Month: April 2012

Here are the changes:

All plugs:
– Fixed memory leak
– Fixed potential crash in UI
– Massive improvements to CPU usage with UI redraw/animation
– Fix focus stealing bug on windows
– Fix UI crash on mac
– Invalid text entry returns controls to default values.
– Fix “stuck-on” clip light in ProTools HD
– Fix Win+Ctrl click for Windows ProTools
– Fix AudioSuite redraw for Windows ProTools
– Presets are compressed to dramatically reduce session sizes (1/50th)

EQuick:
– Fix tooltips and hover in ProTools
– Fix UI resizing in ProTools
– ProTools pagetable
– New pref: Band colour by number
– New pref: Mousewheel zoom disable

Compassion:
– Delay compensate for wet/dry when clip-limiter is pre.
– No sidechain version of Compassion

Didn’t get AAX in in time for this, but they should be along any day now… 😀

Dave.

I want to do plugins for AAX DSP.

But there are problems.

AAX achieves its stability by virtue of each plugin being able to report its cpu usage ahead of time. This means that the system can determine in advance how to arrange things, and provide an incredibly stable system. It’s great.

However, consider EQuality. In Digital mode, with all bands disabled, it uses essentially no CPU. However, stick it in linear phase and select a 3second IR length (max IR length pref), and it uses a LOT of cpu… plus a (completely uncompensatable) 1.5sec of latency from the IR. In fact, I’d be impressed to see any DSP pull that off – it’s basically an offline process for ultra hi-res mastering… but I +do+ need to provide the option.

Even in Digital mode, the cpu usage varies a lot; enable all three filters at 48db/oct, automate them all, and it uses effectively 12 bands of EQ for the filters, and a lump of extra cpu to prevent pops and clicks from the automation. So, CPU can vary wildly. What do I report? The case is worse with EQuick which can have 32 bands of 48db/oct filters…

Likewise with compassion, as soon as you add sidechain EQs, linear-phase splitting, the clip-limiter and transient shaper… cost rises.

Historically, people have provided for this by having versions with features cut out – 3 band EQs and the like… but in this case, I’d need to make dozens of different cutdown versions so you could enable a few features without paying cpu cost for a few others you didn’t need.

So, there is my quandary with AAX-DSP. It’s a fantastic system, and I +REALLY+ want to get things running there, but I can’t work out how to do so without hugely complicating things, or dropping features. Consider this a solicitation for ideas 😉

Dave.

Heya,

I’ve been hacking away merrily. I’ve fixed a ton of stuff for EQuality, Compassion and EQuick. Went to beta last night.
I did offer some people the chance to public beta things, but assuming all goes well, I’ll ship on friday, so I’m not sure it’s still of great benefit. There’s a ton of cool improvements. I reduced preset sizes by a factor of 50, and UI cpu usage has dropped through the floor, for a start 😉

And AAX for mac 🙂

Dave.

Hi,

M/S is a well known and well-loved technique in stereo processing.
New EQ will allow you to place bands on any/all subchannels… but (how?) is M/S used in surround?
Do you need to place a band on the M/S of, say, L+R? If so would you then still want to be able to process L individually?

Any thoughts on this?? :D:D

Dave.

Heya,

Some people have been having trouble with requesting demos. The core of the problem is that the demo license files make some email servers unhappy, so I’ve changed things now. The email contains links to download your demo files now, so there should be much less chance of spam filters and antiviruses filtering the mails out 🙂

Dave.