Aaron Robinson Posted July 1, 2023 Share Posted July 1, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, mibby said: What happens if my Input Range is smaller than the range of the source material? Does it compress/expand the signal at that point? It's confusing to me. If you don't mind, could you jot dot down like a step by step "how to" on setting this up for leveling a vocal? i.e. 1. Select vocal preset 2. Determine Input Range 3. Select desired Output Range. 4. Slide the Output range around until it sounds good. I'll keep reading through your docs, but I would just like to see if/what I'm missing. Thanks! If the audio range goes outside of the source range slider, it won’t be compressed or expanded (other than the knee transition area). It will still apply a fixed amount of gain if the target min is higher than source min, though. For leveling here are two approaches: Source => Target approach 1) Set the source range so the vocals are generally within range (doesn’t have to be perfect, this is just to get in the ballpark). 2) Set the target range quite narrow. IMO shift+drag on the range slider is the easiest approach because you can continuously hear how the dynamics are being impacted and let your ears guide you. Just shift+click the middle of the slider and drag the mouse up/down/left/right while listening. 3) Check the quietest sections and listen to how the settings behave during the transitions between loud/quiet. If quiet sections are getting lifted up too high you can raise the source min a bit, just as with a normal threshold control. Downward compression approach 1) Switch the drop-down to the top-right of the source range slider. There is an option for downward compression. 2) Set the threshold and ratio as you would with any typical compressor. In this mode, the controls should hopefully seem familiar. Here is my attempt at demonstrating, not with vocals but with a full song, using the histogram hold feature in the process. Sorry for the lack of voice over, I gotta find the time to create better videos and/or site tutorial images. Edited July 1, 2023 by Aaron Robinson 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaron Robinson Posted July 16, 2023 Share Posted July 16, 2023 (edited) Spent this past week making lots of cosmetic improvements. New logo, too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7mFmVsw3vI Edited July 16, 2023 by Aaron Robinson 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scook Posted July 16, 2023 Share Posted July 16, 2023 Great A download link in the plug-in would be a nice addition. That, a version check button (manual check and update are preferred) and when the update cycle slows down update notification by email would be fantastic good job 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaron Robinson Posted July 17, 2023 Share Posted July 17, 2023 9 hours ago, scook said: Great A download link in the plug-in would be a nice addition. That, a version check button (manual check and update are preferred) and when the update cycle slows down update notification by email would be fantastic good job yea, this would be great. I'll think of a non-intrusive way to add some sort of update check. 100% agree it should be a manual check. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaron Robinson Posted August 6, 2023 Share Posted August 6, 2023 Ended up creating a Learn function for the source and target ranges. Much easier to quickly get the basic settings configured this way. Updated the demo video on the website to see it being used. Lots of user interface improvements as well.. 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jngnz Posted August 6, 2023 Share Posted August 6, 2023 Also, there's a summer sale going on making this $20 again. Just bought it without demoing to support your obviously great work ethic. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pseudopop Posted August 6, 2023 Share Posted August 6, 2023 51 minutes ago, jngnz said: Also, there's a summer sale going on making this $20 again. Just bought it without demoing to support your obviously great work ethic. Thanks for letting us know. Also, from now on I'm going to use that excuse whenever I buy a plugin without testing it first. "You know, I'm something of an ethics supporter myself..." 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaron Robinson Posted August 16, 2023 Share Posted August 16, 2023 (edited) Decided to spend time improving CPU usage and it seems to have paid off. For my m1, it dropped from 7% to 2% according to Instruments. Compatibility is better now as well, after rewriting part of the OpenGL engine to fix issues on certain AMD setups. Latest version is now v1.8.4 Edited August 16, 2023 by Aaron Robinson 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheSteven Posted August 16, 2023 Share Posted August 16, 2023 (edited) Hi Aaron, I've been watching your demo video. It looks very promising (nice GUI/graphics, interesting functionality, etc.) but still in the process of wrapping my head around its capabilities and the various controls etc. For various sections I had to keep rewinding to catch what changes you were making in the GUI so that I could relate them to what changes I was seeing or hearing. It kind of prevented me from getting a better feel on APU. Note: I haven't read the manual as I wanted to first check out the video and see if this was something I'd be interested in (no offense intended). Please consider momentarily highlighting what's being tweaked or showing the mouse cursor (for example Camtasia has the ability to highlight a circle around the mouse cursor so that it's easy to follow). Not trying to be overly critical, just sharing some feedback. ...Steven Edited August 16, 2023 by TheSteven 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaron Robinson Posted August 16, 2023 Share Posted August 16, 2023 11 hours ago, TheSteven said: Hi Aaron, I've been watching your demo video. It looks very promising (nice GUI/graphics, interesting functionality, etc.) but still in the process of wrapping my head around its capabilities and the various controls etc. For various sections I had to keep rewinding to catch what changes you were making in the GUI so that I could relate them to what changes I was seeing or hearing. It kind of prevented me from getting a better feel on APU. Note: I haven't read the manual as I wanted to first check out the video and see if this was something I'd be interested in (no offense intended). Please consider momentarily highlighting what's being tweaked or showing the mouse cursor (for example Camtasia has the ability to highlight a circle around the mouse cursor so that it's easy to follow). Not trying to be overly critical, just sharing some feedback. ...Steven That’s helpful feedback, thanks. The video is an automation so that’s why there isn’t a mouse, but some way to highlight where the focus is would definitely make the video more useful. