Spatializer Vst Plugin
Berkeley Electronic Press Selected Works. The VST and AAX plugins now feature 3D Audio Visualizers allowing users to visualize and manipulate sound parameters within VR. We have discontinued the Legacy Audio Spatializer for Unity 4.
Last modification: 01/19/08 19:26
Dallas' Gear REVIEW
K-Stereo Ambience Processor vs. 'SHEPPi' Free Spatial Enhancer
| Algorithmix' K-Stereo Ambience Processor ($990.00) | Open Ambience Project's 'SHEPPi' Spatial Enhancer (free!) |
(click pics to enlarge) | |
'K-Stereo is a process that literally extracts the inherent ambience, space and depth in a recording and allows you to manipulate it.. I know this sounds implausible, but it can be done and there is a solid psychoacoustic (patent pending) basis for the principle. In mastering we often get recordings that are too small, and K-Stereo is one of the best cures for that disease because it does not affect the inherent mix, unlike typical M/S and other such 'widening' techniques. K-Stereo is totally natural and in addition, it improves the clarity and definition of the instruments and vocals as part of the psychoacoustics of the algorithm.'
(Bob Katz, Pro Audio Review, 8/2003)
..
'Widening of the stereo base is an attractive feature for stereo sets with closely spaced loudspeakers.. From this investigation it follows that the introduction of a small time delay in the crosstalk circuit shifts the regions with reinforcing localization cues in the direction of the listener, thus improving the localization of virtual sources in the widened stereo image.'
The Influence of Antiphase Crosstalk on the Localization Cues in Stereo Signals (Boers, 1983)
..
..I discovered about 10 years ago that a short delay (Haas) between 15-30ms, 1 channel inverted and perhaps a low pass filter can really widen things without destroying the mono compatibility or changing the mix. It just takes a TINY bit of the delay to really liven up things. Aside from that, a simple M-S matrix followed by some envelope manipulation and finally, an L-R matrix is all I use.'
(user wado1942 commenting on Gearslutz mastering board, 1/2009)
Let's be clear on something - I love Bob Katz. For those not familiar with his work as a mixer and mastering engineer of legend, Bob is one of a handful of guys (some others being Roger Nichols, The Lord-Alge brothers, George Massenburg, Rupert Neve, Alan Blumlein and Charles Dye) who have innovated, invented, educated and just plain helped set the standard for how modern recordings are made. It's just that I was re-reading Bob's book ('Mastering Audio: The Art and the Science, 2nd ed.') wondering about whether Bob's 'K' mixing system is all it's cracked up to be, when I stumbled across another term of his: 'K-Stereo'.
(Note to self - Is Bob planning to take over the best practices in the mastering world and label them all 'K' something-or-other? This reminds me of when Bob Metcalfe (of Ethernet and OSI networking model fame) was touring around the tech world trying to convince everyone that the old 7-layer model was passe, and we all needed to jump onboard his new Metcalfe 11-Layer Networking Model. In reality, the only thing passe about the 7-layer model was that it was in the public domain, and he was kicking himself for not having tied it up in some kind of intellectual-property wrapper. But I digress.)
In the audio world, we work from a fixed menu of ingredients beginning with Volume, Frequency and Time, working its way down into such specifics as delay, reverb, phase, modulation and distortion before hitting the general weirdness of psychoacoustic principles like masking, combination tones, Fletcher-Munson curves, HRTF plots and precedence effects. Many wonderful techniques considered 'trade secret' in their day (Flanging, anyone? ADT? Dither?) have since become standard practice and the guys who invented them (like Beatles' producer George Martin) have become legend.
K-Stereo was something different, though. Bob basically took a few mixing concepts already in use (these would include early reflections, ping pong delay, M/S processing and the precedence, or Haas effect), applied them all at once and took out a patent on it - while conveniently sidestepping everything that looked like prior art. The algorithm, which is a clever but fairly simple and straightforward psychoacoustic spatialization effect, has roots in at least one 1983 AES white paper besides theSpatializer patent (whose roots go back to 1982.) A more descriptive term for what Bob's doing might be the acronym 'SHEPPi', which stands for 'Stereo Haas Effect Ping Pong Inverter'. Yep, that's what it is. And it didn't take a patent to figure out - all it took were some basic signal processing techniques known (in patent legalese) 'to those skilled in the art.'
