Srsly
TL;DW: Srsly is a psychoacoustic stereo processor.
People get really excited sometimes, so here’s a failure :)
Srsly is meant to do what a Hughes SRS processor does. That’s an obscure stereo widener actually made by Howard “Spruce Goose” Hughes’ company. I tackled it because a musician I love, Chad Clark, needs one ‘cos his is broken and not in proper working order. Hence, the need for somebody to try and do a plugin version. So I tried, with some pictures out of Popular Mechanics and a single cruddy youtube video to be my guide (this thing is OBSCURE) and I have not succeeded. Whatever the real one sounds like, this ain’t it.
But it does a thing, and I’ve added a Q control to help get it to do useful things since I can’t tell what’s right or wrong for this stuff, and this is as far as I can carry it right now. The source is MIT licensed for anyone else who’d like to pick up where I left off, and quite a bit of basic information is shown in the curves of that Popular Mechanics article about the thing, and it is kinda neat: accentuate comb-filtery effects you get from the shapes of your own ears. It does do a thing, that’s not like any other stereo effect I know of. And I ought to be able to use some of the tech from this to do subtle stereo-field enhancements in future versions of Console, stuff like that. You can refine it down to basic concepts and apply those.
Also, you can hear a sneak peek of my alternate Chord Organ firmware (which is actually on my github if anyone wants to play with it, though I’m not ready to call it done this week).
If you’d like to give me anything to celebrate us all getting to a new year, there’s always Patreon. It might not seem like it’s doing me a favor this week as I’m so obviously fried, but I’m cutting back to the plugins and the Monday Q&A. I even talked to a customer on the phone for quite some time when I got too frustrated with the Chord Organ firmware. I will have to show more respect for my own health and well-being, but it seems like my muse wants to make the point that I’ve got lots more in store for 2020: hours I spent, convincing modular synths to play those weird chord progressions and lead lines. The thing is, it took hours of debugging and reflashing the Teensies, but I did not make up those chords. Not even a computer did. The synth made them up, as it went, from a sort of random generator called a Turing Machine. (the thing I like best about this whole project is, you can make it all out of DIY kits…)
Anyway, here’s srsly.
This is Aidan. We spoke on the phone. I listened to the Stereo enahncer and it seems to be effective when used properly in the mix bus or the master channel; especially when used moderately. Your work is beyond what many people consider consistent, detailed and effective. Some rest would be beneficial to all Americans, especiallly Coders! Remember 8-9 hours is a recommended Sleep cycle by scientists, and im sure they do their dudiligence in studying what people require. Either way ill check in on your live stream tomorrow and keep in touch, (You are a pioneer with plugins. Remember This!!)
C, Love this !!! Just replaced a widener. The options make it the immediate boss. Dry/wet is brilliant.
i will try it but it’s a widener right?
I have an original Hughs unit. I bought it a long time ago as I was fascinated by the concept. It was marketed as a similar circuit used in jet fighters to spread audio around for the pilot. I’m not doing justice to the original description. I don’t know if it will turn on but if it will and you turn you thoughts back to this plug I’m happy to assist somehow.
Keep up the cool stuff!
Eric
I have two of these units, both 100% working. I am a professional recording engineer/mixer and have used the Hughes Sound Retrieval System (model AK-100) on everything I have mixed for 15 years now. (my second unit is a backup in case my main one dies) These things are really special. I’ve taken impulses of it, and loaded them into convolution plugs, but it’s never “right”. The way the unit mimics binaural hearing is really great. I would love a proper plug-in of this to exist.
I don’t know if you knew, Chris, but the expired patents for the SRS is available online.
https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search/family/023014704/publication/US4866774A?q=pn%3DUS4866774
https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search/family/027126540/publication/US4748669A?q=pn%3DUS4748669
https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search/family/022608077/publication/US4841572A?q=pn%3DUS4841572
Maybe food for thought.
Please update this as soon as you learn how. There are many ways to widen up a bus but airwindows mojo is too addictive and elegant! Probably due to the low overheads and instant results too!