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaron Robinson Posted August 29, 2023 Share Posted August 29, 2023 Improved the visualizations to use a smooth filled plot instead of rectangles. Hopefully this feels a bit more intuitive. Also added the ability to change the global default settings (it's in the preset/theme managers). 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaron Robinson Posted October 24, 2023 Share Posted October 24, 2023 Updated to version 1.9.8: Pulled much of the visualization code into vertex + fragment shaders, so it's more polished and shiny looking now. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaron Robinson Posted November 7, 2023 Share Posted November 7, 2023 Got around to adding an update check tab to the compressor. It's always a manual check, never automatic. Just switch to the update tab and click "Check for updates" and it will list the latest version available vs which version you're running. Release notes since v1.9.8: - Improve visualization rect cropping glitch - Update tab for checking latest product versions - Additional minor fixes and improvements - Fix transfer function visualization for gate - Improve quick-access layout - Improve panel and other layout elements - Fix look-ahead behavior in some cases 2 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaron Robinson Posted December 27, 2023 Share Posted December 27, 2023 FYI - There have been lots of updates to the compressor, it's at v2.0.1 now. The visualization engine was moved almost entirely to GLSL and you can now configure detailed layout settings. By default, the compressor will automatically adapt to use visualization settings appropriate for the current raster type etc ("AUTO" setting). But you can adjust the layout to show for example only the source signal, or you can overlap the output onto the source, etc. The knee behavior has been improved for all modes as well. Now the knee regions use hermite interpolation for a smoother compression/expansion curve. You can also more quickly switch the output type between normal/bypass/delta as they are now individual buttons instead of a drop-down. Lots more little fixes and improvements, as usual you can see the full list of changes on the download page. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaron Robinson Posted January 24 Share Posted January 24 Just updated to v2.1.0, adding a new feature: Adaptive LUFS/RMS 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaron Robinson Posted March 19 Share Posted March 19 (edited) There have been a bunch more updates to this compressor: Sound-wise, there are several ballistics types now which IMO caused a jump in sound quality, but I'll be very interested to hear what others think. The default now uses light dithering to reduce aliasing, and to my ears it was surprising how much of a difference it made. The "old" approach is still available, and there are a few variations as well. The visuals have also been improved quite a bit; added axis lines and rehauled the way visualization auto/manual ranges work. The default is now a standard reference range with axis ticks in a particular pattern. You can still switch to "auto" range to automatically follow the audio. The general look-and-feel has been improved quite a few times as well since the last update here, and there are now light mode themes (which is the default for now). Edited March 19 by Aaron Robinson 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommy Byrnes Posted March 19 Share Posted March 19 Aaron, I still just can't quite wrap my head around this compressor. I've had it since the inital release but its operation is not intuitive to me. It would be great if you would make a tutorial video. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaron Robinson Posted March 19 Share Posted March 19 1 hour ago, Tommy Byrnes said: Aaron, I still just can't quite wrap my head around this compressor. I've had it since the inital release but its operation is not intuitive to me. It would be great if you would make a tutorial video. I'm working on getting a decent video recording setup going, but keep running into driver stability problems. Will be sure to post it here once I get something worth sharing. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommy Byrnes Posted March 19 Share Posted March 19 18 minutes ago, Aaron Robinson said: I'm working on getting a decent video recording setup going, but keep running into driver stability problems. Will be sure to post it here once I get something worth sharing. Thanks, Aaron. I'm intrigued by the concept. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaron Robinson Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 Btw, have been working on a standalone version of the compressor. It's very near to release. It runs on an entire audio file (so, not real-time). Definitely planning on adding support for ARA-2 so it can work w/Cakewalk in that way. It basically takes the entire set of loudness measurements, then maps the histogram to a particular distribution of your choosing. This has the nice result of creating a gain reduction envelope which works "with the grain" of the audio. So, it tends to attack/release while the loudness is already moving in that direction. The temporal element just gives it lots more room to "optimize" the results. The whole "source => target" range thing begins to make more intuitive sense from this perspective, I think. Regardless, it was the original seed of an idea which got me to start developing my own plug-ins. I don't yet really have a sense of the complexity of adding ARA-2 support, but I'm definitely going to do it and looking forward to it. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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