What SHEPPi describes is this. You set up a ping-pong delay with feedback of around 30mS, which is the sweet spot for the well-known Haas stereo widening effect. Then, in one of the crossfeed delay lines you put an inverter such that the artificial early reflections are bouncing around out of phase (exaggerating the wideness) and out of time with each other. Bob adds some extra control over this effect by determining whether the delay feedback ('Deep' switch) or single-channel crossfeed inverter ('Wide' switch) should be on or off. In addition, the K-Stereo process adds a couple of convenience touches easily simulated with other tools: an M/S matrix processor (also known as a 'shuffler') preceding the effect, and a post-effect EQ module for tailoring the synthetic reflections.
Open Ambience Project's SHEPPi Spatial Enhancer plugin (VST, Windows) does all of this. You can even use the plugin on an aux bus instead of the more typical track insert because SHEPPi gives you full control over the dry signal that's usually mixed in. (Try doing that with the Algorithmix plugin.)
How close is this implementation to the real thing? Extremely close. Listen and compare! Prior to now, I was reluctant about making the plugin public - but having since talked this over with a patent attorney (thanks, TS!) I've decided to go ahead with it. At some point I may end up making the source code available so that anyone can compile their own plugin without any IP concerns (source code is protected under the First Amendment, you see) but until then the most important part of the code, the core process, is outlined below. Click on Fig. 1 to read the original, orFig. 2 to see this effectmaker's implementation.
In practice, patent examiners only consider other patents and the books they have in their library for prior art, largely because the patent office has an elaborate classification system for inventions. This means that an increasing number of issued patents may be invalid, based upon prior art that was not brought to the examiner's attention. Once a patent is issued, it is very expensive to invalidate. (For more on this, seehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain)
Meanwhile, let it be said that I'm making no money off this - writing this plugin was merely a fun project to get a few licks in programming for the SynthMaker development environment, and I'm a curious guy.
(Note: SHEPPi is a 32-bit VST plugin until such time as as DSP Robotics decides to update their development environment. In the meantime, please investigate the amazingly clever (and cheap) JBridge 32-to-64 bit VST adapter for Windows)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.(Yes, you're free to use the plugin in an unrestricted fashion on commercial and noncommercial music projects. Just don't think about selling the plugin itself or redistributing it without attribution - for more details, click the link.)
Download v1.05 Plugin (VST, Windows, 1.41MB)
'What a wonderful plugin you've made... I'd been figuring out the patent trying to do the same but it didn't work like the real k-stereo thing. I thank you very much for making it work well with very best regards'
- Arie Visser, www.studioavm.nl
' It's amazing how tweaking it just a little, the sound becomes fuller, cleaner, and more pleasing to listen to. I've tried it on my own recordings and commercial ones, everything sounds better.'
-Rafa, from Costa Rica
Spatializer Vst Plugins
Ambience Comparison Demos Original Audio: YozaSS20duo.mp3 | |
| Algorithmix K-Stereo Plugin | SHEPPi Algorithm |
| Std +2dB.mp3 | Std +2dB.mp3 |
| Deep +2dB.mp3 | Deep +2dB.mp3 |
| Wide +2dB.mp3 | Wide +2dB.mp3 |
| DeepWide +2dB.mp3 | DeepWide +2dB.mp3 |
| Max Enhance.mp3 | Max Enhance.mp3 |
| Block diagram from Katz patent (fig. 1) | SynthMaker implementation (fig. 2) |
AES Preprint #1967 (Boers, 1983) - The Influence of Antiphase Crosstalk on the Localization Cues in Stereo Signals (.pdf)
US Patent #5,412,731 (Desper, 1995) - Automatic Stereophonic Manipulation System And Apparatus For Image Enhancement (.pdf)
US Patent #7,076,071 (Katz, 2006) - Process for enhancing the existing ambience, imaging, depth, clarity and spaciousness of sound recordings (.pdf)
Personal Observations:
Now the double-blind testing starts. When I was working on an early version of this plugin (no EQ yet) you could flip the phase of its output and it would actually sum to null against the original, which is as good as it gets. That said, working around the bugs in pre-v1.1.7 versions of SynthMaker was an adventure in itself - but since everything seems good and stable, just trust your ears and enjoy. Users running Windows 2000 and earlier may need to install Microsoft's GDIPlus DLL, availablehere.
Apologies for the lack of a user manual, but if you've already read the guide to Algorithmix's demo plugin (hint hint) you're pretty much on top of things.
