interview series (6) – Christopher Dion

Chris, you are the man behind the Canada-based Quantum-Music studio. What was your journey towards this venture?

My father (Alain Dion) was an internationally renown live sound engineer and technical producer (Nat King Cole, Sting, Celine Dion, Cirque du Soleil, and many locally-famous artists). Therefore, I grew up in an environment where high fidelity audio was the standard. My father hated everything that sounded less than perfect. Unconsciously, he trained my ears. I owe him a lot for that. Nowadays, every time we see each other, we spend much of our time talking about which compressors, consoles and techniques.

tips & tricks with ThrillseekerVBL

The Sweet Spot

The plug-in includes a preset called “LA Sweet-Spot” and one can safely use this setting on almost everything just to add a little more mojo. Just drive the unit with a proper “IN GAIN” amount so that the overall compression and distortion fits to the source.

Increased Stereo Imaging

If ThrillseekerVBL is used on stereo program material, I would recommend to use the TRAFO option to have the most prominent stereo imaging effects. Also, if there is just a little gain reduction amount applied, I would prefer the “DUAL M” option opposed to “STEREO” linking. And I would always use the “DUAL M” option on sources like vocal groups, panned rhythm guitars and stuff.

VBL as a Mastering EQ

One common mastering trick to open up a rather flat/dull track is to dial in a slight but broad 5kHz boost with an analog tube equalizer. Due to the tube circuit also higher order harmonics are generated and the whole stereo image opens up.

This can be replicated perfectly with ThrillseekerVBL: Move the “BRILLIANCE” screw to its top most position and set the “AMP” knob to 0.68. If distortion is too much now, just back it off by dialing in some compression and/or lowering the input gain.

If the EQ effect amount is too much, simply use the “DRY:WET” option. Also make sure that the trafo is in and prepare yourself for pure awesomeness.

Some Shorties

• Avoid pumping: Dial in some more “EMPHASIS”.
• More HF focus: Turn the “BIAS” screw clock-wise.
• Upward compression style: Dial in some dry signal amounts (just a little).

released: ThrillseekerVBL – Vintage Broadcast Limiter

Bringing mojo back – Thrillseeker VBL is an emulation of a “vintage broadcast limiter” following the classic Variable-Mu design principles from the early 1950′s. They were used to prevent audio overshoots by managing sudden signals changes. From today’s perspective, and compared to brickwall limiters, they are rather slow and should be seen as more of a gain structure leveler, but they still are shining when it comes to perform gain riding in a very musical fashion – they have warmth and mojo written all over.

Thrillseeker VBL is a “modded” version, which not only has the classic gain reduction controls but also grants detailed access to the amount and appearance of harmonic tube amplifier distortion occurring in the analog tube circuit. Applied in subtle doses, this dials in that analog magic we often miss when working in the digital domain, but you can also overdrive the circuit to have more obvious but still musical sounding harmonic distortion (and according side-effects) for use as a creative effect.

On top, Thrillseeker VBL offers an incredibly authentic audio transformer simulation which not only models the typical low-end harmonic distortion but also all the frequency and load dependent subtleties occurring in a transformer coupled tube circuit, and which add up to that typical mojo we know from the analog classics. This would not have been possible with plain waveshaping techniques but has been realized with my innovative Stateful Saturation approach, making it possible to model circuits having a (short) sort of memory.

ThrillseekerVBL is a freeware VST audio plug-in for Windows x32 and you can download a copy in the Downloads section.

Related Links

• modeling the distortion in Thrillseeker VBL

VBL – final teaser & release info

ThrillseekerVBL will be released 1st of July 2013 as a freeware VST audio plug-in for Windows x32.

interview series (5) – Dave Hill

Dave, some of your Cranesong devices are already legend – how did that affair once started?

