Heya,

AAX just returned! It’s gone off to beta now. If you want to join the AAX beta, drop me a mail 🙂

Dave.

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.

Heya,

So the blog got ancient. Let me improve things by a tiny fraction.
I’ve been snowed under with a bunch of stuff, and it’s been impacting my ability to run things, so I’ve brought in some help for first-tier customer support! From now on, Peter (my brother) will be handling all the day-to-day stuff like sorting out lost logins, demo requests, install help, etc. I’ll still be replying to audio questions, taking feature requests and bug reports. But this means that for things that need immediate response, they’ll get one.

I find I have to get my head down and concentrate to make progress with things, so this should be a great step forward in productivity.

Also, since he’s already gone ahead and said it, I can reveal that I’ve been working on a very unusual project with superhero, comedian and beatboxer Beardyman. It’s sort-of a DAW, and sort-of not, and it allows you to make music in the time it takes to hear it. It’s been fascinating to watch the design come to life, and it’ll certainly be something to look out for.

There’s a new plug on the beta list too. It leads me to pose the question: What’s the most fun effect to combine with a pitch shifter?

New EQ is coming along. I’m struggling a bit with the surround design. I’ve concluded that you need to be able to make groups of channels as shortcuts, but also be able to free-assign bands to channels. I’ve yet to figure out how to get this to work with MS… and in fact anyone with ideas/opinions on how MS should work “right” in surround… I’m all ears!

AAX looks like it’s done. I have some bugfixes in general that I want to roll in before I release, but it’s in good shape 🙂

Is there any call for a preset/mod sharing system of some kind? My PHP/CSS/JS has got fairly sharp recently and I’m toying with the idea of building something.

After the new EQ, which is my grand artistic statement for the year (it’s a beast), there’ll be a suite of dynamics processors.
Current list is: Compressor (little one), Gate, De-Esser, Dynamic EQ and Limiter. They’ll be based on the Compassion DSP, extended with extra functionality for each task.

So, that’s my todo list right now. If I’ve not replied to mails from anyone, it means I’ve lost them – please resend. I’ve had a little server trouble lately, which has been less than ideal, so I need to move the server somewhere more stable. Any recommendations?

Will post when there’s more news. 😉

Dave.

I just shipped a whole stack of updates for EQuick, EQuality and Compassion. Info on the main site at dmgaudio.com as usual. I’ll be back later to resume blogging, and fill you in on what I’m up to at the moment…

Go find 🙂