Best free vst plugins for bass guitar. Questions, Comments, Bugs -
If You'd Like To Support This Project
| SHEPPi is free to all, but former WikiLeaks whistle-blower Pfc. Chelsea (Bradley) Manning is not. If you found this plugin to be useful, won't you consider sending a little something her way? That's supporting REAL openness. Thanks for all your support! | Yes, I'm a friend of SHEPPi. Donate! |
Related Links:
http://www.algorithmix.com/en/kstereo.htm
http://www.digido.com/products/k-stereo.html
http://www.digido.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=51:k-stereo-endorsements&catid=17:digital-domain&Itemid=81
http://www.audiomastersforum.net/amforum/index.php?topic=6878.0
http://broadcastengineering.com/audio/digital-domain-us-patent/
http://www.weiss.ch/dna1/dna1.html
http://www.z-sys.com/pp_6ch.html
http://www.proaudioreview.com/article/850
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/mastering-forum/379198-stereo-widening-questions-pros.html
http://jeronimomachado.vilabol.uol.com.br/spatializer.htm
http://www.voxengo.com/product/msed/
'Highly Recommended!' - Sound On Sound (UK),May 2010.'Excellent mono compatibility'December 2011
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Dallas' Gear Rating : (out of 5 - because it's free, eh. And it works!)
| It is strongly recommended, when installing third-party plug-ins, that you thoroughly test the plug-in on non-critical project data before using it in production use on a live project. Many such plug-ins are known to fail or crash Audacity, see this Wiki page. |
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Contents
Installing Audio Unit plug-ins
Audio Unit (AU) is a system-level plug-in architecture provided on Mac OS X and macOS computers.- Audio Unit effects support real-time preview.
To add a new Audio Unit effect, place it in either of the following system plug-in directories:
- ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components (user plug-ins)
- /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components (system-wide plug-ins)
Then use Effect > Add / Remove Plug-ins.. to enable the Audio Unit effects and load them into Audacity, For details see Manage Effects.
| Please note that not all of the Audio Unit effects that Apple supplies can be enabled in Audacity. They will show listed as available in the New section of the Plug-in Manager but if you try to enable them you will get an error message telling you that they failed to register. This is an Apple issue and not an Audacity bug. This only affects a few of the Audio Unit plug-ins: AUScheduledSoundPlayer, AUMultiSplitter, AUMultiChannelMixer, AUMixer3D, AUMIxer, AUMatrixMixer, AUAudioFilePlayer and AUSpeechSynthesis. |
Installing Nyquist plug-ins
Nyquist plug-ins provide most of the optional effects underneath the divider in the Effect menu. They are also used to provide some of Audacity's built-in audio generators and analysis tools. A wide range of additional Nyquist effect, generation and analysis plug-ins can be obtained from Download Nyquist Plug-ins on our Wiki.
The easiest way to install a new Nyquist plug-in is to use the Tool Nyquist Plug-in Installer which is itself a Nyquist plug-in that simplifies the installation of other Nyquist plug-ins.
All Nyquist plug-ins are plain text files that have the filename extension '.NY'. This plug-in installer provides a file browser for selecting the plug-in '.NY' file, and then copies the file to the correct location. Once the plug-in has been installed, it may be enabled in the Plug-in Manager.
- Accessed by:Tools > Nyquist Plug-in Installer..
Oculus Spatializer Vst Plugin
Installing a Nyquist plug-in manually
It is also possible to add a new Nyquist plug-in manually by adding it to the correct location that Audacity expects.
Place them in Audacity's 'Plug-Ins' folder at ~/Library/Application Support/audacity/Plug-Ins.
To load the new effects into Audacity so they are available in the menu, use the Plug-in Manager: Effects, Generators and Analyzers dialog.
| Some Nyquist plug-ins could crash while processing very long audio selections (typically an hour or more). This is due to the plug-in using a large amount of memory and is a known issue in Audacity's current Nyquist implementation. Try using the plug-in on shorter selections instead. |
Installing VST plug-ins
Audacity supports almost all VST effect plug-ins on Mac including 'shell' VST's that host multiple VST effects.
To install new VST plug-ins, place them in Audacity's 'Plug-Ins' folder at ~/Library/Application Support/audacity/Plug-Ins.
Other possible locations on Mac are:- ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST
- /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST
- All paths specified by the 'VST_PATH' environment variable.
