We have updated the whole Classic Series fixing a Dual Monitor problem and changed to our new Logo. Other changes / fixes has been made to some of the plugins as well. But one thing hasn't changed – Classic Series remains to be our free series of quality plugins.

http://www.kjaerhusaudio.com/products.php

Enjoy

/Torben

what were the dual monitor problems with the old ones? Are the new ones compatible with the old ones (if I have an old song that uses teh old mastering limiter and replace the .dll with the new one, will my song still load).

soma wrote:

what were the dual monitor problems with the old ones? Are the new ones compatible with the old ones (if I have an old song that uses teh old mastering limiter and replace the .dll with the new one, will my song still load).

Sometimes the plugins would not show up right when loaded on a secondary monitor. It was OS dependant i.e. I newer heard anyone having the problems under Win2000.

The updates will always be compatible with the older versions - that’s why we newer add parameters to a released plugin.

Thanks
Torben

thank you guys !

excelent work
i use your chorus often !

remco

I can't recommend these plugs highly enough.

The key thing I see throughout the Classic Series is tranparency. They're great with natural sounds.

Review here http://www.traxmusic.org/reviews.shtml

Much thanx for these.Very high quality.The only bug Iv'e found in the past was the main output on the compressor to be too sensitive,almost blew my phones with a slight nudge.

I wish you guys would do a good tape/tube simulation something like a VST version of the "Fatso" hardware box... Great stuff so far! Really nice, thanks.

These are some seriously great plugins! Your chorus and flanger sound great on acoustic guitar, your reverb is very good on drums, and your compressor is good on almost anything. I'm also really digging the master limiter.

Thanks!

Could I suggest being able to download them as a bundle? and so they are all installed?

Dope stuff!

thanx again

You are all welcome

Lanstar Zero wrote:

Could I suggest being able to download them as a bundle? and so they are all installed?

You could suggest that yes! - Are we feeling lazy today Well anyway, it's not a bad idea.

All the Best
Torben

Ahhh ... a bundle auto-installer.

Possibly an idea for the Classic Pro series when it comes out.

Torben ... like to tell us what to expect from Classic Pro?

Torben wrote:

Are we feeling lazy today

TODAY...? *cough*

very cool plugZ, thanKs

kevvvvv wrote:

Torben ... like to tell us what to expect from Classic Pro?

The name is the Gold Series (you will understand why when you see them )

There will be more Knobs and fields where you can enter parameter values directly if so preferred, wider range of settings, more Presets, improved sound, 64 bit processing, a Manual etc.

First one is the "Golden Modulator | GMO-1" that will be released 1. November 2003.

Thanks
Torben

I look forward to everything that comes out of kjaerhus, i use the flanger n' the chorus a lot

Thanks Torben.

I just gave your plugs a whirl

Very useful and well done. I dig the quick results

thanks

Thanks a lot Torben! I use dual monitors so this will definately help (even more)

Alan wrote:

Much thanx for these.Very high quality.The only bug Iv'e found in the past was the main output on the compressor to be too sensitive,almost blew my phones with a slight nudge.

that was a buggette with earlier versions, which torben atended to and fixed very quickly

I downloaded the chorus and reverb last night after reading Kev's review at traxmusic and I would like to say a BIG THANK YOU for providing such a quality product for free.
I've been looking for some quality effects to beef up Traction and I just found some, thank you Torben.
Kevin's descriptions are spot on so I won't try to expand any further.
Your website has just found a home in my favorite's list.
Now if I could just find a nice delay.....
Oh by the way I Love knobs.

Great news that you've fixed the dual monitor bug, but...the new versions have a problem.

When you wrap them as a DX, they now have a new GUID, so that files using them no longer open them properly (ie. reported missing plug-in). This doesn't happen with other VSTs that get updated (eg. I've updated Crystal recently and it carries on working in old prjects).

Thank you very much for these very good plugins, Torben.

One question: You are writing on your site "If you mix to CD, it is recommended to use a 'dithering' plugin right after the Classic Master Limiter."

Please, what´s a 'dithering' plugin?

Thanks

Hi Andreas,

unfortunately I don't know any free dither plugin. but you could try db-audiowares' masterin limiter (has a built in dithering).
Anyway Torben's plugs are great and free so maybe someone else can recomend a free dither plug.

and here's a little round up about dithering from Craig Anderton:

Do You Need to Dither?