Before I started Crane Song I had been designing the Summit Audio Gear through and including the DCL-200, plus some gear that did not get finished. I was teaching electronics at a 2 year technology school at the start of the Summit thing and also was part owner of a small studio that had a 1” 8 track, and Ampex MM1000. The studio grew into what is Inland Sea Recording owned by me, which is a for commercial room with a lot of nice microphones and other gear.  It now serves as a design environment and has a number of customers that help keep it going.  Developing in a real studio environment helps make sure that what you are working on works correctly and sounds good.  When doing a session if one needs to mess with the gear it questions the design, but if you can turn a knob and it makes some thing sound good, it tells you something about the design.

announcing Thrillseeker VBL – Vintage Broadcast Limiter

Bringing mojo back – Thrillseeker VBL is an emulation of a “vintage broadcast limiter” following the classic Variable-Mu design principles from the early 1950’s. They were used to prevent audio overshoots by managing sudden signals changes. From today’s perspective, and compared to brickwall limiters, they are rather slow and should be seen as more of a gain structure leveler, but they still are shining when it comes to perform gain riding in a very musical fashion – they have warmth and mojo written all over.

Thrillseeker VBL is a “modded” version, which not only has the classic gain reduction controls but also grants detailed access to the amount and appearance of harmonic tube amplifier distortion occurring in the analog tube circuit. Applied in subtle doses, this dials in that analog magic we often miss when working in the digital domain, but you can also overdrive the circuit to have more obvious but still musical sounding harmonic distortion (and according side-effects) for use as a creative effect.

On top, Thrillseeker VBL offers an incredibly authentic audio transformer simulation which not only models the typical low-end harmonic distortion but also all the frequency and load dependent subtleties occurring in a transformer coupled tube circuit, and which add up to that typical mojo we know from the analog classics. This would not have been possible with plain waveshaping techniques but has been realized with my innovative Stateful Saturation approach, making it possible to model circuits having a (short) sort of memory.

Release date is not yet confirmed but most probably will be in May this year.

freeware tip: TDR Feedback Compressor II

If you did not tried this one out yet but are looking for an absolutely clean and transparent compressor then do check this one out!

The TDR Feedback Compressor II is a major design update of its critically acclaimed predecessor. The compressor is dedicated to the highest fidelity stereo program (2-buss) compression, but shines equally in classic mixing tasks. – Fabien from TDR

It features detailed control of compression behaviour, extremely low distortion and it’s compression is almost “invisible”. Download the freeware over there at tokyodawn.net.

what I’m currently working on – Vol. 9

Updates and a brand new release, basically. Since there is a minor issue with the latest TesslaPRO and Rescue versions concerning higher sample rate compatibility, I’m currently into bug-fixing and both will probably make it upfront the summer break. As the next major update you all voted FerricTDS to be the object of desire and I’m already sketching things on the drawing board but developments might not start before Q3.

I’m constantly extending and improving my Stateful Saturation approach and the next incarnation will bring authentic analog style distortion into VST land. It is basically a Variable-Mu based broadcast limiter design from the early days but which is modded to have detailed access to the amplifier distortion – it has warmth and mojo written all over! Patrick also joined in again and will perform his magic user interface artwork. An official announcement will appear very soon, so stay tuned.

Unfortunately, there are no news about 64bit support atm.

Related links:

• There Will Be Distortion (2013)

ThrillseekerLA explained

What is needed to get clear from the start is that every compressor will sound different, the controls will act differently, and some will be better at doing certain types of compression than others. While the basic controls like ATTACK and RELEASE will have a similar function, the resulting change to the sound may be totally different.

David from www.learndigitalaudio.com has made a deep and comprehensive article about compression and ThrillseekerLA. Don’t miss to read the whole thing over there at his site which contains lots of examples and explanations. Theres also a PDF document available.

ThrillseekerLA 1.0.1 update available

Changelog for Release 1.0.1

• Stronger 2nd and 3rd harmonics added in the interstage
• Link algorithm revised and simplified
• SC lowcut filter revised

The update is available in the downloads section.