You can install new VST effects into Audacity by using the Effect > Add / Remove Plug-ins.. menu item. This opens the Plug-in Manager: Effects, Generators and Analyzers dialog where you can select and enable the new effects then click to load them. Next time you launch Audacity the enabled effect(s) will be cached and you will not need to re-enable them.
| The list of effects in the dialog will include any detected VST instrument (VSTi) plug-ins (such as synths) and any real-time VST effects that are capable of changing audio data while it's being written to disk. Neither of these are yet supported and they will not load even if you enable or re-enable them in the dialog. |
Why do some VST plug-ins not work or display incorrectly?
Audacity will by default display VST effect plug-ins with a full graphical interface where the plug-in supplies this.
VST instruments (VSTi) (such as synths) and real-time VST effects (that change the audio data while it's being written) are not yet supported. These will not load even if you enable or re-enable them in the Plug-in Manager: Effects, Generators and Analyzers dialog. VST 3 plug-ins are not supported.
If any plug-in displays incorrectly, you can use the Manage button in the effect's dialog then choose Options.. to open the VST Effect Options for that effect. Then remove the checkmark from the 'Enable graphical interface' checkbox and click . When you reopen the effect it will display a simpler tabular interface.
| On Mac, Audacity is a 64-bit application so will not see 32-bit versions of VST plug-ins. |
If you experience a problem with a specific VST effect plug-in in Audacity, please contact us.
Installing LADSPA plug-ins
The LADSPA plug-in architecture was originally developed on Linux. Audacity supports LADSPA effects on Mac as well as GNU/Linux. You can download and install a set of over 90 LADSPA plug-ins. You can then choose which LADSPA plug-ins to enable in the Plug-in Manager: Effects, Generators and Analyzers dialog.
To install new LADSPA plug-ins, place them in Audacity's 'Plug-Ins' folder at ~/Library/Application Support/audacity/Plug-Ins.
Then use Effect > Add / Remove Plug-ins.. to enable the LADSPA effects and load them into Audacity, For details see Plug-in Manager: Effects, Generators and Analyzers.
Audacity will also load LADSPA plug-ins from the following system locations:- The path specified by the LADSPA_PATH environment variable
- ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/LADSPA
- /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/LADSPA
Installing LV2 plug-ins
LV2 is a more advanced evolution of the LADSPA plug-in architecture which was originally developed on Linux. Audacity supports both LV2 effects on Mac as well as GNU/Linux. There are not yet many pre-compiled LV2 plug-ins for Mac, though it may be possible to compile some Linux LV2 plug-ins for other operating systems.
To add a new LV2 effect, place its complete '.lv2' folder (not the files alone) at the top level of any of the following searched for locations:
- ~/.lv2
- ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/LV2
- /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/LV2
- /usr/local/lib/lv2
- /usr/lib/lv2
- $HOME/.lv2:$HOME/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/LV2:/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/LV2:/usr/local/lib/lv2:/usr/lib/lv2
Then use Effect > Add / Remove Plug-ins.. to enable the LV2 effects and load them into Audacity, For details see Plug-in Manager: Effects, Generators and Analyzers.
Installing Vamp plug-ins
Vamp plug-ins are usually for analyzing audio so will appear under Audacity's Analyze Menu. You can do interesting things like attempt to track beats, note pitches, chords or frequencies. Any Vamp plug-ins whose output is suitable for a label track should work in Audacity on Mac. To add a new Vamp analysis tool, add the plug-in's DLL, DYLIB or SO file and any supplied category or RDF files to any of the Vamp search locations then enable the tool in the Plug-in Manager: Effects, Generators and Analyzers dialog.
Uninstalling plug-ins
Plug-ins can be removed using Effect > Add / Remove Plug-ins.. and then removing the file from the relevant file location, so that they do not appear again in Plug-in Manager.
Plug-ins shipped with Audacity can be found inside Audacity.app (in the Applications folder, or wherever you have installed Audacity). The path to the plug-ins is for example /Applications/Audacity.app/Contents/plug-ins. You can reach the Contents directory by right-clicking or Ctrl-clicking over Audacity.app and selecting Show Package Contents.
How can I solve Audacity crashing after I add a plug-in?
Please see this FAQ
/pro-tools-popular-plugins-vst.html. Please see this Wiki page for Plug-ins that crash Audacity or fail to work properly in Audacity
Links
> Installing and updating Audacity on Mac