StereoFX
TL;DW: Aggressive stereo widener.
Here’s the last plugin I had in the pipeline, ready to post: no reason not to take the effort to post it now. Thank you all for the well wishes: I’m really touched, you’re all so sweet I can hardly believe it’s the internet :) (but then, people might well say the same about me!)
StereoFX is a classic Airwindows plugin brought up to date and VSTified: it does three things that can contour the stereo image. None of them are as well behaved as Wider, but they’re interestingly different.
Stereo Wide basically runs the code from High Impact on the side channel. It gives a really aggressive widening effect (which will cancel in mono of course) and can bring an edgy quality to the wideness of your stereo channel.
Mono Bass is simply a highpass on the side channel: adjust to taste, by ear. It’s a very simple highpass, not that steep.
Center Squish is a neat twist on ‘widening’. Instead of touching the side channel, it does a simple sine-based saturation or distortion (Density style, not Spiral style) on the mid channel only. If you engage it, it progressively steps on the output of the mid channel but leaves side untouched. That means you can squash a stereo track slightly, giving it a little distortion, and let it squirt out to the sides a bit. You can combine this with a touch of the Stereo Wide, which works on a different algorithm. So it’s some unique tone colorings and techniques to serve the purpose of stereo widening. I hope you like it.
I got a new video light (well, a $30 lightbox to go on one of my existing LED lightbulbs) so I’m kind of excited to make more videos and stuff, and I’ve got a backlog of plugins to try, but understandably (see the DrumSlam post) I’m a little distracted. I want to bring my best for you guys but I also want to honor your kind wishes, so I will post StereoFX and then see if anything comes to mind that I can do, if not immediately for the end of July, then early August: I am also doing the occasional music livestreaming and find that I can express my feelings that way, even if it’s ‘skronk guitar over techno’. So I won’t try and force the plugins (they won’t run out, I promise) and soon I’ll be back in the swing of things. Oh, and the Patreon is doing OK, I won’t worry about that right now but that too is appreciated. If not for that, I wouldn’t have been able to go and support my sister when all this went down, because it made me able to drop everything and zip off to Pennsylvania: without the Patreon, I would struggle to have that much gas covered, and I wouldn’t have been free to go right then, and then I wouldn’t have seen my Dad alive for the last time. So I owe you guys things that can’t be expressed in software or money: thank you.
God bless you, Chris
Your name is being spread far and wide. I sing your praise where ever i go.
Hello,
sorry for writing to this thread but I do not know if you monitor also the older ones.
I am a home audio enthusiast with limited knowledge.
I have question about your TPDF dithers. Unlike standard TPDF, which is completely flat, your dither has a strong spike around 20-50 Hz. You talk about it only briefly in the TapeDither video. And it cannot be switched off.
Can you more exactly explain me what it does? And primarily, can it affect the sound negatively, e.g. overemphasize bass notes? I am not sure
whether such a strong shape at low frequencies is suitable for dither which should be as transparent as possible.
Or is it only something on the graphs and does not affect the sound perception?
Thank you in advance
Jan – I am nowhere near Chris as far as audio processing knowledge but maybe this will help.
AFAIK, noise-shaped dithers move energy away from the sensitive zones of the human hearing spectrum and into less sensitive areas. Even though we can hear 20-50Hz, that’s more of the “feel it” range of audio, at least to my ears and body. So I would say if you can hear or feel the spike’s effect on your music in a negative way, that’s a good sign in isn’t suitable for your style of music. I would assume on bass-heavy genres and styles, this would be no problem, but might present a strange situation given an all-acoustic piano/guitar/chamber music album.
Of course, the golden audio rule is if it sounds good, it is good.
Great plugin! I truly appreciate Your experiments with spatial audio processing Sir Chris of Airwindows! <3<3<3
Thank you Charles for answer. I got some information about those spikes also from other forums. I can now better decide whether use dithers with those properties or completely standard TPDF dithering.
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love your work, man! This StereoFX not recognized in digital performer 7.24; thought I’d let ya know! Don’t have issues with anything else yet.
nice but o aslo want to have a try of it