Believe it or not, adding noise can improve a recording

by Craig Anderton

Dithering is a hot topic. Some hail it as the "miracle drug" of digital audio, which can restore sweetness to digital's supposedly "harsh" sound. Others say dithering is overrated, and doesn't matter to most music. As with so many aspects of digital audio, the truth lies somewhere between the extremes.

It Doesn't Add Up
The story of dither begins with a contradiction. Your hard disk recorder most likely records and plays back at 24 bits, your digital mixer mixes at 24 bits, your digital synth may even output audio at 24 bits…but the result ends up on a 16-bit CD. (Okay, so maybe next year it will end up on a 24-bit DVD-Audio release, but for now let's deal with the real world.) That wonderful 24-bit dynamic range goes down the tubes when the eight least significant bits are brutally slaughtered on their journey to compatibility with the world's most popular digital audio delivery medium. It just doesn't seem fair to those eight bits (particularly when they've been called the "least significant" bits all their lives). It seems even less fair if a system's internal resolution is higher than 24 bits.

Cutting off the last eight bits is called truncation, and some well-intentioned proponents of dithering would have you believe that somehow dithering sidesteps the truncation process. Wrong. Dithered or not, when a 24-bit signal ends up on a 16-bit CD, eight bits are truncated and never heard from again. But there's a difference between flat-out truncation and truncation with dithering. The beauty of dithering is that it uses the data in those eight least significant bits so that they influence the sound of the more significant bits. It's almost as if, even though they're gone, their spirit lives on in the sound of the recording.

I realize this sounds pretty weird, but hear me out. Dithering can improve the sound of digital audio - but only if you know how to apply it.

The Problem with Truncation
Truncation removes the quietest part of the dynamic range. During long fades, reverb tails, and the like, at some point a truncated signal just ends abruptly rather than fading out. At the end of the reverb decay, you'll also hear a slight buzzing as the least significant bit, which tries to follow the audio signal, switches back and forth between 1 and 0. In the original 24-bit recording, there are 256 different possible levels (the lower 8 bits) between that "on" and "off" condition, but once the recording has been truncated, the resolution is no longer there to reproduce those changes. This buzzing is called quantization noise, because the noise occurs during the process of quantizing the audio into discrete steps.

Bear in mind that we're talking about very low-level signals. A 16-bit signal has a theoretical dynamic range of 96dB, so the buzzing artifacts will be somewhere down around -84dB. For that punk rock dance mix where all the meters are in the red, you probably don't even need 16 bits of resolution. But when you're trying to record the ambient reverb tail of an acoustic space, you need good low-level resolution.

Just Add Noise
The dithering process adds random noise to the lowest eight bits of a 24-bit signal. This noise is different for the two channels in order not to degrade stereo separation.

It may seem crazy that adding noise can improve the sound, but one analogy is the bias signal used in analog tape. Analog tape is linear (distortionless) only over a very narrow range. We all know that distortion occurs if you hit tape too hard, but signals below a certain level can also sound horribly distorted. The bias signal adds a constant supersonic signal (so we don't hear it) whose level sits at the lower threshold of the linear region. Any low-level signals get added to the bias signal, which boosts them into the linear region, where they can be heard without distortion.

Adding noise to the lower eight bits increases their amplitude and pushes some of the information contained in those bits into the 16th bit. Therefore, the 16th bit no longer correlates directly to the original signal, but to a combination of the noise source and information present in the lowest eight bits. This reduces the quantization noise, providing in its place a smoother type of hiss modulated by the lower-level information. The most obvious audible benefit is that fades become smoother and more realistic, but there's also more sonic detail.

And Now the Bad News
Isn't adding noise to a recording bad? Well, yes. But this is where psycho-acoustics comes into play. Because any noise added by the dithering process has a constant level and constant frequency content, our ears have an easy time picking out the content (signal) from the noise. We've lived with noise long enough that a little bit hanging around at -90dB or so is tolerable, particularly if it allows us to hear a subjectively extended dynamic range. As in life itself, you don't get something for nothing.

However, there are different types of dithering noise, which exhibit varying degrees of audibility. For example, the Waves IDR (Increased Digital Resolution) system has two types of dither. One is wideband, and trades off the lowest distortion for slightly higher perceived noise. Another uses a much narrower band of noise and sounds quieter, but lets some extremely low-level distortion remain.

