sound affairs & audio effect design
A public beta version of epicCLOUDS is available for testing. As already announced, the beta testing will be supported by the new VoS Discord server to gather feedback and discuss issues as best as possible. Feel free to join, its open for everyone!
Click here to join the VoS Discord server. A Discord login is required. Once on my server, you must agree the welcome message just shown to you by ticking it with a “thumbs up” to get full rights for posting etc.
When epicVerb got discontinued in April last year, it was already clear that after the brand new plate reverb there would have to be a worthy successor for really large rooms at some point, and it was also clear what it should be able to deliver: Representation of large rooms up to epic dimensions but with accurate stereo imaging. The reverb should also surround the source signal as best as possible, avoiding the feeling of just being attached to it. On the other hand, the so-called ambient reverbs have impressed me very much and influenced my work – I also really like their simplicity. But how do you realise all this and get everything under one hat? That was still completely unclear last year and there were only a few sketches and experiments. But this challenge is also the most fulfilling part of the whole thing, which always excites me anew. And now it has taken shape, already got a beautiful UI and I’m polishing the last bits. If only it weren’t for the manual!
Can you do any better than the mkII? Not really, and so there will be no changes to the concept or the feature set, but just an update of the technology. The internal routing will be fixed, the filters optimised and internal oversampling added. The biggest change under the hood will be an update of the input stage. All in all, the changes will bring about subtle improvements in sound, but this will also break backwards compatibility, sound wise. The mkIII version therefore gets its own plugin ID and can also be operated in parallel to the old one.
VST3 versions could be next and to ensure the stability of the updates, a public beta will be held. The beta will be available shortly via a new Discord server.
Stay tuned!
Developing audio effect plugins involves quite a lot of testing. While this appears to be an easy task as long as its all about measurable criteria, it gets way more tricky beyond that. Then there is no way around (extensive) listening tests which must be structured and follow some systematic approach to avoid ending up in fluffy “wine tasting” categories.
I’ve spend quite some time with such listening tests over the years and some of the insights and principles are distilled in this brief article. They are not only useful for checking mix qualities or judging device capabilities in general but also give some essential hints about developing our hearing.
No matter what specific audio assessment task one is up to, its always about judging the dynamic response of the audio (dynamics) vs its distribution across the frequency spectrum in particular (tonality). Both dimensions can be tested best by utilizing transient rich program material like mixes containing several acoustic instruments – e.g. guitars, percussion and so on – but which has sustaining elements and room information as well.
Drums are also a good starting point but they do not offer enough variety to cover both aspects we are talking about and to spot modulation artifacts (IMD) easily, just as an example. A rough but decent mix should do the job. On my very own, I do prefer raw mixes which are not yet processed that much to minimize the influence of flaws already burned into the audio content but more on that later.
Having such content in place allows to focus the hearing and to hear along a) the instrument transients – instrument by instrument – and b) the changes and impact within particular frequency ranges. Lets have a look into both aspects in more detail.
a) The transient information is crucial for our hearing because it is used not only to identify intruments but also to perform stereo localization. They basically impact how we can separate between different sources and how they are positioned in the stereo field. So lets say if something “lacks definition” it might be just caused by not having enough transient information available and not necessarily about flaws in equalizing. Transients tend to mask other audio events for a very short period of time and when a transient decays and the signal sustains, it unveils its pitch information to our hearing.
b) For the sustaining signal phases it is more relevant to focus on frequency ranges since our hearing is organized in bands of the entire spectrum and is not able to distinguish different affairs within the very same band. For most comparision tasks its already sufficient to consciously distinguish between the low, low-mid, high-mid and high frequency ranges and only drilling down further if necessary, e.g. to identify specific resonances. Assigning specific attributes to according ranges is the key to improve our conscious hearing abilities. As an example, one might spot something “boxy sounding” just reflecting in the mid frequency range at first sight. But focusing on the very low frequency range might also expose effects contributing to the overall impression of “boxyness”. This reveals further and previously unseen strategies to properly manage such kinds of effects.
Overall, I can not recommend highly enough to educate the hearing in both dimensions to enable a more detailed listening experience and to get more confident in assessing certain audio qualities. Most kinds of compression/distortion/saturation effects are presenting a good learning challenge since they can impact both audio dimensions very deeply. On the other hand, using already mixed material to assess the qualities of e.g. a new audio device turns out to be a very delicate matter.
Lets say an additional HF boost applied now sounds unpleasant and harsh: Is this the flaw of the added effect or was it already there but now just pulled out of that mix? During all the listening tests I’ve did so far, a lot of tainted mixes unveiled such flaws not visible at first sight. In case of the given example you might find root causes like too much mid frequency distortion (coming from compression IMD or saturation artifacts) mirroring in the HF or just inferior de-essing attempts. The most recent trend to grind each and every frequency resonance is also prone to unwanted side-effects but that’s another story.
Further psychoacoustic related hearing effects needs to be taken into account when we perform A/B testing. While comparing content at equal loudness is a well known subject (nonetheless ignored by lots of reviewers out there) it is also crucial to switch forth and back sources instantaneously and not with a break. This is due to the fact that our hearing system is not able to memorize a full audio profile much longer than a second. Then there is the “confirmation bias” effect which basically is all about that we always tend to be biased concerning the test result: Just having that button pressed or knowing the brand name has already to be seen as an influence in this regard. The only solution for this is utilizing blind testing.
Most of the time I listen through nearfield speakers and rarely by cans. I’m sticking to my speakers since more than 15 years now and it was very important for me to get used to them over time. Before that I’ve “upgraded” speakers several times unnecessarily. Having said that, using a coaxial speaker design is key for nearfield listening environments. After ditching digital room correction here in my studio the signal path is now fully analog right after the converter. The converter itself is high-end but today I think proper room acoustics right from the start would have been a better investment.
Planning
When preparing the final bits of an upcoming plug-in release, other research and prototyping typically has already been done for other potentially upcoming projects. This usually is the time when the decision is made about the next project and the new plug-in gets outlined and planned in detail. In this case it was around 9 month ago in August 2009 when FerricTDS (our entry for the KVR DC ’09) finally went into the late beta testing stage. Since quite some time I had in my mind to improve the “Nasty” plug-in series package but to that time it had become finally clear that the next step would be to put it into one single and consistent “console strip” style plug-in. [Read more…]
The public beta for the upcoming FerricTDS 1.5 has been closed today – thanks for all the contributions! A final version will be released here somewhere in March.
I’m currently preparing the bits for the upcoming FerricTDS beta test. Since this beta is going to be public nobody needs to apply for joining the party, just come back here during the next days or so, pick up a copy and have a ride with it (and give feedback of course). The version number jumps from 1.0.2 straight to 1.5 which indicates some vast improvements under the hood. I’m already really excited about this one.
I do need some more testers with SSE1 compatible systems (e.g. old AMD Athlon series) – if you can perform some tests for me with a prepared Density mkII version please drop me a short comment here with your email.
Just a short update on whats going on with some already reported issues concerning Density mkII (released around two weeks ago):
The current plan is to release a 2.0.1 bugfix release to end of September containing whats fixed and stable then.
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
AKG K 702 and the Benchmark DAC 1 (behind)
Most people have no idea where probably most “development time” is actually spent: it’s in the audio listening tests and not the coding.
Variety Of Sound 
Recent Comments