dynamic processing on the 2bus to provide density in a mix and so to glue all things together.

So if you expect a general purpose compressor or something

Ableton Live – the ultimate creative production tool?

Some time ago I’ve become part of a music project which is heading more towards the dancefloor compatible side of electronica. We are currently testing Ableton Live and thinking about switching over to use it as the main production tool. I’m undecided yet. What do you think about Live – is this really the ultimate solution for electronic based music production? What are the known drawbacks?

the compressors sidechain: filtering

There were already an excursion here about the design of compressor transfer curves over here and now this article turns on to the design of the sidechain path of a compressor in general. One major part of the sidechain design of a compressor is the filtering and thats the topic here for now.

released: TesslaPRO – a transient aware signal saturator

TesslaPRO, a transient aware signal saturator, is released by now as a VST audio plug-in for PC/Win compatible systems.