some FlavourMTC coverage from the net

Short review from Bedroom Producers Blog – Variety Of Sound Releases FREE FlavourMTC Passive Equalizer Plugin:

Variety of Sound is one of the legendary old-school freeware VST plugin developers, providing top-tier audio software that easily rivals the quality of paid plugins. Their incredible FerricTDS mkII is still my favorite tape saturation plugin.

If you’re looking for mixing and mastering software with a taste of analog hardware, I highly recommend checking out Variety of Sound’s plugins. It is one of the best freeware plugin collections for Windows-based music producers.

Thread over there at gearslutz gearspace –  A completely new plugin after a long streak of redesigned classics:

This sounds like analogue gear. Incredible.

… it’s a big fat lump of ‘ashish dissolved in a bucket filled with two parts honey and one part roasted sesame on a warm Himalayan afternoon. Dip yer finger, don’t forget to lick it and soon not only sesame opens …

FlavourMTC “Mixbus Tone Control” released

FlavourMTC follows classic “passive” equalizer designs where the EQ circuits itself are not able to amplify signals but a dedicated amplifier stage takes care of it. Those EQ designs are well known for allowing very transparent frequency changes while their amplifier designs do add some icing on the cake quite often.

mixbus tone control – closest to analog

FlavourMTC implements this by utilizing 1^st order shelving filter designs avoiding unwanted resonances and takes advantage of “zero delay” implementations for most accurate higher order filtering and w/o introducing curve warping near Nyquist frequency. The output amplifier stage of the plugin can be calibrated according specific mixing levels, provides a distinct “box tone” and glues everything together. Parts of the plugin are oversampled internally for maximum transparency and sound quality.

Available for Windows VST in 32 and 64bit as freeware. Download your copy here.

BootEQ mkIII released

BootEQ mkIII – a musical sounding Preamp/EQ

BootEQ mkIII is a musical sounding mixing EQ and pre-amplifier simulation. With its
four parametric and independent EQ bands it offers special selected and musical
sounding asymmetric and proportional EQ curves capable of reproducing several
‘classic’ EQ curves and tones accordingly.

It provides further audio coloration capabilities utilizing pre-amplifier harmonic distortion as well as tube and transformer-style signal saturation. Within its mkIII incarnation, the Preamp itself contains an opto-style compression circuit providing a very distinct and consistent harmonic distortion profile over a wide range of input levels, all based now on a true stateful saturation model.

Also the EQ curve slopes has been revised, plugin calibration takes place for better gain-staging and metering and the plugin offers zero latency processing now.

Available for Windows VST in 32 and 64bit as freeware. Download your copy here.

a brief 2021 blogging recap and 2022 outlook

Currently on my desk, awaiting further analysis: The Manultec Orca Bay EQ

Rebuilding my studio and restarting blogging activities one year ago was pretty much fun so far. Best hobby ever! To get things started in Jan/Feb this year, I did a short summary about the recent trends in audio and I might revise and update that in January again. Quite some audio gear caught my attention over the year and some found its way into the Blog or even in my humble new studio setup, e.g. the unique SOMA Lyra-8 and the Korg MS-20 remake as well as the Behringer Clone of the ARP 2600.

I also went into more detail on how to get the most out of the SPL Tube Vitalizer or the renaissance of the Baxandall EQs just to name the two topics and also had a more realistic look at the Pultec style equalizer designs which might be something I will continue to dig into a little bit further in 2022. As of lately I’m also intrigued by some analog effect pedal designs out there, namely the Fairfield Circuitry stuff. And as always, I’m highly interested in everything psychoacoustic related.

By end of August I started re-releasing my very own plugins and also did mkII versions for FerricTDS, ThrillseekerXTC and TesslaSE. I will continue that route and on top of my list is to have the whole Thrillseeker plugin series complete and available again. Some are asking me if I will develop brand new audio plugins as well. While I’m doing that already but just for my very own, at this point in time it remains unclear if some of that stuff will ever gonna make it into a public release. But you never know, the TesslaSE remake was also not planned at all.

Something I will continue for sure is that special developer interview series I did over the years. This year I already had the chance to talk to Vladislav Goncharov from Tokyo Dawn Labs and Andreas Eschenwecker from Vertigo Sound which gave some detailed insights about creating analog and digital audio devices, especially dynamic processors. To be published in January, the very next interview has also been done already and this time it will be with this years Technical Grammy Award winner, Daniel Weiss.

I’m looking forward to 2022!

Stay tuned
Herbert

Dynamic 1073/84 EQ curves?