Noiseshaping
Audio engineers are tenacious folks, and have come up with some ingenious ways to minimize the audible effects of dithering. Noiseshaping distributes noise across the spectrum so that the bulk of it lies where the ear is least sensitive (i.e., the higher frequencies). Some noiseshaping curves are extremely complex - they're not just a straight line, but also dip down in regions of maximum sensitivity (typically the midrange).

Again, this recalls the analogy of analog tape's bias signal, which is typically around 100kHz to keep it out of the audible range. We can't get away with those kinds of frequencies in a system that samples at 44.1 or even 96kHz, but several noise-shaping algorithms push the signal as high as possible, short of hitting the Nyquist frequency (half the sampling rate, which is the highest frequency that can be recorded and played back at a given sampling rate). Another point of reference is Dolby noise reduction, which reduces noise in the areas where noise is most noticeable.

Different manufacturers use different noise-shaping algorithms, which are jealously guarded as trade secrets. Digital audio editors sometimes offer variations on their dithering and noiseshaping algorithms so you can choose the combination that works best for specific types of program material. Suffice it to say, not all these algorithms are created equal, nor do they sound equal. They can involve complex calculations using very high internal resolution (64 bits or more), and some systems need to do this offline - realtime auditioning isn't always practical.

Once Is Enough
The one inviolable rule of dithering is, "Thou shalt not dither more than once." Dithering should happen only when converting your high bit-rate source format to its final, 16-bit, mixed-for-CD format.

Never take material that has already been dithered and re-dither it. For example, if you are given an already dithered 16-bit file to edit on a high-resolution waveform editor, that 16-bit file already contains dithered data, and the higher-resolution editor should (hopefully) preserve it. When it's time to mix the edited version back down to 16 bits, simply transfer over the existing file without dithering. (You may have to switch it off in a menu before transferring the file; check your owner's manual for details.) The results will likely sound better than if you dither a second time.

Another possible problem is if you give a mastering or duplication facility two dithered 16-bit files that are meant to be crossfaded. Crossfading the dithered sections could lead to artifacts; you're better off crossfading the two, then dithering the combination.

Try It, You'll Like It
The best way to experience the benefitsof dithering is to crank up some really low-level audio and compare different dithering and noise-shaping algorithms. Figure 1 shows the Waves L1-Ultramaximizer+ plug-in; note the IDR parameters to the right. Setting quantize to 16 bits, then experimenting with the Dither and Shaping options, readily reveals which works best with particular types of program material.

Proper dithering can indeed give a sweeter, smoother sound free of digital quantization distortion…and believe me, if your music has any natural dynamics in it at all, you will hear a difference.

Craig Anderton is the author of Home Recording for Musicians as well as Quick Start guides on Propellerhead Reason, Cakewalk Sonar, and project mastering (all published by AMSCO). He also plays guitar and electronics with the Cologne, Germany-based group Reißdorf Force

[quote="ck"]GreatWhen you wrap them as a DX, they now have a new GUID, so that files using them no longer open them properly (ie. reported missing plug-in). This doesn't happen with other VSTs that get updated (eg. I've updated Crystal recently and it carries on working in old prjects).[/quote]

Is it possible to download the old versions too so that I can confirm this as a problem? I may still have them on my DAW, but not 100% sure.

Thanks, Multree, only - that´s not very detailed.

And what plugins make dithering? And then do I need another plugin to remove the dither?

AndreasEhrhardt wrote:

Thanks, Multree, only - that´s not very detailed. And what plugins make dithering?

well as I said I don't know of any freebies but all (let me make that: MOST of) the big sequenzers have a built in dithering in their masterstage.

Programms like WaveLab and SoundForge have such algorythms, too.

and of course the most commercial masterin limiters like: db-audiowares' masterin limiter (btw cheap and very good), the Waves stuff L1 L2 and the IDR, T-Racks, Ozone, etc.

Muly

And a freeware dithering:
http://www.mda-vst.com/

Great plugs. Quality sound. THANK YOU.

BUT. The GUI does not work through my Directixer wrapper in Sonar 3 PE. The plugs load, but not the GUI. I can select presets, but the controls does not even show in the "standard GUI" as provided by directixer.

It works fine through the CW VST wrapper (ex fxpansion wrapper) though.

PeterL wrote:

And a freeware dithering: http://www.mda-vst.com/

Thanks, a good hint. I have this mda dither plugin on my computer since some years

BloodHound wrote:

Great plugs. Quality sound. THANK YOU. BUT. The GUI does not work through my Directixer wrapper in Sonar 3 PE. The plugs load, but not the GUI. I can select presets, but the controls does not even show in the "standard GUI" as provided by directixer. It works fine through the CW VST wrapper (ex fxpansion wrapper) though.