Yes we can! The 1073 and 84 high shelving filters are featuring that classic frequency dip upfront the HF boost itself. Technically speaking they are not shelves but bell curves with a very wide Q but anyway, wouldn’t it be great if that would be program dependent in terms of expanding and compressing according to the curve shape and giving a dynamic frequency response to the program material?

Again, dynamic EQs makes this an easy task today and I just created some presets for the TDR Nova EQ which you can copy right from here (see below after the break). Instructions: Choose one of the 3 presets (one for each specific original frequency setting – 10/12/16kHz) and just tune the Threshold parameter for band IV (dip operation) and band V (boost operation) to fit to the actual mix situation.

They sound pretty much awesome! See also my Nova presets for the mixbus over here and the Pultec ones here.

Dynamic Pultec EQ curves?

Wouldn’t it be great if the Pultec boost/cut performance would be program dependent? Sort of expanding and compressing according to the boost/cut settings and giving a dynamic frequency response to the program material.

Well, dynamic EQs makes this an easy task today and I just created some presets for the TDR Nova EQ which you can copy right from here (see below after the break). Instructions: Choose one of the 4 presets (one for each specific original frequency setting – 20/30/60/100Hz) and tune the Threshold parameter for band II (boost operation) and band III (cut operation) to fit to the actual mix situation.

See also my presets for the mixbus over here.

Getting the most out of the SPL Tube Vitalizer

In this article I’m going to share some analysis insights but also proposing an easy to follow 3-step approach for finding the sweet spot while processing any kind of material with this device.

Preparing for winter season: room heating with style

So, having now a Tube Vitalizer here on my desk (at least for some time), I was surprised about the lack of usable online reviews and background information. One just finds the usual YT quality stuff which might be entertaining in the best case but also spreads misinformation ever so often. To save those influencers honor it must be said that the Vitalizer concept is really not that easy to grasp and its quirky user experience makes it not easier. The manual itself is a mixed bag since it contains some useful hints and graphs on the one hand but lots of marketing blurb obscuring things on the other. Time to clean up the mess a little bit.

What it actually does

While easily slotted into the “audio exciter” bucket, some more words are needed to describe what it actually does. Technically speaking, the Vitalizer is basically a parallel dynamic equalizer with an actual EQ curve behaviour which aims to mimic equal loudness contours as specified in ISO226. Rather simplified, it can be seen as a high and low frequency shelving EQ to dial in a basic “smile” EQ curve but one which takes hearing related (psychoacoustic) loudness effects into account. It does this also by generating curves differently based on signal levels, hence the term “dynamic EQ”. And wait, it also adds harmonic content galore.

Taming the beast

To obtain an equal loudness contour the main equalizers center frequency must be properly set depending on the tonal balance of the actual source material. This center frequency can be dialed in somewhere between 1k and 20kHz by adjusting the Hi-Mid Freq knob which defines a cross-over point: while frequencies below that point gets attenuated, the higher frequencies gets boosted. However, this attenuation is already a signal level dependent effect. Opposed to that, the LF EQ itself (which actually is not a shelving but a bell type curve) has a fixed frequency tuned to 50Hz and just the desired boost amount needs to be dialed in. The LF curve characteristic can be further altered (Bass soft/tight) which basically thickens or thins out the below 100Hz area. Finally, this EQ path can be compressed now with the Bass Comp option.

A typical EQ curve created by the Vitalizer

On top of the main EQ path, the Tube Vitalizer offers an additional HF boost and compression option which both can be dialed in to complement the LF behaviour in a very similar fashion but in the high frequency department. Internally, both are in a parallel configuration and mixed back into a dry signal path. The according Process Level knob can be seen as a kind of dry/wet option but only for main the EQ part. The upper HF part is mixed back in separately by the Intensity dial.

Gain-Staging is key

For the EQ section as a whole, the Drive knob is the ticket for proper gain-staging. If compression can be dialed in properly for both compressors (as indicated by the blue flashing lights) input gain is in the right ballpark. One might expect to hear actual compression going on but it appears to be a rather gentle leveling effect.

Gain-staging for the output stage has to be concerned separately which might become an issue if the tube stage is activated and operates in shunt limiting mode. Now you have to take care about proper input levels since the Attenuators for both output channels are operating after the limiter and not beforehand.

Tube stage limiting: input (red) vs output (blue)

Which directly leads us to the additional harmonic content created by this device. First of all, there is always additional harmonic content created by this device, no matter what. One might expect the device to not show any such content with the solid state output stage but it actually does. The tube output stage just increases that content but signal level dependent of course and 2nd order harmonics are always part of that content. A serious additional amount of harmonics gets added as soon as the HF filter gets engaged by dialing in Intensity (and LC Filter mode activated!) but this sounds always very smooth and natural in the top end, surprisingly.

Delicious content

Also impressive is the low noisefloor for both output stage modes, tube and solid state. The first one introduces pretty strong channel crosstalk, though.

Workflow – Finding the sweet spot in 3 easy steps

Initial condition:

• Drive, Bass, Bass Comp and Intensity set to 0
• Device is properly gain-staged

1. Set Process to 5 and now find the best fit for Hi-Mid Freq for the given source material. For already mixed 2bus stuff you can narrow it down to 2-3kHz most likely.

2. Dial in Bass (either left or right depending on source and taste) and some compression accordingly.

3. Only then dial in some further HF content via Intensity and some compression accordingly. Adjust HF Freq so it basically fits the source/taste.

Workflow – Tweaking just one knob

My good old buddy Bootsy told me this trick which works surprisingly well.

Initial condition:

• Left most position: Bass
• Right most position: Bass Comp, High Comp, High Freq
• 12-o-clock position: Drive, Intensity
• Hi-Mid-Freq set to 2.5kHz

Now, just dial in some (few) Process Level to taste.

He also recommends to drive the input to some extend (VU hitting the red zone) using the Tube stage in limiter mode while always engaging LC Filter mode for HF.

The renaissance of the Baxandall EQs

Already in 1950, Peter Baxandall designed an analog tone correction circuit which found its way into some million consumer audio devices later on. Today, it is simply referred to as a Baxandall EQ.

What the f*ck is a Baxandall EQ?

Beside its appearance in numerous guitar amplifiers and effects, it made a very prominent reincarnation in the pro audio gear world in 2010 with the Dangerous Music Bax EQ. The concept shines with its very broad curves and gentle slopes which are all about transparancy and so it came to no surprise that this made it into lots of mastering rigs right away.

And it also had a reason that already in 2011 I did an authentic 1:1 emulation of the very same curves within the Baxter EQ plugin but just adding a dual channel M/S layout to better fit the mastering duties. For maximum accuracy and transparancy it already featured oversampling and double-precision filter calculations to that time and it is still one of my personal all time favourite EQs.

During the last 10 years quite a number of devices emerged each showing its very own interpretation of the Baxandall EQ whether thats in hard or software and this was highly anticipated especially in the mastering domain.

A highly deserved revival aka renaissance.

When comparing units be aware that the frequency labeling is not standardized and different frequencies might be declared while giving you same/similar curves. More plots and infos can be found here (german language).

TDR VOS SlickEQ and SlickEQ GE have been updated to version 1.1.0

Binaries/installers for SlickEQ standard can be downloaded from here:
http://www.tokyodawn.net/tdr-vos-slickeq/

The binaries for the GE edition are now available in the customer area at tokyodawn.net.

This minor update fixes several little bugs, greatly reduces general CPU consumption and even adds a new “ECO” processing mode.

1.1.0 Minor update content

• New “Eco” processing mode with almost zero latency
• Reduced overall CPU usage
• Stepped frequency/gain knobs activated by ctrl+drag or right mouse button drag
• Increased user presets slots count
• Minor UI adjustments
• Various minor improvements

tips&tricks with SlickEQ

Note: Some of the tips rely on features from the GE version.

Mixing against HP/LP combo

A good generic practice when EQing several tracks in a mix is too start by dialing in HP/LP combinations by an  appropriate level and then do further EQing/mixing against those settings. Also using the tilt filter is a good idea to apply very first and rough tonal corrections and then working out the details afterwards with the three EQs.

Preserving low-end energy when high-pass filtering

A cool trick to preserve some low-end energy when high-pass filtering is applied is to boost the low-end while using the EQ-SAT feature. As you can see in the routing diagram the HPF comes after the main EQs and EQ-SAT. This way, harmonic overtones are generated based on the fundamentals before the HPF is applied.

Decoupling the low-end

The low-end EQ features a “Phi” option switch which allows to decouple the low-end by an allpass filter network. The crossover can be freely adjusted with the normal frequency control in this band while the gain control does not have any effect in this mode. This may work great for that mellow bass drums just as an example but in other cases it might loose some definition as a trade-off.

Compare different settings

SlickEQ contains two effect settings slots, A and B. Use them in combination with the automatic output gain control to AB test different settings. Within the plugin you can move settings between A and B but also copy&paste is there to freely copy settings between different plug-in instances. Also, undo/redo comes in handy here.

Adjusting precise values

The gain/frequency displays can also be used to enter specific values and also shortcuts are accepted, e.g. “5k” can be entered to set a value to 5000. And did you know that SlickEQ has mouse-wheel support?