..There aren't any GUI's with the mda FX. But you Should get the Standard... Something must be amiss with the Directixer...

oh well, hope yo uget it sorted!`
DSP

First of all, thanks to all for your response. It is really appreciated

ck wrote:

Great news that you've fixed the dual monitor bug, but...the new versions have a problem. When you wrap them as a DX, they now have a new GUID, so that files using them no longer open them properly (ie. reported missing plug-in). This doesn't happen with other VSTs that get updated (eg. I've updated Crystal recently and it carries on working in old prjects).

It is not a bug in the Classic Plugins; it is a bug in the DX wrapper. It cannot distinguish plugins with long names starting with the same letters (Classic Chorus, Classic Compressor etc.) Also long directory structure is a problem with the DX wrapper. Try to rename the plugins to Cchorus, Ccompressor or something like it and you will see.

AndreasEhrhardt wrote:

Please, what´s a 'dithering' plugin?).

Multree beat me to it

BloodHound wrote:

The GUI does not work through my Directixer wrapper in Sonar 3 PE. The plugs load, but not the GUI. I can select presets, but the controls does not even show in the "standard GUI" as provided by directixer.

In Directixer, under properties -> Options, Check "Alternative Window Sizing Method". That should make it work for you.

Thanks
Torben

Hey Torben!

Loox great, but one question:
Are these backwards compatible so that I can use patches wrote for the previous versions with these?

Roman Empire wrote:

Hey Torben! Loox great, but one question: Are these backwards compatible so that I can use patches wrote for the previous versions with these?

Yes they are compatible.

/Torben

[quote="ck"]Great news that you've fixed the dual monitor bug, but...the new versions have a problem.

When you wrap them as a DX, they now have a new GUID, so that files using them no longer open them properly (ie. reported missing plug-in). This doesn't happen with other VSTs that get updated (eg. I've updated Crystal recently and it carries on working in old prjects).[/quote]

It is not a bug in the Classic Plugins; it is a bug in the DX wrapper. It cannot distinguish plugins with long names starting with the same letters (Classic Chorus, Classic Compressor etc.) Also long directory structure is a problem with the DX wrapper. Try to rename the plugins to Cchorus, Ccompressor or something like it and you will see.

[/quote]

Except they were already named Master Limiter, Compressor, Chorus and Flanger on my system. The fact that it generates a new GUID *is* a bug at your end - no other VST update causes this.

[quote="Torben"][quote="Roman Empire"]Hey Torben!

Loox great, but one question:
Are these backwards compatible so that I can use patches wrote for the previous versions with these?[/quote]

Yes they are compatible.

/Torben[/quote]

No they are not in DX hopsts - see my posts.

ck wrote:

No they are not in DX hopsts - see my posts.

It is not a general problem in DX hosts. The plugins has been tested in most DX Hosts with no problems.

But please send me info about your wrapper, Host and OS to info@kjaerhusaudio.com and I will have a look at it.

Thanks
Torben

[quote="Torben"]But please send me info about your wrapper, Host and OS to info@kjaerhusaudio.com and I will have a look at it.
Thanks
Torben[/quote]

I owe you a bit of an apology... The Cakewalk VST-Adapter uses the VST ID and the 8.3 filename of the dll to generate a DX GUID. This is to avoid problems with duplicate VST IDs, which does happen (I've been bitten by it in the past). Obviously, for backwards compatability, a new version of a plug-in should therefore have not only the same VST ID, but also the same file name.

There's not a (known) problem with spaces in filenames or long path names (unless you've done something like disable 8.3 file name generation on an NTFS partition), but there is a problem if the dll is renamed between versions, as it's not at all obvious what the problem is to the average user. If either the VST ID or the filename changes, this will be treated as a new DX by the adapter.

So not a bug in the classic plug-ins, but more of a little slip-up maybe in the distribution?

I guess the moral is (for all of us) *never* rename a VST dll once you've used it in a project. Of course, this does require the VST itself not to depend upon its own filename (I gather some do stop working if renamed).

[quote="TorbenIn Directixer, under properties -> Options, Check "Alternative Window Sizing Method". That should make it work for you.

Thanks
Torben[/quote]

Wow, THANKS. That works. And once again you prove why KvR is such an invaluable resource.

Nice to hear it works for you now BloodHound and ck

Best Regards
Torben